Vitus Bering

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For other uses, see Vitus Bering (disambiguation).

Vitus Bering
Birth nameVitus Jonassen Bering
Born(1681-08-05)5 August 1681
Horsens, Denmark–Norway
Died19 December 1741(1741-12-19) (aged 60)
Bering Island, Bering Sea
Allegiance Russian Empire
Branch Imperial Russian Navy
Service years1704–1741
Expeditions
  • First Kamchatka expedition
  • Second Kamchatka expedition

Vitus Jonassen Bering (Danish: [ˈviːtsʰus ˈjoːnæsn̩ ˈpe̝(ː)ɐ̯e̝ŋ]; baptised 5 August 1681 – 19 December 1741),[1][nb 1] also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering (Russian: Иван Иванович Беринг),[2] was a Danish cartographer and explorer in Russian service, and an officer in the Russian Navy. He is known as a leader of two Russian expeditions, namely the First Kamchatka Expedition and the Great Northern Expedition, exploring the north-eastern coast of the Asian continent and from there the western coast on the North American continent. The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, the Bering Glacier, and Vitus Lake were all named in his honor.

Taking to the seas as a ship's boy at the age of 15, Bering travelled extensively over the next eight years, as well as taking naval training in Amsterdam. In 1704, he enrolled with the rapidly expanding Russian Navy of Tsar Peter I. After serving with the navy in significant but non-combat roles during the Great Northern War, Bering resigned in 1724 to avoid the continuing embarrassment of his low rank to his wife; and upon retirement was promoted to first captain. Bering was permitted to keep the rank as he rejoined the Russian Navy later the same year.

He was selected by the Tsar to captain the First Kamchatka Expedition, an expedition set to sail north from Russian outposts on the

Semyon Dezhnyov
80 years' previously. In August 1728, he decided that they had sufficient evidence that there was clear sea between Asia and America, which he did not sight during the trip. For the first expedition, He was rewarded with money, prestige, and a promotion to the noble rank of captain commander. He immediately started preparations for a second trip.

Having returned to Okhotsk with a much larger, better prepared, and much more ambitious expedition, Bering set off for an expedition towards North America in 1741. While doing so, the expedition spotted Mount Saint Elias, and sailed past Kodiak Island. A storm separated the ships, but Bering sighted the southern coast of Alaska, and a landing was made at Kayak Island or in the vicinity. Adverse conditions forced a return, but he documented some of the Aleutian Islands on his way back. One of the sailors died and was buried on one of these islands, and Bering named the island group Shumagin Islands after him. Bering himself became too ill to command his ship, which was at last driven to seek refuge on an uninhabited island in the Commander Islands group in the southwest Bering Sea. On 19 December 1741, Bering died on the island, which was given the name Bering Island after him, near the Kamchatka Peninsula, reportedly from scurvy, along with 28 men of his company.[nb 2]

Biography

Early life

Vitus Bering was born in the port town of

Azov Sea on Russia's southern coast to the Baltic on her northern coast.[3] His work in the latter stages of the Great Northern War (ending in 1721), for example, was dominated by lightering duties.[5]

On 8 October 1713, Bering married Anna Christina Pülse; the ceremony took place in the Lutheran church at Vyborg, only recently annexed from Sweden. Over the next 18 years, they had nine children, four of whom survived childhood.[5] During his time with the Russian navy – particularly as part of the Great Northern War – he was unable to spend much time with Anna, who was approximately eleven years Bering's junior and the daughter of a Swedish merchant. At the war's conclusion in 1721, Bering was not promoted like many of his contemporaries.[5] The omission proved particularly embarrassing when, in 1724, Anna's younger sister Eufemia upstaged her by marrying Thomas Saunders, already a rear-admiral despite a much shorter period of service. In order to save face, the 42-year-old Bering decided to retire from the navy, securing two months' pay and a notional promotion to first captain. Shortly after, the family – Bering, his wife Anna, and two young sons – moved out of St. Petersburg to live with Anna's family in Vyborg. After a period of joblessness lasting five months, however, Bering (keenly aware of his dependents), decided to reapply to the Admiralty. He was accepted for a renewed period of active service the same day.[5] By 2 October 1724, Bering (retaining the rank of first captain he had secured earlier in the year) was back on the sea, commanding the ninety-gun Lesnoe (Russian: Лесное, "Forest"). The Tsar would soon have a new command for him, however.[4]

First Kamchatka expedition

Main article:
First Kamchatka expedition

St. Petersburg to Okhotsk

On 29 December 1724 [

Lena; but after the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) this looked politically infeasible. Instead, Bering's party, it was decided, would travel over land and river from St. Petersburg to Okhotsk, a small port town on Russia's eastern coast, and then by sea from Okhotsk to the Kamchatka peninsula, where they could start their voyage of exploration. On 24 January, Chirikov departed with 26 of the 34-strong expedition along the well-travelled roads to Vologda, 411 miles (661 km) to the east. Having waited for the necessary paperwork to be completed, Bering and the remaining members of the expedition followed on 6 February. Bering was supplied with what few maps Peter had managed to commission in the preceding years.[6]

