Island of the Blue Foxes

by Stephen R. Bown

  Another problem brought about by the gambling was overhunting of the one resource that was sustaining their waning lives: the sea otters. The gambling was “at first for money,” Steller wrote. But eventually, money was “held in low esteem, and when this was gambled away, the fine sea otters had to offer up their costly skins.” They all knew that the pelts were worth a fortune as trade items, particularly with the Chinese. Many sea-otter skins had been tossed to foxes in the first weeks ashore, but when the mariners’ health had improved even a little, a new use was found for the pelts in the gambling bouts enthralling the camp, and they suddenly soared in value. Steller frowned when an individual “who had totally ruined himself tried to recoup himself through the poor sea otters, which were slaughtered without necessity and consideration only for their skins, their meat being thrown away.”

  To obtain sea-otter pelts, some of the men went “raging among the animals, without discipline and order, often only going to amuse each other,” soon driving the animals from all the nearby spots where they had previously lived. Hunting was already made difficult by the lack of gunpowder, so it had to be done with sticks or clubs. The men would sneak up on sleeping or unsuspecting animals, pounce upon them, and club them, sometimes working in teams, one to herd, the other to do the clubbing. Soon the otters became attuned to this new predator, man, and became wary of approaching humans. It even seemed to Steller that a herd of them would post a guard to wake the others on the beach when they detected intruders. When otters came ashore, they would turn about with their noses in the air, sniffing for a whiff of the new smell that meant danger. Steller even thought that he saw blue foxes sneaking ahead of hunting parties, running along the beach and barking to wake the sleeping otters before they could be hunted. Nature, he fancied, was turning against them for the sin of gambling. The easy hunting of the early days soon became very challenging. The men had to organize nocturnal scouting expeditions even through ferocious and unpredictable snowstorms to get close enough to attack beached otters. Before the year was over, they had to hike four to six miles to get enough food, and by February 1742 they had to hike as far as twenty miles down the beach.

  The depletion of resources around the camp also applied to firewood. So much wood was needed for the continuous fire in the center of the camp and the other smaller cooking fires that men were now obliged to walk for many miles along the beach to collect it, squinting at the horizon for lumps under the snow after storms, digging to retrieve the wood and carry it back to camp, strapped to their backs. For weakened sailors, these walks were agonizing affairs that took all day in foul weather. This increased travel to obtain animals and firewood fortunately paralleled the recovery of their strength.

  Yet as the weeks went by, food was less and less plentiful. At dinner there were days when “the portions were sometimes so small that the entrails were not thrown away, not even the intestines, but cooked for the sick to eat, which they did, all of it, with great appetite.” For some, who were dying or were the most ravaged by scurvy, it was difficult to open their ruined mouths to swallow sinewy strands of boiled sea otter. Waxell described their daily meal: “Even if you can perhaps endure the smell of sea otter meat, it is extremely hard and as tough as soleleather and full of sinews, so that however much you chew at it, you have to swallow it in large lumps.” Disgusting as sea-otter meat tasted, it was better than foxes.

  Sometime on an unspecified date early in January, the carcass of an enormous whale washed ashore, several miles from camp. Although the blubber was “slightly rank” and it “must have been drifting dead about the sea for some considerable time,” they soon came to rely on it during the period of scarcity before the arrival of spring. They called it “the provision store,” and the partially butchered carcass remained on the beach for use whenever no other animals could be obtained for food. A group of men would hike to the location and flense large cubes of the blubber, load it into packs, and carry it back to camp, where they would cut it into small squares and fill a pot to boil the fat away so that the unpalatable “liquid train oil” could be discarded. What remained after straining were the nerves and sinews, which they cut into pieces and swallowed whole, without chewing. “It was easy to get the pieces down,” Waxell recalled, “as we were never able to get all the oil out of them.” The meat supply was also augmented by the discovery of other sources. The men killed a sea lion and butchered its enormous body on the beach and dragged quivering chunks of meat back to camp. It was a welcome respite from the monotony of sea otter and the occasional seal. They roasted it over fires, and Steller approvingly declared that “the meat was found to be of such exceptional quality and taste that we only wished soon to get hold of more. The fat was like beef-marrow, and the meat almost like veal.” It was certainly better than visiting “the provision store” for rancid whale blubber.

  All this meat contained vitamin C, and, since it was fresh and lightly cooked in soups as suggested by Steller, it slowly but surely brought an end to the scurvy epidemic. The meat and animal broths were nowhere as potent as specific fresh plants, but they were sufficient to slowly nourish the men back to health. Steller also had teams of men scrabbling at the snow-covered ground to locate crakeberry bushes that they boiled into tea. Six more men died in December, but only two died in January. On January 8, 1742, Ivan Lagunov was the last man to die of the scurvy epidemic. He, like the dozens who died on Bering Island, is a man for whom history records nothing other than his name and his job, sailor, and the date of his death. He merely had the dubious distinction of being the last to die in this way. Thirty-one of the seventy-seven men aboard the St. Peter had died of scurvy before Steller’s herbal broths and sea-otter soups worked their effect. Only fourteen had proper burials on Bering Island, in a row adjacent to the camp and the river. The others had been pitched overboard into the ocean or carried away; many had been gnawed on by blue foxes. There were forty-six survivors in the camp, and by mid-January most of the survivors could, with effort, hobble about.

