We’ve spent all our time on the East Coast; let’s take a side quest to the West Coast to see what the Spanish are up to.

We have two main players here: Bruno de Heceta, after whom at least two locations on the West Coast are named (and they’re pronounced differently, go figure), and Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra.

They sailed together, each in charge of a ship, and made it almost to Canada before Heceta headed back to Mexico and Bodega y Quadra continued on up to Alaska. Their goal was to find Russians, and in that respect they failed, but they did manage to claim a lot of territory for Spain.

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