With spring came lighter days, warmer temperatures, and less rain, but it was often still stormy and overcast. Everything was damp, and cloth and leather had weathered the winter poorly. But as the vestiges of scurvy retreated and vitality returned to the men’s limbs, Waxell was eager for more information on their location. They believed they were on an island to the east of the Kamchatka coast, but how big was this island? Did it have any other resources in the more distant quarters? Without accurate knowledge of their location, Waxell knew they couldn’t make good decisions about the future. Hunting for food was becoming an ever-greater challenge, as the increasingly wary animals became difficult to catch in numbers sufficient to sustain the appetites of the forty-six hungry men. The mere sight of a man in the distance drove sea otters into a frenzy, and they would rush to the water.
So, on February 24, Assistant Navigator Kharlam Yushin took four men on an expedition north “to make a careful observation of the country,” but his party was thwarted by the weather after one week of trudging through the slushy snow along the base of huge cliffs that extended into the sea. They traveled only sixty versts (thirty-seven miles) from camp through this dramatic terrain before they returned. Yushin reported that they had seen an island to the east, which was an inaccurate observation, perhaps a distant cloud bank. Other men had been hunting sea otters in faraway regions, but they brought back no new information about the island. On March 10, Waxell called for a gathering and then proposed another expedition south across the country, following a different route, this time to be led by the boatswain, Alexei Ivanov, a man universally respected for his competence. Ivanov and four men departed on March 15, and they returned after only several days of strenuous climbing over hills and mountains and reported having seen the sea on the western coast. They brought back pieces of a small boat that had washed ashore. One of the men, Ivanov Akulov, definitively identified the wreckage as part of a boat he himself had constructed in Kamchatka the previous year. And most important, Ivanov excitedly described a new animal that lived in profusion along the beaches of the western coast, one that he called a “sea bear” but that Steller identified as a fur seal.
This news was so electrifying—a new source of food—that Ivanov and his men were quickly sent out again, accompanied by Steller and three others. They had instructions to go until they “came to some mainland or the end of the island.” If they should spy the mainland, perhaps along a connecting pier of land, two men were to keep going and report to Avacha Bay, while the others were to return with the good news. Waxell still desperately hoped that they were situated on a spit of land connected to Kamchatka, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The certain discovery, though, was the confirmation of a new food source. As the weather was warmer now, this new route became the standard twelve-mile trek for hunting parties. The route was not only exhausting but also dangerous, due to fast-approaching storms that could trap men where there was no shelter. On April 1, a vicious storm trapped four men from a group led by Steller. “No one could keep an eye on his feet or see a step of him,” he recalled. Six feet of snow fell during a short period of a few hours in the night, and they were forced to sleep out in the open. In the morning, they were entirely covered in snow, and they had to break out and stagger back to the camp, arriving “senseless and speechless, and so stiff from the cold that, like immovable machines, they could hardly move their feet.” The main encampment on the eastern beach was just then digging out from under the same heavy spring snow. They rushed to strip Steller and his companions of their wet clothes and boiled tea while they shivered under blankets, nearly hypothermic. One man was snow-blind and one was missing. They sent out searchers to find the man and discovered him an hour later, stumbling about delirious and in “a pitiable condition.” He had fallen into a creek, his clothes were frozen solid to his body, and his hands and feet were frostbitten. They feared he would die, but Steller revived him. Steller preferred not to take the credit himself and proclaimed that “God, however, pulled him through without harm.”
Despite the need for a more secure food supply, Waxell decided to wait until the weather stabilized after this devastating storm before crossing the midisland mountains again. But hunters were not able to catch animals on the eastern beach anymore, and they quickly ran short on food. Despite the danger, another small hunting expedition, consisting of Steller, Plenisner, Lepekhin, and another man, set off along the same trail to the west on April 5, a clear and pleasant spring day. The crossing was uneventful, and on the western beach they hunted many seals and dragged them back to the base of the cliff and sat relaxing around a campfire to spend the night before returning. A midnight storm soon dumped vast piles of wet snow on them, and they could hardly keep their footing for the violent wind. They ran around in circles for hours keeping each other awake. Steller by “constantly smoking tobacco tried to keep myself warm and banish the bitterness of death.” The dawning day was nearly as dark as night, and they knew they had to find shelter or they would die. Lepekhin had fallen asleep and was buried under the snow, and they rushed to dig him out and drag him to his feet. Then they all put a final effort into searching for a crevasse or cave. After many hours of fruitless wandering, they were “full of despair and half dead.”
