On the return voyage, they again encountered four large skin boats with about forty Chukchi in them, but, as before, communication was nearly impossible without an interpreter, although they gleaned the idea that there was some sort of big land or island to the east. Nevertheless, the groups did some trading: meat, fish, freshwater, blue-fox furs, and walrus tusks were exchanged for some metal tools and needles.
The Gabriel sailed into the mouth of the Kamchatka River on September 2 after a few days of rough weather. The sailors had been fifty days at sea and within a month were iced in. They spent the winter repairing the ship and readying for a return voyage. Bering wanted to sail south around the Kamchatka Peninsula, to test how far south it extended and to see if it was possible to get the Gabriel to Okhotsk without another grueling slog across the mountains of Kamchatka. During the winter, Bering talked with Russians who had lived in Kamchatka for many years, and they regaled him with apocryphal tales of mysterious lands to the east, where there were forests and large rivers and the people used large skin boats similar to those used in Kamchatka. These stories had him pondering. When the river ice melted in May, they readied to depart, but Bering decided to sail to the east for four days to test the idea of nearby land. Though storms forced him to retreat without seeing anything, he came very close to the remote island that he would revisit twelve years later under entirely different circumstances.
On July 24, he was back in Okhotsk, along with most of his men. The return journey, without tons of equipment and with a much-reduced number of workers, following a now-known route, was quick and uneventful. They reached Tobolsk on January 11 and reported to the officials. Bering declared the goods that he had traded for and paid the customs. They arrived back in St. Petersburg on February 28, 1730, just over five years after departing. He and Spangberg and Chirikov were all promoted and rewarded and were reunited with their families. But all was not well for everyone. Fifteen men had died, largely from cold and starvation, and most of the approximately 660 horses used by the expedition had perished, seriously damaging the economy around Yakutsk and ruining the horses’ owners. The toll the expedition had taken on the local economy contributed to resentment and civil unrest. In Kamchatka, Bering’s commandeering of men and dogsled drivers led directly to the uprising in the 1730s that resulted in the burning of Lower Kamchatka Post and the consequent retribution against the native population.
Nevertheless, before sailing from Kamchatka, Bering had charted the southeastern coast of the peninsula and discovered a bay that would be perfect for a future harbor. He called it Avacha Bay, and already knew that he wanted to return and unravel more of the geographic mysteries of this distant region.
CHAPTER 3
THE BEST-LAID PLANS
ONE OF THE MOST notable characteristics of Peter the Great was his insatiable curiosity. It was this curiosity that led him to force the tectonic changes to Russian society that disrupted the old rigid order and ushered in reforms that transformed the nation. Even when traveling by carriage or horse through a small backwater town, he would always ask the locals what was worth seeing, what was different or unusual nearby. If he was told that there was nothing noteworthy, he would reply, “Who knows? If it not be so for you, perhaps it will be for me. Let me see everything.” This attitude made him interested not only in European commerce and military strategy and technology, but also in the arts and sciences. He encouraged Russians to go abroad to study at European educational institutions, particularly to attain technical and scientific skills not then available in Russia, and he funded basic schools for mathematics, artillery, engineering, and medicine.
Peter’s largest endowment was for the creation of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, which nearly three centuries later is still Russia’s most respected scientific academy. He wanted a Russian institution on par with those elsewhere in Europe so that Russians could study at home and, he hoped, speed up the process of modernizing the Russian economy. Famous German polymath Gottfried Leibniz, who had earlier founded the Berlin Academy of Sciences, originally proposed the idea to Peter in the early years of his reign, but Peter held off founding the Academy of Sciences until January 28, 1724, a year before his death. As he envisioned it, the institution would function much like a university. Its first professors, all hired from Germany, Switzerland, and France, taught Russian and German students as well as doing their own research. They included historians, lawyers, philosophers, chemists, mathematicians, astronomers, and doctors of medicine. Although Peter died before any of these learned men arrived and began classes, the institution was to have the powerful role Peter envisioned, shaping Russian intellectual life, including the exploration of the unknown eastern hinterland.