A portrait once believed to be of Vitus Bering (according to later data, it is probably of his uncle)[7][8][nb 3]

Both parties used horse-drawn sledges and made good time over the first legs of the journey. On 14 February they were reunited in Vologda, and, now travelling together, headed eastwards across the

Irtysh. The journey ahead to the next major stopping point Yakutsk, was well-worn, but rarely by groups as large as Bering's, who had the additional difficulty of needing to take on more men as the journey progressed. As a result, the party ran behind schedule, reaching Surgut on 30 May and Makovsk in late June before entering Yeniseysk, where the additional men could be taken on; Bering would later claim that "few were suitable". In any case, the party left Yeniseysk on 12 August, desperately needing to make up lost time. On 26 September they arrived at Ilimsk, just three days before the river froze over. After the party had completed an eighty-mile trek to Ust-Kut, a town on the Lena where they could spend the winter, Bering travelled on to the town of Irkutsk both to get a sense of the conditions and to seek advice on how best to get their large party across the mountains separating Yakutsk (their next stop) to Okhotsk on the coast.[9]

After leaving Ust-Kut when the river ice melted in the spring of 1726, the party rapidly travelled 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 (

Fortune"), needed to carry the party across the bay from Okhotsk to the Kamchatka peninsula. Bering himself left on 16 August, whilst 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. Both men and horses died, whilst other 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.[9] If Bering's party (which reached Okhotsk in October) fared badly, however, Spanberg's fared far worse. His heavily loaded boats could be tugged at no more than one mile a day – and they had some 685 miles 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. The explorer later reported how it was only the arrival of an advance party of Chirikov's division in June with 27 tons of flour that ensured his party (by then diminished in numbers) could be fed.[10]

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 himself arrived in Okhotsk soon after, bringing further supplies of food. He had had a relatively easy trip, losing none of his men and only 17 of the 140 horses he had set out with. On 22 August, the remainder of the party sailed for Kamchatka.

Kamchatka River to the Lower Kamchatka Post. This Spanberg's party did before the river froze; next, a party led by Bering completed this final stint of approximately 580 miles over land without the benefit of the river; and finally, in the spring of 1728, the last party to leave Bolsheretsk, headed by Chirikov, reached the Lower Kamchatka Post. The outpost was six thousand miles from St. Petersburg and the journey itself (the first time "so many [had] gone so far") had taken some three years.[10] The lack of immediate food available to Spanberg's advance party slowed their progress, which hastened dramatically after Bering's and Chirikov's group arrived with provisions. As a consequence, the ship they constructed—the St. Gabriel (Святой Гавриил, Sviatoi Gavriil)—was ready to be launched as soon as 9 June 1728 from its construction point upriver at Ushka. It was then fully rigged and provisioned by 9 July, and on 13 July set sail downstream, anchoring offshore that evening. On 14 July, Bering's party began their first exploration, hugging the coast in not a northerly direction (as they had expected) but a north-easterly one. The ship's log records a variety of landmarks spotted (including St. Lawrence Island) many of which the expedition took the opportunity to name. Translation problems hindered the exploration attempt, however, as Bering was unable to discuss the local geography with locals he encountered. Sailing further north, Bering entered for the first time the strait that would later bear his name.[11]

Reaching a cape (which Chirikov named

Semyon Dezhnyov who, unbeknownst to Bering, had made a similar expedition eighty years previously).[12] In the spring of 1729, the Fortuna, which had sailed round the Kamchatka Peninsula to bring supplies to the Lower Kamchatka Post, now returned to Bolsheretsk; and shortly after, so did the St. Gabriel. The delay was caused by a four-day journey Bering had embarked upon directly eastwards in search of North America, to no avail. By July 1729 the two vessels were back at Okhotsk, where they were moored alongside the Vostok; the party, no longer needing to carry shipbuilding materials made good time on the return journey from Okhotsk, and by 28 February 1730 Bering was back in the Russian capital. In December 1731 he would be awarded 1000 roubles and promoted to captain-commander, his first noble rank (Spanberg and Chirikov were similarly promoted to captain). 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 new (though not perfect) insights into the geography of Eastern Siberia, and presented useful evidence that Asia and North America were separated by sea.[12] Bering had not, however, proved the separation beyond doubt.[2]

