THE anniversary of the birthday of Captain James Cook will be marked with a special event at his birthplace.

The explorer will be celebrated at the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum in Middlesbrough's Stewart Park today – the 289th anniversary of his birthday.

To mark the occasion a VIP event is being held for local schoolchildren who have taken part in a competition inspired by Cook.

Visitors to Stewart Park will be aware of the two totem poles outside the Birthplace Museum. The first is Northwest Coast Canadian created by Tim Paul and Richard Hunt in 1979. The second is Community totem pole created by North East carver David Gross in 2006.

The competition asked children to re-design the Community totem pole. In total more than 200 entries were received by Middlesbrough Council and two winners were chosen.

The result will see the totem pole repainted using half the design of Hannah Wells and half of that created by Phoebe Parnham.

Councillor Tom Mawston, chairman of the Captain Cook Birthplace Trust, said: “We have been delighted with the response from our local schoolchildren and their designs have been fantastic.

The two winners, three runners up and the remaining shortlisted designers will be viewing the finished repainted totem pole from 11am.