The final decree authorizing the academy’s founding was signed by Peter’s widow, Catherine. Although she reigned for only two years, she oversaw the kernel of the academy with the arrival of sixteen scholars and their families from France, Germany, and Switzerland. The academy’s first eight students were likewise from other European countries, but their ranks soon expanded. When the Russian court temporarily moved back to Moscow, the academy was neglected, with many scholars departing over complaints about unpaid salaries. Nonetheless, it was still very much a prized institution and vital to Russia’s growing respect in Europe. Soon its many scientists would be put to an altogether new task, something very different from the world of the cloistered academic.
WHEN BERING ARRIVED BACK in St. Petersburg after a five-year absence, the political atmosphere had changed significantly. Empress Catherine, newly enthroned just as he was departing, had died in 1727 and been succeeded by Peter II, who died of smallpox at the age of fourteen on January 19, 1730, mere months before Bering returned. The new empress was Anna Ivanovna, Peter the Great’s niece. Although she returned the Russian court to St. Petersburg and continued with Peter’s reforms and the Westernization of Russian institutions, the architectural development of St. Petersburg, and support for the arts and sciences, her reign is often viewed as a “dark era” in Russian history. Her lavish balls and public spending on grand palaces belied the grave suffering in the countryside and an interminable series of wars with Poland and Turkey. But it was her strange and cruel personality that ensured her fame. She would shoot animals from the palace windows and was abusive and rude to people she considered inferior. She would publicly mock and humiliate those with disabilities. Her punishments and favor seemed extreme and arbitrary and contributed to a climate of fear and secrecy. Saxon minister Count Johann Lefort remarked darkly that the Russian court under Anna was “comparable to a storm threatened ship, manned by a pilot and crew who are all drunk or asleep… with no considerable future.”
Anna Ivanovna had a strong preference for placing foreigners in positions of authority and prestige. In the first months of her reign, she banished to Siberia several Russian aristocrats believed to be antiforeigner. While infuriating and demoralizing to Russians, this preference was good for Bering and for Bering’s new proposal that he return to Siberia and Kamchatka, build larger oceangoing ships, and set out to discover and explore the west coast of America. Although some in the academy, the court, and the admiralty muttered that Bering was not daring enough and that he had failed to establish the conclusive truth of Asia’s relationship to America—or uncover anything new about the long-rumored land bolshaya zemlya—he argued that he had not been properly equipped to do more than he had done and pointed to the rude conditions under which he had labored. He highlighted the excellence of his new map of Siberia and the value of his notes on local conditions.
Both Bering and his wife were very ambitious, and Anna always advocated for her husband through her network of family and friends in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Bering was promoted into the nobility and given an award. They were now quite wealthy, owing to the promotion, his reward, and the profit from his private trading while in Siberia. They settled into a comfortable home in a fashionable district with servants and their surviving chi
ldren, two boys, who were now six and eight and scarcely remembered their father, and they reveled in their new status. Anna was no longer socially inferior to her younger sister. They were feeling so fortunate and well-off that Bering donated the inheritance he received from his parents to the poor in his hometown of Horsens.
Bering took only a few months, until April 30, 1730, to submit to the Admiralty College his detailed report of the First Kamchatka Expedition and a proposal for a second one. The first expedition, in his view, suffered from too many unknowns and a lack of appreciation for the challenges, so a follow-up expedition was obvious, this time to be better planned, provisioned, and manned. Bering knew that the mission could succeed only if the leadership of the first expedition was reprised in the second. From the government’s perspective, he was clearly the favored candidate, and so were his senior officers, Spangberg and Chirikov.
