Kamchatka expeditions

Vitus Bering · 1725 CE – 1742 CE · Earth

Kamchatka expeditions — Vitus Bering · 1725 CE – 1742 CE · Earth — Recorded expedition route · schematic map

Find, on Peter the Great’s orders of 1724–25, where the coast north of Kamchatka joins America; then, on the second expedition, reach and chart the American coast.

Historical context

In 1724–25, weeks before his death, Peter the Great sent Vitus Bering, a Danish officer in the Russian navy, across Siberia to build ships in Kamchatka and find where the coast running north joined America. Bering’s first voyage, in 1728, passed through the strait that now bears his name without sighting America; his second expedition, part of a vast survey of the empire’s Arctic and Pacific coasts, sent two ships to America in 1741. Kamchatka and the coasts beyond were the lands of the Itelmen, Koryak and Chukchi, and of the Unangan and other peoples of the American shore, whose labour, food and knowledge the expeditions depended on. The voyages are known from Bering’s report, the log of the Sviatoi Piotr, Sven Waxell’s report and Georg Wilhelm Steller’s journal, published by Frank Golder in 1922 and 1925; their dates are Julian, or Old Style, eleven days behind the Gregorian calendar.

The voyage, step by step

  1. Out of Kamchatka

    14 July 1728

    On 14 July 1728, by the Julian calendar then used in Russia, the Sviatoi Gavriil sails from the mouth of the Kamchatka River with forty-four men, to find, in Peter the Great’s words, where the coast running north joins America.

  2. Along the Chukchi shore

    8 August 1728

    On 8 August 1728, at 64°30′ north, eight Chukchi men paddle out to the Gavriil, ask who the strangers are, and tell them that the coast ahead turns west.

  3. The strait

    August 1728

    In mid-August 1728 the Gavriil passes north through the strait that now bears Bering’s name, without seeing the American shore.

  4. Turning back at 67° north

    August 1728

    At 67°18′ north, with the coast falling away to the west and no land in sight, Bering judges his orders carried out and turns for Kamchatka.

  5. Two ships for America

    4 June 1741

    On 4 June 1741 the Sviatoi Piotr, under Bering, and the Sviatoi Pavel, under Alexei Chirikov, stand out of Avacha Bay for America; late on 19 June, by Waxell’s report, they lose sight of each other.

  6. Landfall at Kayak Island

    20 July 1741

    On 16 July 1741 the crew sees immense snow peaks; on 20 July the Sviatoi Piotr anchors off an island now called Kayak, and the naturalist Georg Wilhelm Steller has some ten hours ashore.

  7. Wrecked on Bering Island

    5 November 1741

    On 5 November 1741, scurvy-ridden, unable to work the ship and taking the land for Kamchatka, the crew anchors off a treeless island; on the night of 28 November a storm drives the Sviatoi Piotr ashore.

Outcome

In 1728 Bering sailed north through the strait to 67°18′ without seeing America; in 1741 his ship and Chirikov’s reached the Alaskan coast, Bering died on the island now named after him, and forty-six survivors came home in 1742 in a vessel built from the wreck.

Vitus Bering

Danish navigator in Russian service who sailed north through the strait between Asia and America in 1728 and reached the Alaskan coast in 1741.

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Sources

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