Partie de la Carte du Capitaine Cluny

Interesting (and false) map of North America and the Northwest Passage.

This fascinating pre-Revolutionary map shows the northern hemisphere from eastern Europe to Siberia. Few interior details are included; though the fictional River of the West and original colonial claims along the East Coast are noted.

Several points on the map reference discoveries from earlier 18th century explorations of Bering and Cook, presumably to add authority to the geographic information presented. Most notably, the image clearly depicts a mythological Northwest Passage north of Hudson Bay to a Glacial Sea, west of “Unknown Parts.”

The map was originally drawn by Alexander Cluny, an employee of the Hudson Bay Company who spent a year at the York Factory in modern day Manitoba. He included it in a promotional publication called The American Traveller, first published in London in 1769. This particular example is by Robert de Vaugondy, issued in Diderot’s Encyclopédie in 1772.