Finally, Lepekhin came across a wide crack that led into the cliff, and they all hastened into it and out of the storm. They then dragged wood and some of the meat inside. The cave proved to be roomy, with a separate storeroom to keep food “safe from the thievish and malicious foxes,” which had followed them to the hunting grounds. The cave even had a natural chimney to dissipate smoke so they could cook inside without asphyxiating themselves. They huddled out of the storm for three days before it blew out. During the storm, blue foxes had crept from the hills and devoured the carcasses of the animals they had left on the beach. They had to hunt again before returning fully loaded with meat and news on April 8. They made use of the incredible cave discovery for many months into the summer as a hunting base and called it Steller’s Cave. For the next two months, the western beach and Steller’s Cave were a common destination and the fur seals the primary food source. But these seals were not a gourmand’s treat. Waxell reported that their “flesh is revolting, because it has a very strong and very unpleasant smell, more or less like that of an old goat. The fat is yellow, the flesh hard and sinewy.” They universally “loathed” it, but it was better than starving.
At the same time, another hunting party led by Yushin had gone to the north of the island and had been held up for seven days by a similar storm. They were trapped in a crevasse by high tides, without food or fire. The men at camp believed that they had been “either drowned or crushed to death by snow dashing down from the mountains,” and there was great rejoicing when they saw them trudging across the beach. Yushin brought confirmation that they were on an island. Ivanov had also been on a journey and returned around the same time. They had “doubled the northern cape on the other side” of the island so that, between the members of various exploratory parties, they had all but circumnavigated the island. They still had no exact idea where the island was situated, and both Yushin and Ivanov claimed to have seen land to the east. Steller also claimed to have seen land “very clearly” to the northeast, and they agreed that they were on the westernmost stretch of the American continent. Actually, there is no land within sight of Bering Island in any direction. Steller believed they lay marooned closer to America than Kamchatka. Waxell and Steller disagreed about how great the distance was between Kamchatka and Alaska. Steller thought the distance could be sailed in three or four days from Avacha Bay, while Waxell maintained it would take up to eight days at sea. Both were outrageously off in their estimates. The previous spring, it had taken them six weeks to cross the Pacific to Alaska, and it would take future ships sailing along the safest and most efficient route about three weeks.
On April 9, Waxell convened a meeting of all the men to share the newly agreed-upon geographical information and
to confirm plans for the St. Peter. Yushin and Ivanov presented the story of their discoveries, and then Waxell rose to speak as commander. “The time has come to consider how we [will] escape from this wretched spot,” he announced. He asked each person to give his opinion clearly, as “our plight is the same for one and all.” He wrote that “the lowest seaman longed for deliverance just as much as the first officer; therefore we should all stand together as one man.” During the gathering, there emerged three main ideas for the planned escape.
The first idea, put forth yet again by Ovtsin, the ex-lieutenant who had opposed the initial proposal of breaking up the St. Peter back in February, was to make a great effort to repair and raise the St. Peter, even if it took all the resources of the men and most of the summer, in the hope that they would be successful in launching it before the storm season. Waxell had long given up on this plan. But to placate the handful of men who advocated it, he outlined again why it was a poor option. The hull had such serious and large breaks in it that the water level inside the ship was always exactly the same as the level of the water outside in the bay. They had not the men or the equipment to undertake this type or scale of repair. Dredging a canal to drag the ship out into deeper water off the beach was impossible because the surf and tides replenished the sand as quickly as the limited number of men could dig. “We could have gone on digging for all eternity without making any progress,” he stated. The most convincing argument against this plan was that if they devoted the summer to it and failed, which was likely given the condition of the wrecked ship, then they would be stuck on the island for another winter—a dreaded prospect. They needed a different plan, and the only feasible option was to break up the St. Peter and construct a smaller ship. But the shape, style, and size of the new vessel were not immediately obvious. It would have to be much smaller to be sailed by a smaller crew, yet it would still have to withstand a potentially rough ocean voyage.
After Ovtsin’s proposal, the next suggestion was to do a little work quickly on the longboat, strap some sailcloth over it to make a primitive “deck” so it would have a chance of crossing to Kamchatka without foundering, and choose about six men to sail away and report the location of the island to the garrison at Petropavlovsk and hope that a rescue ship would arrive before the end of summer. Waxell did not immediately dismiss this idea, but he had serious reservations that he enumerated to the men: Because they did not know how far they were from Kamchatka, the small “boat would not be able to withstand the least bad weather but would incontestably founder, and all aboard her would be lost.” The majority of the men would be left to fend on the island, living in a state of “anxiety and doubt,” waiting passively to see if they would be rescued or if they would have to spend another winter somehow surviving on the rapidly diminishing number of easily hunted animals. This plan was “unreasonable and dangerous,” Waxell stated, but could be revisited if nothing else worked out since it required little work—just a great deal of bravery for the chosen few and a great deal of patience and anxiety for the remaining forty. Waxell concluded his speech with the claim that “it would be a great relief and comfort for us if we who had survived so many sufferings should find consolation together” and that if any further disaster befell them, they could all endure it together. Likewise, if they reached home, their “deliverance” would be as a group.
