Island of the Blue Foxes

by Stephen R. Bown

  After that date, the work progressed slowly because of insufficient food for the workers. There had been just barely enough food to keep everyone fed, if not fully satiated. Hunting the animals without guns and the challenge of hauling the meat from the other side of the island meant that it was never abundant. By now most of the men wore tattered shirts and had no shoes. Walking barefoot over the mountains and returning to the camp over the passes with great chunks of meat strapped to themselves front and back was damaging their feet. The diet now consisted of great quantities of the repulsive “sea bears,” or fur seals, but at least at this time of the year, it was the females and young that proliferated on the beach and not just the vomit-inducing old bulls they had first subsisted upon. According to Khitrov, even the females and the young were still “quite savage and attack people.” Steller, ever precise in his descriptions, conveyed the brutality of the hunt. “The beasts are so tenacious of life that two or three men beating only their heads with clubs could scarcely kill them with two hundred blows, and frequently would have to rest and refresh themselves two or three times.… When the cranium is broken into little bits and almost all the brains have gushed out and all the teeth have been broken, the beast still attacks the men with his flippers and keeps on fighting.”

  At the end of May, a one-hundred-foot whale carcass washed ashore about four miles from the camp. As it was “quite fresh,” it provided them with blubber for many months, which they stored in barrels and made available for everyone’s use. The blubber kept them from starving, though it wasn’t very appetizing. And always, just offshore, like sleepy sea monsters, ponderously and unself-consciously rising and sinking beneath the waves as they feasted upon seaweeds, were enormous whalelike mammals that none of them had ever seen before. They all knew that a single one of these mysterious beasts would solve their hunger for weeks, since the animals were so huge. They dreamed of killing one as May progressed, but it would be a dangerous undertaking.

  ONCE THE INITIAL NIGHTMARE of scurvy had abated and the men and officers were busy dismantling the old St. Peter to construct the smaller ship, Steller was freed from immediate responsibility and had time to devote to his great passion, the study of the natural world—the reason he had crossed Russia to Siberia and sailed to Alaska in the first place. Much of his posthumous fame is a result of these observations, however unscientific they may be by modern standards. Steller spent months observing the behavior, migration patterns, diet, life cycle, and life history of several of the most prominent and unique creatures that were endemic to either Bering Island, the Aleutian Islands, or coastal Alaska. Although the sea otters were his personal favorites, he also described in detail the sea lions (a species later named Steller’s sea lion) and fur seals, which “covered the whole beach to such an extent that it was not possible to pass without danger to life and limb.” Even the blue foxes, which much to the relief of all, had retreated into the hills for spring mating received their share of his time. He also prepared a catalog of plants found on the island.

  Steller noted and studied three species of birds not found in Europe or Asia: a “white sea raven… impossible to reach because it only alights singly on the cliffs facing the sea” that has never been found by a naturalist since; “a special sea eagle with a white head and tail” that today is known as Steller’s sea eagle, one of the three types of American eagles now believed to be extinct; and “a special kind of large sea raven with a callow white ring around the eyes and red skin about the beak.” The spectacled cormorant, as it is now known, was a flightless penguin-like bird that was as large as a goose. It was easy to catch and was hunted to extinction in the coming years despite being, according to Steller, plentiful during the winter of 1741–1742. A single bird, he noted, “was sufficient for three starving men.” Steller was the first and only naturalist to see the bird before it disappeared. He also wrote about countless other migratory birds that visited the island for brief periods of time.

  The most populous creature that Steller studied was the sea otter, a friendly communal animal that he observed throughout the voyage whenever the ship approached land. They were playful creatures that offered welcome enjoyment to all the mariners until someone remembered, during the winter gambling spree over the winter, that their skins were extremely valuable. The furs of these creatures were highly sought in China, and throughout the later winter and spring hundreds, perhaps thousands, were killed and stripped of their skins. Steller was outraged by the wanton slaughter. The men, hardened by years of harsh life in Kamchatka and the dreadful sufferings of the past winter, saw the otters as their ticket to a life of ease. They set upon the animals ferociously, clubbing them, drowning them, and stabbing them until the large herds were all but absent from the entire eastern side of the island. By late spring, it became very difficult to kill the remaining few because the intelligent creatures sent out sentries to warn of approaching hunters. Many men began collecting and hoarding the pelts, anticipating selling them for profit upon their return. A prime pelt could be worth twenty rubles in Kamchatka, two or three times that farther west in Siberia, but as much as one hundred rubles at the Chinese frontier.

  Steller spent weeks making mental notes of sea-otter behavior for his treatise and then scratched out the text in his damp notebook at camp. He observed:

  If they have the luck to escape, they begin, as soon as they are in the water, to mock their pursuers in such a manner that one cannot look on without particular pleasure. Now they stand upright in the water like a man and jump up and down with the waves and sometimes hold the forefoot above the eyes as if they wanted to scrutinize you closely in the sun.… If a sea otter is overtaken and sees nowhere any escape it blows and hisses like an angry cat. When struck it prepares itself for death by turning on the side, draws up the hind feet, and covers the eyes with the forefeet. When dead it lies like a person, with the front feet crossed over the breast.

  During countless hours of observation, including one six-day excursion to the south of the island to study them, Steller recorded, among other things, their preferred foods, playful games, size and skeletal structure, mating practices, and intense attachment to their young.