Despite the extreme conditions, the possible starvation, the miserable cold, and the great chance of death on a voyage into the unknown, these commissions were desirable in the troubled times. Siberia also offered freedom and a chance to make a lasting mark in the world, a chance for a limited amount of fame and respect for adding new geographical knowledge. A second expedition would be good for their careers as well as appeal to their adventurous souls.
Bering submitted his plans to the empress:
1. According to my observation the waves of eastern Kamchatka are smaller than in other seas, and I found on Karaginski Island large fir trees that do not grow on Kamchatka. These signs indicate that America, or some other land on this side of it, is not far from Kamchatka—perhaps from 150–200 miles. This could easily be ascertained by building a vessel of about 50 tons and sending it to investigate. If this be so, a trade might be established between the empire and the inhabitants of those regions.
2. Such a ship should be built in Kamchatka, because the necessary timber could be obtained more easily. The same holds true in the matter of food—fish and game are especially cheap there. Then again, more help may be had from the natives of Kamchatka than from those of Okhotsk. One other reason should not be overlooked, the mouth of the Kamchatka River is deeper and offers a better shelter for boats.
3. It would not be without advantage to find a sea route from the Kamchatka or Okhota River to the Amur River or Japan, since it is known that these regions are inhabited. It would be very profitable to open trade relations with these people, particularly the Japanese. And since we have no ships there, we might arrange it with the Japanese that they meet us halfway in their boats. For such an expedition a ship about the size of the one mentioned would be needed, or one somewhat smaller might serve the purpose.
4. The cost of such an expedition—not including salaries, provisions and materials for both boats, which cannot be had there and would have to be taken from here and Siberia—would be from 10,000 to 12,000 rubles.
5. If it should be considered wise to map the northern regions of the coast of Siberia—from the Ob to the Yenisei and from there to the Lena—this could be done by boats or by land, since these regions are under Russian jurisdiction.
This proposal for territorial and commercial expansion at low cost was sure to interest the state. The possibility also existed of establishing naval bases and for the discovery of precious metals. Empress Anna wanted to continue Peter the Great’s territorial and commercial expansion of the empire. So began two years of planning.
Bering’s initial proposal was straightforward: to build ships and sail to discover America from Kamchatka, but he reluctantly admitted that he would have to include several other items of interest to the Russian state to justify the expense of the expedition. He planned to pioneer and chart a route to Japan through the Kuril Islands and to work toward creating a chart of the northern coast of Siberia. Over the two years of planning, the expedition grew in scope with the contributions and interests of several key planners: Count Nikolai Golovin, the president of the Admiralty College; Ivan Kirilov, the senior secretary of the senate and a keen geographer; and Count Andrey Osterman, a diplomat in Empress Anna’s court. Kirilov believed that the second expedition would expand the empire and, despite the costs, eventually result in “inexhaustible wealth” for Russia. He also optimistically believed that Siberia offered great transportation advantages since its many river systems were merely underdeveloped canals. The secondary objectives of the expedition were not geographical but rather political and colonial, designed to secure and expand Russia’s governing presence by creating maps, building infrastructure, collecting tribute or taxes, and promoting trade. According to the official instructions from Empress Anna, the senate has “given thorough consideration to the matter so that this expedition will be of genuine benefit to Your Majesty and to the glory of the Russian Empire.”
Throughout 1732 Empress Anna and the senate issued a series of ukases, or decrees, that established the objectives and structure of the new expedition. There was an April 17, 1732, official order from the senate announcing Bering as the commander; on May 2, a general outline of the expedition; on May 15, an order from the admiralty to begin the preparations and commission Vitus Bering as commander, with Chirikov second in command. On December 28, 1732, Empress Anna sent further detailed instructions and officially signed the order authorizing the Second Kamchatka Expedition. In recognition of the anticipated difficulties and hardships of the undertaking, the three principal commanders, Bering, Chirikov, and Spangberg, were promoted, Bering to captain-commander and the two others to captain, along with eight new lieutenants. They were offered double pay and given two years’ pay in advance. Bering was also ordered to “act in mutual agreement with Captain-Lieutenant Chirikov on all matters during the course of this voyage.” The instructions did not make clear who was in charge if there were difficulties in reaching mutual agreement.