In the end, Waxell persuaded all of the men, even Ovtsin, to go with the third option: dismantle the St. Peter and build a new vessel about half the size from the scavenged wood and materials. After the meeting, they all signed a document titled “Decision Made on Determination That Land Is an Island,” which also included the conclusion that the St. Peter should be broken up, as there was no way to return except by sea and the St. Peter could not be floated or repaired. The document also provided some details on who would be working on the ship and who would be responsible for hunting for the entire group. They decided that the remaining salty groats and rye flour would be reserved for use on the return voyage, which would take place later in the summer. On May 2, Waxell, Khitrov, and several other officers searched for a suitable place to begin laying the foundations for the new ship and conveniently agreed that the best spot was “on the beach directly in front of the ship.”
As the weather warmed throughout April and into May, the island came alive with plants and birds. Three weeks were spent unloading everything from the wreck, prying the wood planks from the frame, carrying it all to the beach, and placing it in ordered piles. All the tools were prepared, laid out in order, and a small forge was constructed to make new specialized tools such as hammers and crowbars. This was fired by making charcoal from all the new driftwood that had washed ashore throughout the winter and was visible on the sandy beach now that the snow had melted. “Grindstones were dressed and placed in troughs, tools were cleaned of rust and sharpened, and a smithy erected, crowbars, iron wedges and large hammers forged.” It was tedious and exhausting work and not very exciting, since it was only preparation for the main task ahead.
There were twelve men skilled in using axes or who had shipbuilding or carpentry experience. These men were to work continuously on the dismantling and reconstruction of the new ship. All of the others, with the exception of Waxell, Khitrov, and Steller, were to be placed on a constantly rotating three-day duty roster—a day of hunting (which involved hiking many hours across the island), followed by a day of camp duty, followed by a day of assisting the carpenters in whatever needed doing. All the meat was to be brought to the camp each morning and then distributed by one of the petty officers to the designated cook of each of the five camps. This routine, with minor exceptions, went on for months throughout the spring and summer. The remaining flour was strictly rationed for the home voyage; each person’s monthly allotment was reduced to twenty pounds, so that by Steller’s calculation, each person would have twenty pounds of flour for the home voyage. There was only one skilled shipbuilder who had survived, a Siberian Cossack named Sava Starodubstov, who had worked on several ships, including the St. Peter, with Spangberg while at Okhotsk. Starodubstov told Waxell that if he was given “the proportions of the ship he would build her so solid that, with God’s help, we should be able to put to sea in her without risk.” So great was his work that Waxell admitted they never could have made the new ship without his knowledge, and, after they returned, he petitioned the provincial chancellery in Yeniseisk for the man to be promoted into the ranks of the minor nobility of Siberia.
The work gave the entire group of increasingly ragged-looking survivors a focus, something to unify their dreams and prevent despair and infighting. Waxell rose in stature as a leader, while Steller earned the men’s respect for his role in preserving everyone’s lives as a scientist and physician and for his tender care and spiritual council of the sick. But it was Waxell who would get the men off the island. Like Steller, who buoyed spirits with his optimism and appeals to the divine, Waxell maintained a hearty and cheerful persona and kept up his courage. He never complained aloud and strove to highlight anything good that happened, even if it was to note a change in diet or to appreciate a mild day. Waxell, as much as Steller, became a guiding symbol of survival and hope. During the difficult months, once scurvy had been defeated and the foxes driven off and the scourge of gambling abated, the quarreling factions, for the most part, settled into a harmonious pattern that had not existed on the ship. Rank and privilege all but disappeared, and work was shared equally and without complaint; they all knew that their lives depended upon it. The few “malcontents” who shied away from work were frowned upon by their comrades, and Waxell regained most of the authority as a naval commander that he had lost during the first few months ashore, when survival trumped social order. Now that there was a clear objective to unify the unruly band, Waxell asserted his command when he saw shirkers failing to contribute. “I used my authority to force them to work,” he wrote.
The actual construction of the new ship began on May 6 with the “erecting
of the stern and the sternpost.” It was planned to be thirty-six feet long, with a twelve-foot beam and a depth of five feet and three inches. The men took the excess timber from the old ship, the timbers and boards deemed unsuitable or unneeded for the new ship, and quickly used them to build better dwellings that were aboveground—the spring runoff from the melting snow combined with rain was routinely flooding the pits. The first day that the skeleton of the new ship took shape on the beach was a day of great joy and hope. At the day’s end, Waxell invited the whole community, apart from the absent hunters, to join him in a celebratory toast. They all brought their own mugs, bowls, or cups “or whatever they had.” As a special treat, Waxell had supervised the boiling, in the great cauldron over a fire, of a Siberian drink called saturnan. It was customarily made by frying wheat in fresh butter and then blending it with hot brewed tea until it “becomes as thick as cooked chocolate.” But Waxell, “not having any of these ingredients,” improvised with “train [seal or whale] oil instead of butter, musty rye-flour in place of wheat flour, and crakeberry plants instead of tea.” Nevertheless, the drink passed muster, and they all became “quite gay and cheerful, without anyone becoming intoxicated.” Steller wrote, “We enjoyed ourselves pretty well.”
Island of the Blue Foxes Page 24