  STELLER AND WAXELL ORGANIZED celebrations at regular intervals to help give structure to everyone’s lives and to give the men something to look forward to, reminders of their previous lives that might help sustain their spirits through the darkest days of winter. They celebrated every Sunday and official national holidays, including “holy Christmas,” as if we “were in the proper place and home.” Nonetheless, Christmas had been a miserable affair, passed in darkness and cold. Steller invited the officers over, and all were entertained with “pleasant speeches” and toasts over cups of tea, “for lack of any other kinds of drink.” Oddly, the one thing they had in plenty was tobacco. For whatever reason, the tobacco supply had not been damaged by the saltwater, and Steller made pipes from the wing bones of black albatrosses; they puffed away on pipes in the rustic squalor of their new community.

  There had been little to celebrate for the first month on Bering Island, but by the end of December, the deaths had slowed, the camp had been built, and a basic unspoken organization had evolved. It was an equality-based system given order by the officers and Steller, in sort of first-among-equals roles. All their ceremonial clothes such as uniforms and “Sunday clothes” were repurposed into work clothes and distributed according to need. They all knew their jobs, and “consequently everyone at all times knew his business and duty without having to be reminded of it, and it made life flow without anxiety and resulted in cheerfulness and good feeling among us.” Everyone was permitted to voice opinions at any meeting, and these opinions were evaluated without consideration for the person’s former rank.

  The year 1742 brought a new optimism. The days were slowly getting longer, and although the weather was as stormy and cold as ever, and hunting animals increasingly difficult, there was a sense that if they had made it this far, they could survive until spring. Once the beast of scurvy had been tamed, and nearly all the men could at least hobble about, the collective perspective on life once again changed. With the men slowly recovering
from the disease, and with minds now cleared and able to focus on things other than immediate survival, the question of what to do with the ship and how to get off the island became daily topics. Whenever they exited their dugouts and stared across the beach, the first thing they saw was the sunken hulk of the St. Peter tilted and buried in the sand with waves slapping against the seaward side. It was a constant reminder of their doom, but as the new year began it also became the first problem that had to be addressed before any other considerations: What condition was the ship in, and would it ever float again? It had been all but confirmed that they were marooned on a deserted island, and their only hope of escape lay in some manner with the wreck of the St. Peter.

  On January 18, 1742, Waxell went around the ramshackle village and informed the sailors and officers that he was convening a formal ship’s council to go out to inspect the wreck and then to decide what should be done. It was his first important job as commander, other than allowing the men to gamble with cards. Since the ship did not look in good condition, and Waxell and Khitrov had already declared it unfit to sail, some felt the inspection was a mere formality. But the St. Peter was a government ship, and any decision to deliberately damage it would be scrutinized by imperial bureaucrats in St. Petersburg. Careers, and perhaps even lives, could be at stake. Also, while it was a navy ship and the officers were still in the Russian Navy, Waxell understood that the new social order that ruled the beach camp was not a purely naval order. Everyone should be consulted, since this was how things had been done since November and this approach had staved off internal dissent so far. It was probably still the best plan for keeping everyone optimistic and focused on getting home. Naval hierarchy and custom would have to wait until they were again at sea.

  Waxell also knew that consensus was strategically the best route to avoid reprisals and punishment for himself afterward. By putting everything down in writing, there could be no later claims of disagreement, and if there was any disagreement on the best course of action now, he could prepare a written counterargument if needed. Certainly, there would be an accounting, an official inquiry into the death of so many men, including the commander, and the destruction of her imperial majesty’s ship. Waxell was going to be scrutinized, and he wanted everything in writing to better defend himself against claims of professional or personal misconduct. So the men all came from their encampment and crossed the beach to the wreck. Some of the stronger ones scrambled aboard and delved down into the hold, while others inspected the masts and rigging. Waxell brought them together and made it clear that they had to come to a unanimous decision, that everyone had a right to voice their questions and ideas, and that he required as much input as possible. He then proclaimed, “God would give it His blessing, for He helps all who help themselves.” Many suggestions were discussed, such as digging a trench to allow the ship to slide back out into water, or placing rollers under the hull and pushing it out into the bay. But in the end, it became obvious that no other timber was to be found on the island, so to construct anything, the materials would have to be cannibalized from the ship itself.

  Over the next few days, Waxell wrote up an official document highlighting the general assessment of the ship. He called it “Statement on the Condition of the Ship,” and it was a sobering list of damage and problems. There were no anchors left and no hope that they could recover one; the rudder had been destroyed and carried out to sea; the hull, keel, and sternpost were all damaged; the rigging, shrouds, and cables were rotted, torn, and unreliable; and, most important, the ship was buried up to a depth of eight feet in the water and sand and was therefore impossible to move. The St. Peter, Waxell concluded, “was not fit for a continuation of our voyage.” Once the statement was written, Waxell read it aloud to the gathering and instructed all to sign the document. Only Dmitry Ovtsin declined to do so. And so Waxell told him to put his objections in writing, which he presented to Waxell five days later. Ovtsin was perhaps showing his discontent against the officers for being shunned by that group or attempting to manufacture a division in the group, something to exploit. Perhaps he simply feared for his career and wanted to record his opposition to the destruction of the ship.