Second Kamchatka expedition and death

Preparations

1966 Soviet postage stamp depicting Bering's second voyage and the discovery of the Commander Islands

Bering soon proposed a second Kamchatka expedition, much more ambitious than the first and with an explicit aim of sailing east in search of North America. The political situation in the Russian Empire was difficult, however, and this meant delays. In the interim, the Berings enjoyed their new-found status and wealth: there was a new house and a new social circle for the newly ennobled Berings. Bering also made a bequest to the poor of Horsens, had two children with Anna and even attempted to establish his familial coat of arms.[13] The proposal, when it was accepted, would a significant affair, which involved 600 people from the outset and several hundred added along the way.[14] Though Bering seems to have been primarily interested in landing in North America, he recognised the importance of secondary objectives: the list of which expanded rapidly under the guidance of planners Nikolai Fedorovich Golovin (head of the Admiralty); Ivan Kirilov, a highly ranked politician with an interest in geography, and Andrey Osterman, a close adviser of the new Empress, Anna Ivanovna. As Bering waited for Anna to solidify her grip on the throne, he and Kirilov worked to find a new, more dependable administrator to run Okhotsk and to begin work on improving the roads between Yakutsk and the coastal settlement. Their choice for the post of administrator, made remotely, was Grigory Skornyakov-Pisarev; possibly the least bad candidate, he would nevertheless turn out to be a poor choice. In any case, Skornyakov-Pisarev was ordered in 1731 to proceed to Okhotsk, with directions to expand it into a proper port. He did not leave for Okhotsk for another four years, by which time Bering's own expedition (in time for which Okhotsk was supposed to have been prepared) was not far off.[13]

In 1732, however, Bering was still at the planning stage in Moscow, having taken a short leave of absence for St. Petersburg. The better positioned Kirilov oversaw developments, eyeing up not only the chance of discovering North America, but of mapping the whole Arctic coast, finding a good route south to Japan, landing on the

Lena towards the Arctic.[13]

St. Petersburg to Kamchatka

Spanberg left St. Petersburg in February 1733 with the first (small) detachment of the second expedition, bound for Okhotsk. Chirikov followed on 18 April with the main contingent (initially 500 people and eventually swelling to approximately 3000 after labourers were added). Following them, on 29 April Bering followed with Anna and their two youngest children – their two eldest, both sons, were left with friends in

Okhotsk Sea were both failures (the second coming far closer than it realised), and yet this was information the expedition desperately needed. Bering decided to prepare a similar land route to the one he had used on the first expedition instead, constructing huts along the route in advance.[17] It was work, however, that was still unfinished even by the summer of 1737, such were the delays.[18]

At Okhotsk things were little better; it was "ill-suited to be a permanent port", and Skornyakov-Pisarev was slow to construct the buildings needed. Spanberg was, however, able to ready the ships the expedition needed. By the end of 1737 the St. Gabriel had been refitted; additionally, two new ships—the Archangel Michael (Архангел Михаил, Arkhangel Mikhail) and the Nadezhda (Надежда)—had been constructed and were rapidly readied for a voyage to Japan, a country with which Russia had never had contact. The same year, Bering took up residence in Okhotsk. It was the fifth year of the expedition, and the original costings now looked naive compared to the true costs of the trip. The additional costs (300,000 roubles compared to the 12,000 budgeted) brought poverty to the whole region. On 29 June 1738, Spanberg set off for the Kuril Islands with the three ships he had prepared. After he had left there were further delays, probably due to a lack of natural resources. Over the next three years, Bering himself was criticised on an increasingly regular basis (his salary had already been halved in 1737 when the originally planned four years ran out); the delays also caused friction between Bering, Chirikov (who felt unduly constrained) and Spanberg (who felt Bering was too weak in his dealings with the local peoples). The two key figures who had been so useful to Bering in St. Petersburg back in the early 1730s (Saunders and Kirilov) were now dead, and there were occasional moves to either terminate the expedition or to replace Bering. Meanwhile, a fourth ship, the Bolsheretsk (Большерецк) was constructed and Spanberg (having identified some 30 Kuril Islands on his first trip) led the four ships on a second voyage, which saw the first Russians land in Japan. In August 1740, with the main, America-bound expedition almost ready, Anna Bering returned to St. Petersburg with her and Vitus' younger children. Bering would never see his wife again.[18] Those without places on a ship also began the long journey home. As they left, a messenger arrived; the admiralty was demanding a progress update. Bering delayed, promising a partial report from Spanberg and a fuller report later.[19]

Sea voyage, death and achievements

Vitus Bering's expedition being wrecked on the Aleutian Islands in 1741.
The grave of Vitus Bering on Bering Island

