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| Soviet Stamp: 300th Anniversary of Bering |
When thinking
of the exploration of the Pacific the name that most immediately comes for mind
is that of Captain James Cook (1728 – 1779) whose three voyages in the
1760s and 70s added immensely to knowledge of that ocean. These expeditions, meticulously planned, splendidly resourced and staffed by
excellent officers, seamen, cartographers and scientists, were the equivalent
in their own day of the Apollo Program. The focus in the first two voyages was
on the South Pacific and Australasia but the third, which was to see Cook
murdered in Hawaii, focussed on the Northern Pacific and its North American
coast line. In the course of this voyage Cook penetrated the Bering Strait
between Asia and Alaska and entered the fringes of the Arctic Ocean.
Cook’s achievement
was impressive, but the initial exploration of the Northern Pacific had been almost
a half-century earlier by a man who had to cope with far greater challenges as
regards resourcing and back-up. Though he gave his name to the Strait that separates
Asia and America Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681-1741) is largely
unknown outside Russia. His achievement in the face of almost insuperable odds
make him however one of the true giants of exploration.
Born in
Denmark, and at sea from the age of 18, Bering was one of the many foreign
officers recruited by Czar Peter the Great (1672 – 1725) who was rapidly
modernising his country and establishing it as a great European power. A key element
in his strategy was not only securing a Russian outlet on the Baltic – which became
the new capital, St. Petersburg – but the creating from scratch of a navy to
defend it. “The Great Northern War” that
raged between Russia and Sweden from 1700-1721 saw Peter’s ambitions realised.
Bering had
been with the Russian Navy since 1704 and though he resigned briefly in 1724 he
re-enlisted almost immediately, around the time of Peter’s death. Rule of the
vast empire now passed to Peter’s widow Catherine (1684 –1727), a woman of
obscure and lowly origin who was to prove herself surprisingly capable in government
affairs. She inherited Peter’s ambition to have Eastern Siberia’s Pacific
coastline and the seas beyond mapped for the first time. At this time Russian
settlers, very few in number, were established on only a few small settlement
communities on the Sea of Okhotsk and on the vast peninsula of Kamchatka. None
of these places possessed port or shipbuilding facilities and any exploration
expedition would be expected to build the vessels it needed once it got to the
coast there.
The choice of Bering as expedition leader seems to have reflected
some prior experience of distant navigation, notably in the Indian Ocean and the
North American East Coast. Supported by
a cartographer and several experienced officers, Bering’s instructions were to
move up Kamchatka’s east coast and to determine whether a strait did indeed
exist – as was suspected – between Asia and America. Bering’s
first challenge was to get to Russia’s Far East. Leaving St. Petersburg on February 5th, 1725, and crossing
Siberia – much of it still all but unexplored – by horse, foot and boat, and enduring food-shortages
and savage winters, Bering, his men and their equipment took two years to reach
Okhotsk. By early 1728 they had crossed to Kamchatka, where, on the 4th of
April building commenced of a boat called the Gabriel. This was based on the design of a Baltic packet-boat. The
challenge of doing so was immense for timber had to be cut down and dressed
into planks for construction. It is therefore all the more impressive that this
craft was ready enough to set sail some three months later, in mid- July.
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The Gabriel as drawn by
Martin Spangsberg in 1827. Picture: Danish Geografisk Tidsskrift
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In
conformance with his orders Bering crept north-eastwards alone the coast,
discovering St. Lawrence Island. He passed through what is now known as the Bering
Strait, into the Chukchi Sea. It was still however impossible to say with
certainty that the Asian and American landmasses were separate, although it was
suspected, but rapidly advancing ice in mid-August forced Bering to the decision
to return to Kamchatka. The voyage had lasted seven weeks. His return overland journey to report his
findings in St. Petersburg now commenced, arriving in early 1730. He was ennobled for
his work and his had findings aroused sufficient questions for a second expedition
to be necessary to resolve them.
It seems
amazing by modern standards that it should have taken a decade before the next
expedition, once more under Bering’s command finally set sail from Kamchatka. (The contrast with the will to mount Cook’s
three expedions in a decade is obvious). The intervening years had been
occupied by political manoeuvring, command issues and logistics challenges. Supplies were once more carried across
Siberia, a proposal to send them by sea around Cape Horn being rejected. Two new vessels were constructed at Okhotsk,
the Michael and the Nadezhda, in addition to refurbishment of the Gabriel.
Thereafter three other vessels, St. Peter, St. Paul and Okhotsk , followed - these were to form
Bering’s exploration flotilla, he himself on board the St. Peter.
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| 1966 Soviet postage-stamp showing course of Bering's last voyage |
It was 1741
before the new expedition sailed from Kamchatka. The three-ship flotilla was
dispersed in a storm soon afterwards and
Bering decided to press on alone. He headed for the American coast and pressed eastwards
along it, touching at Kayak Island and sighting Mount Saint Elias, on the northern end of what is now Alaska’s
Panhandle. A second ship got separately as far as Prince of Wales Island before
turning back. Scurvy, the cause of which was then not understood, was now
however hitting Bering’s crew so badly that they were barely capable of working
the ship. There was no option but to turn back towards Kamchatka, discovering
several islands of the Aleutian chain in the process.
Bering was by now too ill to leave his cabin. Nearing
the peninsula in early November, at what was later to be called Bering Island, the
St. Peter was hit by a storm that
drove her towards rocks offshore. Attempts to moor failed but the sea was
powerful enough to wash the damaged vessel bodily over the rocks into quieter
where it was trapped. Salvation was illusory – the island was barren, devoid of
trees, and with little driftwood. With the ship no longer a place of refuge
small ravines were roofed over to provide shelter. Many of the scurvy-racked
crew died during transfer ashore. Bering himself survived this landing but had
to be moved about on a wheel-barrow and he directed survival efforts as long as
possible. He died a month later in a
shelter which was already collapsing – it proved necessary to dig him out
before he could be formally buried.
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| Shipwreck on Bering Island |
Given the challenges
they faced it is surprising that 45 of the St.
Peter’s 75-man crew were to survive the freezing privations of the winter,
doing so by eating the carcasses of dead whales that had been driven ashore. In
the following spring they managed to construct a boat from the wreckage of their
ship and in it they reached Kamchatka.
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A Sea Otter drawn by Georg
Wilhelm Steller. (Wikipedia Commons)
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Despite its
disastrous cost in human terms, Bering’s last expedition yielded valuable
geographical and scientific information. This included mapping of much of the coast of present
day Alaska. The expedition’s German naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709 – 1746)
identified six new species of birds and animals. One of his insights was that the
Jay he identified on shore was similar to the already-known American Blue Jay,
thereby supporting the conclusion that the continents were separate. He
continued his studies while marooned on Bering Island and was subsequently to
write a book describing its fauna. Steller’s fate was to be a sad one. He spent two years exploring Kamchatka after
he returned there but because of his sympathy for the indigenous population he
was accused of instigating a rebellion. Summoned back to St. Petersburg, he
died of illness on the way.
Bering’s discoveries were the impetus for the halting,
poorly-conceived, badly managed and under-resourced efforts to establish of a Russian
presence in North America. Had more attention been paid to this, and should there
have been any clear vision of what could have been achieved, it is unlikely that
the Czarist government would have sold
Alaska to the United States for a pittance in 1867. Doing so could have had
incalculable strategic and epoch-changing consequences – one of the great “What
Ifs” of history.
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Fascinating topic. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI'm gad you liked it Christoph - it's sad when great achievements and heroic lives are forgotten.
DeleteRegards: Antoine