Round About the North Pole

by W. J. Gordon

BERING STRAIT

When Atlassof, in 1697, took the first steps in the conquest of Kamchatka the Russians were already known to the inhabitants. Long before him Fedotof and a few comrades had made their way into the country and intermarried with native women. They had been held in great honour and almost deified as being evidently of a superior race. For some time it was supposed that no human hand could hurt them, but this belief was rudely shattered when two of the demigods quarrelled and fought, and one wounding the other, the blood flowed. That flow of blood was fatal, for the natives, judging that they were but ordinary flesh, took an early opportunity of wiping them out, the name of their leader being still traceable in that of the Fedotcha River on the banks of which they had lived.

The Kamchadales had other tales to tell of visitors from the east and south, and Atlassof himself discovered on the River Itcha a Japanese who had been wrecked on the coast two years before, from whom he learnt of islands innumerable. But there were no ships on the Pacific coast of Siberia, and nothing in the way of discovery could be done until 1714, when there arrived at Ochotsk a detachment of sailors and shipwrights despatched thither overland. According to one of the sailors, Henry Bush, a Dutchman, the carpenters built a good durable vessel some fifty feet long which was ready for sea in 1716 when the first voyage was undertaken. The coast of Kamchatka was made near the River Itcha, and sailing south they reached the Kompakova, where they wintered and found the whale that had in its body the harpoon of European workmanship marked with Roman letters, mentioned by Scoresby. Bush returned to Ochotsk in July, to be sent in the following year to discover the Shantar Islands, and next year, 1718, the Kuriles; thus venturing into the Pacific beyond Cape Lopatka.

The last of these expeditions was due to the direct order of Peter the Great, who, knowing nothing of Deschnef, and finding the sea open to the north, resolved on a voyage in that direction, his holograph instructions to Admiral Apraxin being: "One or two boats with decks to be built at Kamchatka, or at any other convenient place, with which inquiry should be made relative to the northerly coasts, to see whether they are not contiguous with America, since their termination is not yet known." Peter died, and the Empress Catherine, carrying out these instructions in their fullest meaning, began her reign with an order for the expedition.

Veit Bering, Dane by birth and sailor by trade, had voyaged to the Indies, east and west, and, like many other men of enterprise, had entered the Russian service at Peter's invitation. He had served with distinction in the Cronstadt fleet in the war against the Swedes, and, being in good repute for his knowledge of ships and their handling, was appointed to the command of the most remarkable Arctic enterprise on record. Just as Nicholas ruled a line and ordered a railway to be built there, so did Catherine in the same imperial way order an exploring expedition, and it was done. But it meant building the ship from the trees of the forest on the coast of the Pacific and carrying the materials and stores—everything but the timber—right across the Russian empire in the days when for thousands of miles there were not even roads.

THE FACE OF THE FUR SEAL

Bering's lieutenants were Martin Spangberg and Alexei Tschirikof. With them and the rest of the expedition he left St. Petersburg on the 5th of February, 1725. During that year they got as far as the Ilim, where they wintered. In the spring of 1726 they sailed down the Lena to Yakutsk, where they parted company for a time owing to the difficulties of the route to Ochotsk, the way not being passable in summer with wagons, or in winter with sledges, on account of the marshes and rocky ground. So Spangberg set out, working along the rivers Aldan, Maia, and Judoma, with part of the provisions and heavy naval stores, while Bering followed overland through uninhabited country with more stores on horses, and Tschirikof remained to collect still more and follow in the track of his commander.

Bering reached Ochotsk first. Spangberg was frozen up in the Judoma, and thence he walked to Ochotsk with the most necessary materials; but he suffered so much from hunger on the way that he had to support life by eating leather bags, straps, and shoes, and did not reach Bering till the 1st of January, 1727, nearly two years after leaving St. Petersburg. In the beginning of February he returned to the Judoma and brought away about half of his lading, the other half being left for a third journey, which he made from and to Ochotsk on horses. Meanwhile Tschirikof was toiling along from Yakutsk, and did not arrive to complete the party until the 30th of July.