Frontlet

The frontlet was made by the Tlingit or Tsimshian people on the Pacific Northwest Coast. It is a memento of the earliest encounter between First Nations and Europeans at the site of Vancouver. In 1792, Captain George Vancouver sailed into what is now known as Burrard Inlet. Vancouver had journeyed to the Pacific to search for the Northwest Passage and to establish British rights of access to the northwest coast of America. The frontlet was collected on that voyage by Thomas Dobson, a midshipman on Captain Vancouver’s ship, HMS Discovery. Dobson served as Spanish interpreter during Vancouver’s negotiations with Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra at Friendly Cove on the west coast of Vancouver Island.