Island of the Blue Foxes

by Stephen R. Bown

  On August 30, the St. Peter and the St. Paul hauled anchor and sallied forth east, leaving these problems behind—and embracing new ones. Their first destination was Bolsheretsk, several miles inland along the Bolshaya River, amid lowlying sand dunes and lagoons. The winds were contrary and the captains impatient, so it was with sinking horror that before the ships cleared the Okhota River, they looked back to see one of the supply ships, the Nadezhda, commanded by Lieutenant Sofron Khitrov, aground on a concealed sandbar. Eight days of delay followed, as the ship was unloaded and refloated, repaired, and then reloaded. Incredibly, the Nadezhda had been carrying most of the sea biscuit destined to feed the men on the American voyage the following spring. It was now ruined by saltwater. Bering’s original plan was to sail east from Kamchatka across the Pacific in the spring of 1741, explore Pacific America, find a safe harbor to overwinter, and return to Kamchatka in the summer of 1742. The unanswered question now on everyone’s mind was how this would be done without proper food.

  Steller and Croyère followed four days later in a smaller boat chiefly devoted to the scientists, their baggage, and servants. The whole flotilla reached the Bolshaya River by September 20. Here the academicians disembarked, while the rest of the ships continued south to round the tip of Kamchatka and sail north to Avacha Bay. Owing to the delays, Bering judged the fall storms too rough for one of the supply ships, and only the St. Peter, the St. Paul, and the Nadezhda headed to sea. It was a new moon, and the currents and tides around Cape Lopatka, the southern tip of Kamchatka, were a turbulent swirl of thrashing white water. The distance between the cape and the first of the Kuril Islands is only four miles, and the center of the channel is plugged by an enormous outcropping of rocky reef, with waves sweeping and crashing over it. On this day, a powerful easterly wind surged them forward, while the pendulous westerly tidal waves pushed them back.

  The St. Paul and the Nadezhda watched as Bering led the St. Peter forward into the maelstrom, unaware of the competing power of the wind and tides. Lieutenant Waxell later wrote, “Never in my whole life have I ever been exposed to such great danger as then.” For more than an hour, they made no progress, pushed and pulled between the wind and the waves. The bow of the ship plunged into deep troughs as the sea broke over the deck on both sides. “The ship’s boat, which we were towing behind us on 40 fathoms of rope, was thrown by the waves against our stern,” cracking timbers and scattering men before being sucked back. The wind screeched and pulled at the sails, nearly cracking the main-topmast under the strain as they struggled to keep the ship headed into the waves. “Had we come athwart it among those waves there would have been no saving us.” Only when the contrary tide began to abate did the St. Peter slowly begin to move forward and round the cape. Chirikov waited about an hour and then ran the St. Paul through without difficulty, exiting the Sea of Okhotsk and entering the Pacific Ocean.

  The two ships then waited and watched, but the Nadezhda, still commanded by Khitrov, was nowhere to be seen. The supply ship had not followed. They later learned that Khitrov, seeing the terrifying predicament of the St. Peter, ordered his ship to return to Bolsheretsk instead of challenging the channel. To Bering, it was a second example of Khitrov’s poor seamanship and contributed to ill will between the commander and the junior officer. The ordeal served as a reminder that from now on, they would be voyaging into fickle and unknown seas.

  When the St. Peter and St. Paul arrived at the new harbor they called Petropavlovsk (Peter and Paul Harbor, after their ships) in Avacha Bay, they saw that a place for a settlement had been roughly cleared from the forest and some barracks and storehouses erected, the work of Ivan Yelagin and men sent the previous year. It was an ideal shelter, but at this time the St. Peter and the St. Paul were the first two seagoing ships to sail into the beautiful sandy-bottomed harbor. They noted that it could easily hold a score of ships without even the use of anchor, so sheltered was it from wind and swell. Avacha Bay is eleven miles in diameter and is surrounded by impressive snowcapped conical volcanoes. These were active volcanoes. One of them had erupted in 1737, smothering the land in ash and sending mighty tidal waves against the shores.

  While they were settling in for the winter in Petropavlovsk, world events were unfolding that would change Russia’s political landscape. Empress Anna, who shared her great-uncle Peter’s fondness for western European culture, died in 1740. During the struggle for the throne, Peter’s daughter Elizabeth emerged triumphant, assumed power after a coup in November 1741, and was crowned on April 25, 1742. Elizabeth and the court she presided over were much more suspicious of foreigners and ideas from outside. Germans began to be removed from positions of authority and respect, and any criticism of the government, however innocuous or routine, was now being frowned upon; publications that did not please the ruling cadre were suppressed. The Academy of Sciences began to have its freedom curtailed and its funding squeezed. No news of these ominous developments, however, reached Kamchatka before the ships departed.

