Thunder Go North

This book is a necessary reckoning,” writes Melissa Darby (p. 7). Certainly, Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, the backdrop for Darby's work, has long fascinated and confounded historians. One oft-debated aspect of the journey centers on how far north along the western coast of North America Drake and his crew traveled. Widespread consensus is that Drake's “fair and good bay,” where the English encountered Indigenous people as they repaired the Golden Hinde, was near San Francisco. Darby disagrees. According to her research, the true location was what is now called Whale Cove, on the Oregon coast. The first part of Thunder Go North focuses largely on a retelling of the Drake voyage, including detailed analysis of the sparse and often-contradictory archive associated with the journey. Usually fragmentary, at times vague, and often occulted by political intrigue, the original sources lead Darby to conclude that the more northern site

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