Book excerpt: Anchorage historian and attorney James K Barnett has focused his story between the date of Cook's 1 May 1778 sighting of the Mt. Edge-cumbe volcano near Sitka to his 26 October 1778 south-bound depar-ture from English Bay (Unalaska) for Hawaii where he was killed. This true-to-life narrative explains Cook's preparations for his Alaska journey at Nootka Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island and the events that led to his murder near Kealakekua on the island of Hawaii. Cook spent considerable time in Prince William Sound, Cook Inlet near Anchorage and on 18 August 1778 as far north as Icy Cape in the Arctic Ocean. He named numerous locations with the same names that are used today in his frustrated search for a Northwest Passage. He spent 179 days in Alaska waters going ashore only occasionally, but captured a remarkable visual record from artists on board. Read this detailed account by an Alaskan author of the earliest British expedition to what was the edge of the known world to the British Admiralty on Cook's third and final, fatal voyage.