![]() At times there were gaps in Frances’s journal, but Converse says she was able to fill in some of those holes through research, talking to marine historians and ships masters, as well as communicating with relatives, to provide a more detailed description of the couple’s travels. ![]() (Details at mmbc.bc.ca.)Ĭonverse says her goal was to create a more immersive experience while maintaining Frances’ original intent in Reminiscences. Now author Cathy Converse has written a new work of creative non-fiction based on that journal called Frances Barkley: An Eighteenth-century Seafarer, set to be launched at the Maritime Museum of B.C. In 1836, at the age of 66, Frances Barkley began writing the story herself, leaving a small journal that she titled Reminiscences, now housed in the B.C. The reminders of their visit are still there: printed on all nautical charts of the area are Loudoun Channel and Imperial Eagle Channel, named for their ship Trevor Channel is based on Frances’s birth name and Cape Beale was named after the ship’s purser who was killed on a trading expedition up the coast.ĭespite their findings, the Barkleys were largely bypassed by historians, as they had left no published account of their life at sea. Over 200 years ago, Frances Barkley, a 17-year-old girl fresh out of a convent school in France, met a 26-year-old sea captain, fell in love, and married him after a six-week courtship.ĭetermined not to be separated from her new husband, five weeks later, in November 1786, she set sail on his ship, a 400-ton, three-masted sailing ship called the Imperial Eagle, on an eight-year voyage that would take them around the world twice as they traded in sea otter pelts, Chinese tea, silk, porcelain, and cotton.ĭuring their voyage to Nootka Sound, they were the first of the non-Indigenous explorers to chart what became known as Barkley Sound.
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