  STELLER AND CROYÈRE FOUND Bolsheretsk in a miserable state. The commander, Yakutskian Kolesov, was a drunkard; commerce was sluggish and hampered by corruption; the soldiers were dissolute and ill-trained and the surrounding population demoralized and rebellious. The officials squeezed the natives for taxes paid in furs, enriching themselves with the difference between what they collected and what they remitted to senior officials in Siberia. The town itself was situated upstream along a gloomy, heavily forested shore of the river. The ostrog on the shore and a chapel were surrounded by palisades, but the civilian dwellings, about thirty in total, were situated on a series of small islands in the river. The most prominent buildings were a whiskey distillery and a drinking establishment. Steller and Croyère found lodgings outside the ostrog and set to work organizing themselves for a long winter of mist and heavy snow. Steller met with the younger natural historian Krasheninnikov, who had thoroughly explored large parts of the peninsula. They worked together, collecting and studying the plants and animals and recording the weather.

  Steller also began thinking about one of the most perplexing medical mysteries of the time, scurvy. Why did Bering’s various Icy Sea expedition members suffer so badly from this horrible blight—including blackened bleeding gums, morose disposition, and the opening of old wounds—while the natives never seemed to suffer from it? He concluded that it must somehow be associated with diet—an astute observation decades ahead of its time and with vital implications. Steller also interviewed many Cossacks and Kamchadal natives about their opinions about the possibility of land to the east, plying them with brandy when necessary to loosen their tongues. He became convinced that sporadic trade existed between Kamchatka and other lands in regions to the northeast. But when Steller later told Bering of these rumors, Bering said, “People talk a lot” and “Who believes Cossacks?” Bering had too much to deal with as it was and spared no thought to the health of expedition members or hearsay and rumors of native activities; it was just another in a long list of things out of his control. Bering was weary of even trying to enumerate the staggering problems that Siberia faced in developing a civil society. Investigating possible trade networks farther north would be just another thing preventing him from obeying orders.

  The most pressing emergency, however, was Khitrov’s retreat with the supplies. It caused great strain, delay, and further hardship over the winter and nearly wrecked the whole expedition. They now had to unload the Nadezhda at Bolsheretsk and repack the goods for transport 140 miles across Kamchatka to Avacha Bay, right through the mountainous heart of the peninsula where there were no roads or rivers to follow. Since there were no horses and no trail, natives were conscripted from hundreds of miles around. They were required to bring their sleds and their dogs, more than four thousand of them, to begin the months-long task of ferrying tons of supplies through the snow to Avacha Bay. Waxell was appalled at the treatment of the natives:

  Some of these Kamchadals had no previous experience of the work
of driving with dogs; they had never heard of such a means of transport. Nor had most of them ever been farther than five miles away from where they were born, and now here they were having to go off with us, as they understood it, to the end of the world, and that, into the bargain, with their dogs, which they loved above all things. In the main they did not care about money, having no means of using it; in fact most of them had no idea what money was.

  The hardship, strain, and ill treatment of the conscripted Kamchadals was so great that there was a revolt, and many refused to work. One disaffected and abused band burned seven Russians in their hut and fled into the mountains. Retribution was swift and severe. A troop of fifty soldiers tracked them down through the snow and surprised them in their winter huts, which were located on a collection of remote rocks at the mouth of the Okola-vaem River, at the base of a mountain. The soldiers tossed grenades into the houses through the smoke holes in the roof. Not knowing what a grenade was, they moved to investigate, and it exploded, killing and injuring many, including women and children. The survivors were captured and taken to Avacha Bay and “given a good dose of the knout to find out the guilty ones.” The punishments meted out were, according to Steller and Waxell, cruel and inhumane. In addition to the time spent ferrying supplies across the peninsula by dogsled, hunting and punishing the Kamchadals also consumed many precious weeks, already in short supply.

  These further challenges were yet another strain on the weary and aging commander. Bering despaired of ever setting sail. The seemingly endless misfortunes all added to the interminable stress that he had been under for years. Now he no longer had the presence of his wife. Each misfortune incrementally added to the likelihood of another misfortune, compounding as the expedition progressed.

  DURING THE WINTER OF 1740–1741, Bering was creating the final list of crew for the voyage. He relieved Khitrov of his command of the Nadezhda and ordered the younger man to join the St. Peter as a second officer, where he would be under Bering’s watchful eye. Bering also decided that he wanted Steller to join the expedition to America, despite the mutual hostility between Steller and Khitrov, who would have to sail on the same small ship for many months. Bering’s physician had recently requested to be sent back to St. Petersburg due to illness, and Bering had no other replacement. But Steller had medical training, and his Lutheran background as a theologian would be comforting, since Bering and several of the officers were of that faith. The commander sent Steller a note with one of the returning sled teams, asking Steller to cross Kamchatka and join him to discuss “certain matters.” Steller received the message in Bolsheretsk on February 17 and had an inkling of what it might mean. Terribly excited by the prospect, he wound up his work and with a lone companion crossed the peninsula by dogsled in ten days, arriving in early March. “As soon as I arrived,” he wrote, “[Bering] represented to me with many arguments the important and useful service I could render and how my undertaking would be appreciated in high places, if I should consent to go along with him.”

