Vitus Bering: the Discoverer of Bering Strait

by Peter Lauridsen

Arctic exploration has a bewitching power over its devotees. Bering and his companions did not escape the enchantment. Hardly had they returned from a five years' sojourn in the extremest corner of the world, when they declared themselves willing to start out again. As they had met with so much doubt and opposition from scholars,—had learned that the world's youngest marine lacked the courage to recognize its own contributions to science, and, furthermore, as the Admiralty thought it had given strong reasons for doubting Bering's results,[48] he proposed to make his future explorations on a larger scale and remove all doubt, by charting the whole of this disputed part of the globe.

April 30, 1730, only two months after his return, he presented two plans to the Admiralty. These have been found and published by Berch, and are of the greatest importance in judging of Bering's true relation to the Great Northern Expedition. In the first of these propositions he sets forth a series of suggestions for the administration of East Siberia, and for a better utilization of its resources. He desired, among other things, missionary work among the Yakuts, better discipline among the East Siberian Cossacks, more honesty among the yassak-collectors, the opening of iron mines at Okhotsk and Udinsk, and various other things. But it was never his intention to carry out these propositions himself, and it was a great mistake for the government to burden his instructions with such purely administrative work.

His second proposition is incomparably more interesting. In this he indicates the general outline of his Great Northern Expedition, the greatest geographical enterprise that the world has hitherto known. This document shows that he was the originator of the plan, something that has been contradicted, and but for this document might still stand contradicted. He proposed to start out from Kamchatka to explore and chart the western coast of America and establish commercial relations with that country, thence to visit Japan and Amoor for the same purpose, and finally to chart either by land or sea the Arctic coast of Siberia,—namely, from the Obi to the Lena.[49] Through these three enterprises and his former expedition, it was Bering's object to fill the vacant space on his chart between the known West and the known East,—between the Kara Sea and the Japan Islands. He refused to corroborate his first observations by again visiting the same localities, and he rightly concluded, that absolute proof of the separation of the continents would be ascertained if the American coast were charted.

The political situation in the empire favored the adoption of Bering's plans. The Duchess of Courland, Anna Ivanovna, had just (1730) ascended the throne. With her the foreigners and Peter's reform party again came into power, and with much more zeal than skill, they sought to continue Peter's work. Anna aimed to shine in Europe as the ruler of a great power, and in Russia as a West European queen. Europe was to be awed by Russian greatness, and Russia by European wisdom. In one of his high-flown speeches Czar Peter had given assurance that science would forsake its abodes in West Europe, and in the fullness of time cast a halo of immortal glory around the name of Russia.

It was necessary to speed this time. Anna and her coadjutors had an insatiable desire for the splendor and exterior luster of culture. Like upstarts in wealth they sought to surround themselves with some of that glory which only gray-haired honor can bestow. One of the surest ways to this glory was through the equipment of scientific expeditions. They had at their disposal an academy of science, a fleet, and the resources of a mighty empire. The sacrifice of a few thousand human lives troubled them but little, and they exerted themselves to make the enterprise as large and sensational as possible. Bering's above-mentioned proposition was taken as a foundation for these plans, but when, after the lapse of two years, his proposition left the various departments of the government—the Senate, the Academy, and the Admiralty—it had assumed such proportions that he found great difficulty in recognizing it.

After having on April 30, 1730, submitted to the Admiralty his new proposition, together with the accounts and reports of his first expedition, Bering was sent to Moscow, where Anna maintained her court during the first few years of her reign. Here he laid his plans before the Senate, and made the map before referred to; but all the leading men were then too much occupied with court intrigues to be able to give his plans any of their attention. Separated from his family, he wearied of life in Moscow, and on January 5, 1732, the Senate gave him leave of absence to go to St. Petersburg, on condition that Chaplin and the steward would conclude the reports. Moreover, the Senate ordered that the Admiralty should pay Bering's claims against the government for his services. In view of the hardships he had endured, he received 1,000 rubles, double the amount to which he was entitled according to the regulations of the department. Almost simultaneously he was promoted, in regular succession, to the position of capitain-commandeur in the Russian fleet, the next position below that of rear-admiral.

In the spring of 1732, Anna, Biron, and Ostermann had succeeded in crushing the Old Russian opposition. The leaders of this party, especially the family of Dolgoruki, had been either banished to Siberia or scattered about in the provinces and in fortresses, and now there was nothing to hinder the government in pursuing its plans. As early as April 17, the Empress[50] ordered that Bering's proposition should be executed, and charged the Senate to take the necessary steps for this purpose. The Senate, presided over by Ivan Kiriloff, an enthusiastic admirer of Peter the Great, acted with dispatch. On May 2, it promulgated two ukases, in which it declared the objects of the expedition, and sought to indicate the necessary means. Although the Senate here in the main followed Bering's own proposition and made a triple expedition (an American, a Japanese, and an Arctic), it nevertheless betrayed a peculiar inclination to burden the chief of the expedition with tasks most remote from his own original plans. It directed him not only to explore the Shantar Islands and reach the Spanish possessions in America, something that Bering had never thought of, but also included in its ukase a series of recommendations for the development of Siberia,—recommendations which Bering had previously made to the government, and which had already provoked some definite efforts, as the exiled Pissarjeff, a former officer of the Senate, had been removed to Okhotsk to develop that region and extend the maritime relations on the Pacific.

He seems, however, not to have accomplished anything, and the Senate thought it feasible to burden Bering with a part of this task. He was directed to supply Okhotsk with more inhabitants, to introduce cattle-raising on the Pacific coast, to found schools in Okhotsk for both elementary and nautical instruction, to establish a dock-yard in this out-of-the-way corner, to transport men and horses to Yudomskaya Krest, and to establish iron-works at Yakutsk, Udinsk, and other places. But this was simply the beginning of the avalanche, and as it rolled along down through the Admiralty and Academy, it assumed most startling dimensions. These authorities aspired to nothing less than raising all human knowledge one step higher. The Admiralty desired the expedition to undertake the nautical charting of the Old World from Archangel to Nipon—even to Mexico; and the Academy could not be satisfied with anything less than a scientific exploration of all northern Asia. As a beginning, Joseph Nicolas De l'Isle, professor of astronomy at the Academy, was instructed to give a graphic account of the present state of knowledge of the North Pacific, and in a memoir to give Bering instructions how to find America from the East. The Senate also decreed that the former's brother, Louis, surnamed La Croyère, an adventurer of somewhat questionable character, should accompany the expedition as astronomer. Thus decree after decree followed in rapid succession. On December 28, the Senate issued a lengthy ukase, which, in sixteen paragraphs, outlined in extenso the nautico-geographical explorations to be undertaken by the expedition. Commodore Bering and Lieut. Chirikoff, guided by the instructions of the Academy, were to sail to America with two ships for the purpose of charting the American coast. They were to be accompanied by La Croyère, who, with the assistance of the surveyors Krassilnikoff and Popoff, was to undertake a series of local observations through Siberia, along several of the largest rivers of the country and in its more important regions, across the Pacific, and also along the coast of the New World. With three ships Spangberg was to sail to the Kurile Islands, Japan, and the still more southerly parts of Asia, while simultaneously the coast from Okhotsk to Uda, to Tugur, to the mouth of the Amoor, and the coasts of the Shantar Islands and Saghalin were to be charted.