THE GREAT NORTHERN EXPEDITION, as the Second Kamchatka Expedition was sometimes called, was one of the most ambitious scientific and exploratory expeditions ever undertaken. Based on Bering’s modest proposal to follow up on the inconclusive results of his first voyage, the second expedition was designed to demonstrate to Europe the power and sophistication of Russia. As the years of planning wore on and the scope of the expedition swelled, Bering had cause to worry. By the time Bering saw his final instructions in December 1732, they had expanded to a venture far beyond what he had ever envisioned. He would be at the head of a contingent that would number in the thousands: scientists, secretaries, students, interpreters, artists, surveyors, naval officers, mariners, soldiers, and skilled laborers, all of whom had to be brought to the eastern coast of Asia across thousands of miles of roadless forests, swamps, and tundra, again hauling vast quantities of equipment and supplies with them because there would be nowhere to purchase these items in Siberia. As before, the heavy goods they would be carting included tools, iron ingots, canvas, dried and preserved food, books in multiple personal libraries, and scientific implements. They would more or less follow the same rugged route of the First Kamchatka Expedition into eastern Siberia.
The objective of the expedition had also been elaborated. Now there was to be a multipronged assault on the mysteries of Siberia, followed by an ambitious voyage across the uncharted expanse of the North Pacific Ocean. Once he arrived in Okhotsk, Bering was again supposed to build two ships and sail to Kamchatka and then east to America, charting the coastline far to the south. Concurrently, he was also to build another three ships and survey the Kuril Islands, Japan, and other areas of eastern Asia. These were his most reasonable and practical instructions. His orders also called on him to populate Okhotsk with Russian citizens, introduce cattle raising on the Pacific coast, found elementary and nautical schools in the distant outposts, construct a dockyard for deepwater ships, establish astronomical positions throughout Siberia for future mapping, and create mines and ironworks for smelting ore so that the region might become self-sufficient in these activities and avoid the horrendous cost of transportation. Not surprisingly,
despite Bering’s Herculean efforts, these tasks wouldn’t be completed for generations. Bering had imagined his expedition as a glorious footnote to his career that would resonate throughout history, but he grossly underestimated the scope of the undertaking and the seemingly limitless problems that would arise.
Ironically, the western islands of Alaska had recently been sighted by a different Russian mariner, Mikhail S. Gvozdev, in 1732, using Bering’s old ship Archangel Gabriel. Gvozdev was part of a small military expedition sent out to punish the Chukchi in Kamchatka who had attacked and destroyed Russian outposts and refused to pay the tribute; the rebellion was likely brought on by Bering’s demands for food and labor during the First Kamchatka Expedition. Gvozdev sighted the coast of Alaska in August and met a man in a kayak before sailing back to Kamchatka.
Although organized under the auspices of the Russian Imperial Navy, the Bering expedition was never a standard naval operation, and the leaders would seldom be utilizing their nautical skills, and not for many years. Rather than Bering navigating and running a ship, most of the journey would involve retracing the six thousand miles across Siberia, using management skills: organization, recruitment, the logistics of pack trains and river barges, and diplomacy with regional authorities. Kirilov, the senior secretary of the senate, was a dreamer who imagined Russia as a new emerging world power. He wanted to send a new administrator to Okhotsk to prepare the town for the arrival of the expedition and to begin the construction of ships. The enthusiasm for this job—leaving the known world for the uncivilized regions of Siberia—was not high. The office of administrator in Okhotsk was not a plum position and did not attract a great deal of interest among the civil service. After all, wasn’t Siberia where they sent political exiles? The best that Bering and Kirilov could find, perhaps better described as the best of the worst, was Grigory Skornyakov-Pisarev, then an exile living north of Yakutsk in a small village along the Lena River.
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