  They soon worked out the details. Bering promised to ensure that Steller would not be going against his prior orders from St. Petersburg. Bering “swept aside all my objections by taking upon himself the responsibility for all the consequences.” According to Steller, Bering also promised to give him all the opportunity to pursue his studies in natural history and to allow him the services of men so that he “might accomplish something worthwhile” when he was in America. Steller would share Bering’s cabin and serve as the commander’s personal physician. Steller was concerned that he would have nothing to show once he returned from “a miserable and dangerous sea voyage.” But the voyage was not merely a voyage of discovery, one of science; it had very practical and territorial ambitions. Bering believed that Steller had the skill and knowledge to locate and identify metals and minerals.

  Petropavlovsk quickly evolved into a small but clean and pleasant town in a magnificent natural setting. The remainder of the winter, however, was not a pleasant one for the explorers, overburdened as they were with work and the harsh aftermath of the native rebellion. Steller was mortified at the ignorance, cruelty, corruption, dissolution, and brutality of the Cossacks and, as was his nature, complained loudly, condemning the practices. He had become involved in the establishment of a school at Bolsheretsk, but he unfortunately had a manner that engendered dislike if not hatred in the people around him. As he sought to reform what he considered un-Christian and immoral behavior and abuses, Steller was earnest but abrasive and too obvious in his scorn of the Cossacks’ lifestyle. He wrote a report and petition and sent it back to St. Petersburg, urging that the Kamchadals be treated with respect and restraint and pointing out that they had rights. He also offered his unsolicited advice on how to better administer the distant land. Steller voiced strong advocacy for social justice that fell on deaf ears, or at least overworked and weary ones.

  Bering and the officers were now years behind and anxious about the impending voyage and their careers. Scolding them for not being patient and nice in a brusque manner was just another irritant. Bering had an increasingly narrow focus on getting the job done and seeing his family again, a preoccupation no doubt shared by the other officers. Steller, on the other hand, was relatively fresh and unburdened by the history of the expedition. He was not laboring under the same smothering weight of precedent and expectation—he was still excited and curious. To him it was an adventure, not an obligation or hurdle to be surmounted as quickly as possible so that he could get on with his life. “No proposal of mine,” Steller wrote during the winter before they departed, “not even the most insignificant, was considered worthy of being accepted, because those in command were too much imbued with their own wisdom, until the disastrous end and a just dispensation exposed their unfortunately too naked vanity.” Steller was already in conflict with Bering, just as Bering was in conflict with Chirikov, who chafed to get going after years of being held back by what he perceived as Bering’s timidity. Not many were favorably disposed toward Captain-Commander Bering by this time, but he no longer seemed to care.

  BY MAY 1741, THE ships were finally getting ready to sail. May was the prime month for embarking on a voyage across the Pacific, but they were delayed until June in bringing supplies across from Bolsheretsk. Once the supplies were tallied, it was apparent that they had supplies for only a single season and not enough to overwinter, as had been the plan all along. Into the unknown they would sail, across the vast Pacific Ocean, with the necessity of returning in the same year, in the fall, before the known and aggressive winter storms of the Kamchatka coast set in. They had already been so long in Siberia that even contemplating a further year was maddening. Their families had all returned home, and the thrill of the East had long worn off for most.

  The final major decision that remained was to decide upon the exact route they should take to reach the new land across the ocean. On May 4, Bering called a sea council of officers and read aloud the orders from St. Petersburg so they could discuss the various options and determine how closely these options aligned with their orders. As was the custom of the Russian Imperial Navy, a vote was called of all the senior officers before major decisions were enacted. Bering was not a dictator but more of a first among equals. Steller was not invited to the meeting. Had he been present, he might have influenced the council to choose a different course than the one ultimately taken, since he had heard the Cossacks’ rumors of land closer to Asia farther north. All winter the officers had been discussing the possibilities, weighing the reasons, and assessing the available geographical evidence, scant as it was. Bering’s official orders from Empress Anna called on him to hold a meeting and to “take counsel concerning various routes to America with the professors sent by the Academy of Sciences,” and at this point in the expedition he would not deviate from these official instructions—fear of punishment was common for disobedience of orders, and he was weary of any arguments for change. Croyère, representing the academy in these meetings
since Steller was not invited, brought his maps to the council and strenuously argued in favor of searching first for those lands and islands that theoretically lay between Asia and America. These were prominently displayed on the charts made by his brother, French geographer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, who was also employed at the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. Delisle had created a chart of the North Pacific to help Bering navigate to America.

  Delisle was respected in St. Petersburg, and his charts showed the large islands to be as yet unclaimed by any European power. Bering dared not disobey his orders after all the delays and perceived failures—what if these islands existed and he was the one responsible for not claiming them for Russia? Unfortunately, Delisle had populated his chart with several imaginary islands rumored to lie along the route of the expedition, most notably Yezo and Gama Land, the very nonexistent islands that Bering had sought unsuccessfully to find at the end of his first voyage a decade earlier. Since these lands were rumored to be potentially wealthy, finding them had been added to Bering’s official instructions.