One of the items Christie's describes as being "among the most important in exploration literature" is a first edition expected to sell for more than $30,000. Vancouver accompanied Captain James Cook in his exploration of the Pacific Northwest; in later years, he conducted his own surveys along the west coast of what would eventually become Canada. In 1798, his Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean was published.
The showpiece of next week's auction is an 18th-century atlas which, by itself, is projected to sell for $700,000. The atlas was the key that Britain needed to acquire its Canadian territories after New France fell.
Another featured piece up for sale is an illustrated account of a secret mission undertaken in 1846. Two British spies were assigned to do some intelligence gathering on American settlements and military installations. In the process, they made their way across Western Canada to the Pacific Coast.
Also up for grabs is the original copy of Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory by Henry James Warre. It has an estimated value of $170,000 and was published in 1848 after the easing of British-U.S. tensions.
Maybe you'll want to bid on J.W.F. Des Barres' four-volume edition of The Atlantic Neptune, an atlas that revolutionized mapmaking in the 1770s. It depicted with amazing accuracy scenes of the Atlantic seaboard, including Nova Scotia.
And there's an 1801 first edition of Mackenzie's narrative of his 1793 journey across Canada. It is expected to sell for about $9,000.
But wait—there's more! Marc Lescarbot was a Paris lawyer and poet who spent two years in present-day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. He arrived there not long after the founding of New France in 1604. If you are willing to bid up to $80,000, you can have a 1609 edition of his description of New France that contains a very famous pullout map of French possessions in North America.
Lescarbot and Samuel de Champlain had a bit of a publishing rivalry. Champlain's 1632 first edition of collected writings on New France may go for as much as $140,000, and it contains an even better map of the colony. Champlain eventually established himself as the primary chronicler of the French outpost in Canada. Lescarbot fueled the fire of competition by hurrying into print the first comprehensive description of the new colony.
Almost 300 years later, the two historians are still running neck and neck.
