Rewarded by the centuries : Juan de Fuca

The history of seafarers in Cephalonia, Greece goes back to the adventures of Odysseus, to whose kingdom it belonged. In 16th century, the extension of the Spanish dominion on the neighboring shores of Italy and the consequent commercial intercourse with the Ionian Islands which was carried on by Spanish vessels, offered the opportunity to the seafaring men of the Ionian Islands to serve on Spanish ships as crews or officers.

Juan de Fuca, the apocryphal explorer of America’s Northwest Coast, was a Greek navigator born in the island of Cephalonia in the Ionian Sea. His real name was Ioannis Fokas and was born in 1536 on the village of Valeriano located on the Elios valley at the Southwestern tip of Cephalonia. Fokás’ grandfather, Emmanouel Fokas, fled Constantinople in 1453, the year the Ottomans conquered the capital of Byzantium. Emmanouel Fokas settled initially in the Peloponnesian peninsula, but in 1470 he moved to the island of Kefalonia.

Focas' remarkable performance in navigation attracted the interest of the King of Spain, who appointed him fleet navigator of the West Indies for over 40 years. In 1552, the regent of New Spain (now Mexico), Luis de Velaseo, assigned him the discovery of narrow Anian (Straits of Anian), from where it was possible that British would go the Pacific Ocean. 

In 1725 the Naval Institute or Academy in St. Petersburg, an institution founded by the Tsar of Russia Peter the Great, whose confessor was the descendant of Juan de Fuca, Orthodox priest Gerasimos Focas,  vindicated the Greek navigator by giving his name to the Straits. A few years later, in 1787/88, captain Charles William Barkley set sail into the strait and brought Juan de Fuca out of Hakluyt’s literary and Delisle - Buache’s, map, into the marine world, reality and fame.

The Strait of Juan de Fuca, approximately 102 miles in length and 10 to 18 miles wide, is the access route to the Pacific Ocean from Puget Sound and the Strait of Georgia. It also serves as the regional International Boundary between the U.S. and Canada. The cold waters of the strait, because of their exposure to the generally westerly winds and waves of the Pacific, are often thick with fog, and much rougher than the more protected waters of Puget Sound and the inner coastlines of British Columbia and the U.S. In the south entrance of the strait and below Cape Flattery, stands the singular stone column that distinguished point witch, along with the description of the currents, constitutes a silent but timeless proof of the achievment of the Cephalonian to discover the sea route.

Juan de Fuca is less renowned than Magellan, Columbus, Dias but no less bold. Until his death he had a false belief of his discovery as Columbus did, and he believed that he had found the mythical Straits of Anian, the passage that unites Pacific with Atlantic in the north of America. Only the great explorer George Vancouver put finally and correctly an end to the invented Straits of  Anian and verified scientifically the straits bearing the name Juan de Fuca.

Evridiki Livada-Duca the author & historical Researcher who brought to the light extensive historical details of the life and trips of Juan de Fuca ,in her historical-biographical novel, “The Straits of Chimera”,  recognizes the explorer as: “The First Greek in the SW Canada” in addition to the “First European in S.W. Canada” -which was bestowed on him, with caution, in 1797 by Cpt. William Barkley   and

“one of the few Greeks who played an active role in the era of discoveries.”