With time now of the essence, the Okhotsk (Охотск) left for Bolsheretsk, arriving there in mid-September. Another new ship, the St. Peter (Святой Пётр, Sviatoi Piotr, Pyotr, or Pëtr), captained by Bering, also left. It was accompanied by its sister creation the St. Paul (Святой Павел, Sviatoi Pavel) and the Nadezhda. Delayed by the Nadezhda's hitting a sand bank and then being beaten by a storm, such that it was forced to stay at Bolsheretsk, the two other ships arrived in their destination of

Georg Steller and completed the report he had promised to send. At the same time, however, the murder of several Russians under Bering's command by native tribesmen prompted him to send armed men to the north, with orders not to use force if it could be avoided. Apparently it could not, because the detachment killed several native Koryaks in the settlement of Utkolotsk and enslaved the remainder, bringing them back south. Steller was horrified to see the Koryaks tortured in search of the murderers. His ethical complaints, like Chirikov's more practical ones before him, were suppressed.[19]
From Petropavlovsk, Bering led his expedition towards North America.

The expedition spotted the volcano

Steller sea cow and Steller's jay). Bering himself was forced by adverse conditions to return, and he discovered some of the Aleutian Islands on his way back. One of the sailors died and was buried on one of these islands, and the group was named after him (as the Shumagin Islands). Suffering from scurvy like many of his crew, Bering steadily became too ill to command the ship, passing control to Sven Waxell.[20] Storms, however, meant that the crew of the St. Peter was soon driven to refuge on an uninhabited island in the Commander Islands group (Komandorskiye Ostrova) in the south-west Bering Sea. On 19 December 1741 Vitus Bering died on the uninhabited island near the Kamchatka Peninsula, which was later given the name Bering Island in his honour.[2] Like 28 men of his company, Bering's death was commonly assumed to have been the result of scurvy (although this has since been contested[nb 2]); certainly, it had afflicted him in the final months.[21] The situation was still dire for Bering's expedition (now headed by Waxell), many of them, including Waxell, were still ill and the St. Peter was in poor condition. By April 1742 the party had ascertained that they were on an island. They decided to construct a new vessel from the remnants of the ship in order to return home. By August it was ready, successfully reaching Avacha Bay later in the month. There, the party discovered that Chirikov had led a rescue mission during 1741 that came within miles of the stranded group.[22]
Out of 77 men aboard the St. Peter, only 46 survived the hardships of the expedition, which claimed its last victim just one day before coming into home port. Its builder, Starodubtsev, returned home with government awards and later built several other seaworthy ships.

Assessing the scale of Bering's achievements is difficult, given that he was neither the first Russian to sight North America (that having been achieved by

Bering Land Bridge.[23]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ All dates are here given in the Julian calendar, which was in use throughout Russia at the time.
  2. ^ a b The 1991 Russian-Danish expedition that exhumed Bering's remains also analyzed teeth and bones and concluded that he did not die from scurvy. Based on analyses made in Moscow and on Steller's original report, heart failure was the likely cause of death (Frost 2003).
  3. ^ In 1991 a Russian-Danish expedition found Bering's burial site. Analysis of Bering's skull also showed that Bering could not have had such a round face, as is depicted in most pictures. The analysis showed a man of strong stature and a more angular face. The portrait most frequently attributed to Bering may possibly be the writer Vitus Pedersen Bering, who was Bering's uncle.

References

Citations

  1. ^ Frost 2003, pp. xx–xxi
  2. ^ a b c d e f Armstrong 1982, p. 161
  3. ^ a b c d e Frost 2003, pp. 19–22
  4. ^ a b Frost 2003, pp. 29–31
  5. ^ a b c d Frost 2003, pp. 26–28
  6. ^ a b c d e Frost 2003, pp. 30–40
  7. ^ Epishkin, Sergey. "Vitus Bering. Question of biography" (in Russian). Kamchatsky region science lubrary. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
  8. ^ ПУЛЕНКОВА, Юлианна. КАМЧАТСКИЕ ЭКСПЕДИЦИИ [KAMCHATKA EXPEDITIONS] (PDF) (in Russian). Retrieved 15 March 2018.
  9. ^ a b Frost 2003, pp. 41–44
  10. ^ a b c Frost 2003, pp. 44–47
  11. ^ a b c Frost 2003, pp. 48–55
  12. ^ a b Frost 2003, pp. 56–62
  13. ^ a b c d e f g Frost 2003, pp. 63–73
  14. ^ Egerton 2008
  15. ^ Debenham 1941, p. 421
  16. ^ Armstrong 1982, p. 163
  17. ^ a b c Frost 2003, pp. 74–81
  18. ^ a b Frost 2003, pp. 84–92
  19. ^ a b Frost 2003, pp. 112–120
  20. ^ Frost 2003, pp. 237–245
  21. ^ Frost 2003, p. 7
  22. ^ Frost 2003, pp. 246–269
  23. ^ Armstrong 1982, pp. 162–163

Bibliography

External links

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