First Kamchatka Expedition
The First Kamchatka Expedition was the first Russian expedition to explore the Asian Pacific coast. It was commissioned by Peter the Great in 1724 and was led by Vitus Bering. Afield from 1725 to 1731, it was Russia's first naval scientific expedition.[1] It confirmed the presence of a strait (now known as Bering Strait) between Asia and America and was followed in 1732 by the Second Kamchatka Expedition.
The expedition spent first two years, from January 1725 to January 1727, on traveling from
.The expedition, as it turned out, went through the Bering Strait to the Chukchi Sea, and returned believing that it had completed its tasks. While it had not reached the North American coast, it provided evidence that Asia and North America are not connected. During 1729, it explored the southern shores of Kamchatka, mapping Avacha Bay, and by 28 February 1730 returned via Okhotsk to Saint Petersburg. The expedition was highly praised, with its leader Vitus Bering being promoted to captain-commander, his first noble rank, whereas his assistants Martin Spanberg and Aleksei Chirikov were made captains. It had been a long and expensive expedition, costing 15 men and souring relations between Russia and her native peoples, but it had provided useful insights into the geography of Eastern Siberia: in total the expedition surveyed more than 3500 km of the western coast of the sea, which was later named after Bering. Its maps of the area were later used by all Western European cartographers.
Preparations
On 29 December 1724 [N.S. 9 January 1725], Peter asked the Danish-Russian explorer Vitus Bering to command a voyage east.[2] Peter instructed the expedition to do the following:[1]
- prepare one-two ships in Kamchatka or nearby;
- using those ships, explore northern lands, which seemed to be part of America;
- seek where those lands join America, and whether there are any cities in European possession in the area. When meeting European ships, it should inquire them the names of the local geographical features, explore the coasts on the way and map them.
Preparations for the trip had begun some years before, but with his health rapidly deteriorating, Peter had hurried the process, and promoted the appointment of Bering as the expedition's leader ahead of the experienced cartographer K. P. von Verd. To his advantage Bering had knowledge of both the Indian Ocean and the eastern seaboard of North America, good personal skills and experience in transporting goods.
Ships
In 1725, the construction of a 20-meter-long ship named Fortuna (
St. Petersburg to Okhotsk
On 24 January 1725,
After leaving Ust-Kut when the river ice melted in the spring of 1726, the party rapidly traveled down the River Lena, reaching Yakutsk in the first half of June. Despite the need for hurry and men being sent in advance, the governor was slow to grant them the resources they needed, prompting threats from Bering. On 7 July, Spanberg left with a detachment of 209 men and much of the cargo; on 27 July apprentice shipbuilder Fyodor Kozlov led a small party to reach Okhotsk ahead of Spanberg, both to prepare food supplies and to start work repairing the Vostok and building a new ship (the Fortuna) needed to carry the party across the bay from Okhotsk to the Kamchatka peninsula. Bering himself left on 16 August, while it was decided that Chirikov would follow the next spring with fresh supplies of flour. The journeys were as difficult as Bering had worried they would be. Men and horses died, and some men (46 from Bering's party alone) deserted with their horses and portions of the supplies as they struggled to build roads across difficult marshland and river terrain.[5] While Bering's party (which reached Okhotsk in October) fared badly, Spanberg's did far worse. His heavily loaded boats could be tugged at no more than 1.6 km (1 mi) a day – and they had some 1,102 km (685 mi) to cover. When the rivers froze, the cargo was transferred to sleds and the expedition continued, enduring blizzards and waist-high snow. Even provisions left by Bering at Yudoma Cross could not fend off starvation. On 6 January 1727, Spanberg and two other men, who had together formed an advance party carrying the most vital items for the expedition, reached Okhotsk; ten days later sixty others joined them, although many were ill. Parties sent by Bering back along the trail from Okhotsk rescued seven men and much of the cargo that had been left behind. Okhotsk's inhabitants described the winter as the worst they could recall; Bering seized flour from the local villagers to ensure that his party too could take advantage of their stocks and consequently the whole village soon faced the threat of starvation. An advance party of Chirikov's division arrived in June 1727 with 27 tons of flour, resupplying the Bering's group, which by then had diminished in numbers.[6]
Okhotsk to Kamchatka and beyond
The Vostok was readied and the Fortuna built at a rapid pace, with the first party (48 men commanded by Spanberg and comprising those required to start work on the ships that would have to be built in Kamchatka itself as soon as possible) leaving in June 1727. Chirikov arrived in Okhotsk soon after, bringing further supplies of food. He had had a relatively easy trip, losing no men and only 17 of his 140 horses. On 22 August, the remainder of the party sailed for Kamchatka.
Sailing further north, Bering entered for the first time the strait that would later bear his name.[7] On 8 August, the expedition had a first meeting with the indigenous population. A boat of eight Chukchi men approached the ship and asked the purpose of their visit. They refused to board the ship, but sent a delegate who swam to the ship on an air-filled balloon made from animal skin. The man told that there are islands nearby, and indeed, two days later the expedition reached an island, which Bering named St. Lawrence Island. In turn, Chirikov named the place of meeting the boat as Cape Chukotsky.[1]
After Cape Chukotsky, the land turned westwards, and Bering held a discussion with his lieutenants on 13 August 1728 whether they could reasonably claim it was turning westwards for good: that is to say, whether they had proven that Asia and America were separate land masses. The rapidly advancing ice prompted Bering to make the controversial decision not to deviate from his remit: the ship would sail for a few more days, but then turn back.
References
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g h Dukalskaya M. V. Первая Камчатская экспедиция Archived 2013-10-29 at the Wayback Machine. The Russian State Museum of Arctic and Antarctic. polarmuseum.ru
- ^ a b c d e Frost 2003, pp. 30–40
- ^ Чаплин Петр Авраамович (биография). www.kamchatsky-krai.ru
- ^ Первая Камчатская экспедиция. ricolor.org
- ^ a b Frost 2003, pp. 41–44
- ^ a b c Frost 2003, pp. 44–47
- ^ a b c d Frost 2003, pp. 48–55
- S2CID 251063437
- ^ a b Frost 2003, pp. 56–62
Bibliography
- Frost, Orcutt William, ed. (2003), Bering: The Russian Discovery of America, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, ISBN 0-300-10059-0
External links
- Русские экспедиции по изучению северной части Тихого океана в первой половине XVIII в. ДОКУМЕНТЫ
- Из истории русских экспедиций на Тихом океане Первая половина XVIII века ДОКУМЕНТЫ
- Из истории великих русских географических открытий в Северном ледовитом и Тихом океанах XVII-й – Первая половина XVIII в. ДОКУМЕНТЫ
- Путешествия ДОКУМЕНТЫ