  On January 27, Ovtsin presented his “Counterstatement by the Sailor Dmitry Ovtsin,” which he addressed, probably mockingly, “To His Highness Lieutenant Waxell.” It was a numbered listing of the original points made by Waxell, along with Ovtsin’s brief and overly optimistic assessment of the ship’s condition. He stated that the rigging could be repaired, the conditions in the spring might be good for refloating the ship, they might be able to dredge the sand for the lost anchors, and that timber for repairing the hull and rudder “could probably be found.” In spite of these bold statements, he was well aware that none of the expeditions sent out to investigate the island or any of the hunters had seen a single tree that could be used for this purpose. Ovtsin concluded that “at present it is difficult to say how badly damaged the bottom is; and even if it were, it could be repaired.” It was too early, he claimed, with too much snow and ice, to determine the fate of the ship.

  Waxell and Khitrov read his claims; consulted with all the crew, the officers, and Steller; and built a consensus against the claims. Then they wrote an official “Rebuttal” on January 29, “after listening to his statement and reasons they were rejected by all who were present, because on January 18, they had examined the ship and found it unseaworthy.” They reiterated the fact that they had no timber and none had been found on the island, they had no materials to repair sails and rigging for such a large ship, and they did not have enough men to sail it even if it were repaired. Waxell and Khitrov agreed to one final inspection in the spring or when the water was drained from the hold during a low tide, to confirm what they suspected, but that barring any new information, the St. Peter should be broken up and “out of the wreck some kind of small vessel should be made to take us to Kamchatka.” It was a difficult and emotional decision—the St. Peter had been their home for many months, and even the wreck, looming always through the mist on the beach, was a beacon of stability and their only hope of escape.

  The St. Peter was stoutly constructed with iron bands and nails, and it was hard to be certain of the success of breaking up the ship to construct something new. “I did not want the entire blame heaped upon myself,” Waxell wrote. If things went wrong, “there would be as many proposals as heads,” and he feared being told afterward that “if only we had acted upon this or that, or on any of the other forty suggestions, it would have been all right.” Waxell was also worried for his life, not just from the unpredictable directives from St. Petersburg but from the men closer at hand, who might blame him and turn on him if things went badly. He still believed that breaking up the ship was their best hope of escape and survival.

  The decision to cut up and dismantle the ship sat heavily on everyone’s mind, even when they knew it was the only way forward, but the decision was made easier to accept only a day into February, during what Steller called a “violent northwest gale and a very high tide.” During the mighty storm, enormous waves and a heavy tide pounded against the St. Peter and lifted it in the surf and drove it farther onto the sandy beach. The wreck now listed well above the regular high-tide line. At first there was excitement when they climbed aboard and noticed that the hold was filled with water—this indicated that perhaps the hull had not been breached. But this elation was short-lived. It wasn’t just water sloshing in the hold of the ship. It was still nearly filled with sand, and there were cracks in the hull. There would be no relaunching it.

  Early February was still the height of winter. Winds blew ferociously, snow smothered the land, and the skies were gray and overcast nearly every day. It was too early to begin the process of breaking up the St. Peter. They would have to wait for spring and warmer weather and for the men to be further along on their long, painful climb back to strength. The months passed slowly, with regular camp routine, hunting expeditions, and firewood expeditions
taking up most of their energy and most of their waking hours. On one noteworthy day, February 7, it was clear and bright and pleasant, the first fine day they could remember and a harbinger of milder weather. In the afternoon there was a strong wind from the west, followed by “a violent hissing and roaring—ever stronger the closer it came to us.” It was the foreshock of an earthquake that rattled the island for six minutes. It knocked down the walls of their dwellings, and sand poured into the pits, covering resting and still recovering men. Steller rushed out to inspect the ocean but saw no telltale surge in water that might precede a tidal wave. All was clear and sunny. Far from discouraging the men for the extra work repairing the camp, or frightening them with the winds and rumbling, the earthquake roused spirits all around—earthquakes and volcanic eruptions were common in Kamchatka, and so, they reasoned, they must be within easy sailing distance of home. They just needed a vessel to sail.

  CHAPTER 12

  A NEW ST. PETER

  ONLY WHEN THE FIRST tentative, tender green shoots poked through the snow in March did Waxell and Steller truly believe that they would survive. Although the deaths had ended in January and the men had regained their ability to get up and move and provide for themselves, it would be these early “herbs and plants” that secured their survival. Steller scoured the snow-covered dunes inland from the beach and located several plants he deemed antiscorbutic and helped others locate them in the slowly melting landscape. Waxell praised Steller for giving “excellent assistance, for he was a good botanist. He collected and showed us many green herbs, some for drinking, some for eating, and by taking them we found health noticeably improved. From my own experience I can assert that none of us became well or recovered his strength completely before we began eating something green.”