An Exercise In Futility

It seemed like a possibility, I suppose. I mean there was a water passage across Panama, so maybe there could be one across North America too. Maybe, had it not been for the vast West to East expanse of the United States. Nevertheless, in 1542, they had no way of knowing how vast North America was. It was not like today, when we have mapping and satellite imaging. So, on September 28, 1542, the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrived in San Diego Bay while searching for the Strait of Anian, a mythical all-water route across North America.

Cabrillo wasn’t the first to search for a water passage across North America. He wouldn’t be the last either. The voyages of Columbus had Europeans dreaming of discovering a shorter trade route to the Orient. Unfortunately, Columbus hadn’t sailed to India when he came across North America, but rather he found an entirely new continent. Still, that fact didn’t stop explorers from trying to find an all-water route through the New World. Early 16th and 17th-century explorers like Cabrillo thought such a route might be the mythical Strait of Anian, a passage some sailors claimed connected the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico (now Gulf of America).

In June 1542, Cabrillo set sail from the West Coast of Mexico, heading north to explore the rugged and intricate Pacific coastline. He frequently turned east to investigate inlets that seemed like they might lead to the elusive Strait of Anian. His trip wasn’t a total waste of time, because along the way, Cabrillo became the first European to chart numerous bays and inlets along the Pacific Coast. While San Diego Bay and the other inlets he explored didn’t lead to the legendary strait, Cabrillo managed to map many significant features of California’s coastline, although he missed discovering San Francisco Bay.

Although the Cabrillo mission failed, explorers persisted in their quest for the Strait of Anian and the Northwest Passage for many years, yet without success. Ironically, a route across the continent did exist, and in 1905, Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen became the first to make an all-water crossing of North America. However, Amundsen’s frigid and perilous far-northern path was far from the shortcut to the east that Cabrillo and countless other explorers had envisioned and sacrificed their lives for over more than five centuries. It just wasn’t really feasible because of the sea ice that existed there for so much of the year. Shipping would be impossible in Winter.