  He believed that the sea otters, more than any other creature he encountered on the voyage, deserved the greatest respect, although he also thought they were lazy. He wrote:

  Altogether in life it is a beautiful and pleasing animal, cunning and amusing in its habits.… Seen when they are running, the gloss of their hair surpasses the blackest velvet. They prefer to lie together in families, the male with its mate, the half-grown young and the very young sucklings all together. The male caresses the female by stroking her, using the forefeet as hands, and places himself over her; she, however, often pushes him away from her for fun and in simulated coyness, as it were, and plays with her offspring like the fondest mother. Their love for their young is so intense that they expose themselves to the most manifest danger of death. When their young are taken away from them, they cry bitterly, like a small child, and grieve so much that, as I came to know on several occasions, after ten to fourteen days they grow as lean as a skeleton, become sick and feeble, and will not leave the shore.

  Perhaps Steller’s greatest scientific contribution, however, was his classic description of the northern manatee, the giant Steller’s sea cow. His description is the only account of this fabulous creature, whose appearance is between a whale and a seal. As with the spectacled cormorant, Steller was the only naturalist ever to see a Steller’s sea cow and study it. The huge whalelike beasts grew to more than thirty feet in length, traveled in large clusters, and fed voraciously on the great strands of seaweed in the sheltered coves of the island. They never left the water, but their backs were exposed to the air while they fed. Underfed men with a constant hunger cast their eyes from their jobs as they toiled away on the carcass of the old ship and observed the beasts languidly passing by within a stone’s throw of the beach. By Steller’s estimate, each of the largest sea
cows weighed more than seven thousand pounds, around four tons—a lot of meat for hungry men.

  On May 21, Waxell gave the men a break from hammering and sawing and set out to try to hunt a sea cow. The previous day, he had the smith forge a huge iron hook weighing fifteen to eighteen pounds and secured it to a thick ship’s cable. Five men got into the longboat with the hook and rowed quietly out to where the closest sea cows grazed with their heads angled downward, focused on the sea grasses. The strongest man leaned over and rammed the sharp hook between the animal’s ribs, and then the forty or so men ashore hauled on the cable. But the sea cow was too strong. Seemingly unperturbed by the hook, the beast slowly moseyed farther from shore, dragging all the men with it into the surf until they let go. Several times they tried this strategy and always lost the tug-of-war. They snapped cables, lost hooks, and became disconsolate to see their time and energy wasted, as the sea cows escaped time after time.

  Steller came up with a better plan, but it required two boats, which meant repairing the small yawl, which had been damaged during the shipwreck. It took until near the end of June for the repairs to be completed. By this time, the men were working on planking the hull of the new vessel. On the day of the hunt, the two small boats rowed in tandem into the herd of grazing sea cows, one filled with men armed with spears, the other filled with rowers and a man with a large sharp harpoon, with a rope attached that was held by the men ashore. When they were near the beast, the harpooner plunged the hook into its hide, and the men on the beach hauled on the cable. The armed men, meanwhile, rowed close and began stabbing and plunging into its back until,

  tired and completely motionless, it was attacked with bayonets, knives and other weapons and pulled up on the beach. Immense slices were cut from the still living animal, but all it did was shake its tail furiously and make such resistance with its forelimbs that big strips of the cuticle were torn off. In addition it breathed heavily, as if sighing. From the wounds on its back the blood spurted up-ward like a fountain. As long as the head was under water no blood flowed, but as soon as it raised the head up to breathe the blood gushed forth anew.

  They butchered it on shore and hauled the meat back to their dwelling, “rejoicing” at their good fortune. Some blubber was eaten fresh. After being cured for a few days, it was “as agreeably yellow as the best Holland butter” and when boiled “surpasses in sweetness and taste the best beef fat.” It was the color of fresh olive oil. The taste, like “sweet almond oil,” was so good that they drank it by the cupful and was a welcome break from the monotony of their diet. Even the meat, though somewhat tough in texture, was indistinguishable from beef in flavor. Of particular noteworthiness, for a large quantity of meat in a camp without refrigeration, was that it survived two full weeks “without becoming offensive, in spite of its being so defiled by the blowflies as to be covered with worms all over.” Now that they had figured out how to do it, they killed a sea cow approximately every two weeks until July 31, when they killed eight of them and salted the meat for the return voyage. Waxell claimed that “of all the foods we ate during our time on the island, the manatee was the best.… Eating it, we felt considerably better and became quite active.” Without the sea cows as food, they never could have fed themselves while working on the new ship.

  Although the sea cows became easy to catch, tasted delicious, and were a much-needed source of nourishment, Steller did more than just eat them. He recorded all he could of their behavior during different seasons, their mating rituals and rearing of their young, and other living patterns. He dissected one large specimen and was astonished that the heart alone weighed thirty-six and a half pounds. The stomach was six feet long and five feet wide, so swollen with seaweed that he and three helpers strained their backs hauling it from the carcass at the end of a long rope. He wrote down, in perfect Latin, a full description of every portion of the beast from its eyes, skin, and feet to joints, muscles, bone structure, breasts, and mouth. And he commissioned a draftsman, probably Plenisner, to sketch six precise drawings to scale, depicting his dissection. Unfortunately, all the drawings were later lost somewhere in Siberia.

  One of Steller’s most subtle observations was that the huge beasts appeared to be monogamous, perhaps mating for life. After one large female was hauled ashore, he was startled by the behavior of the male. “It is a most remarkable proof of their conjugal affection,” he wrote, “that the male, after having tried with all his might, although in vain, to free the female caught by the hook, and in spite of the beating we gave him, nevertheless followed her ashore, and that several times, even after she was dead, he shot unexpectedly up to her like a speeding arrow. Early next morning, when we came to cut up the meat and bring it to the dugout, we found the male again standing by the female, and the same I observed once more on the third day when I went there myself.” The Steller’s sea cow was hunted to extinction for food in the following years as the Russian Empire expanded east to Alaska.

  Steller’s opportunity to study the marine creatures of the fogbound Aleutian Islands was unparalleled, and he knew it. His description of Bering Island includes a discussion of the habits and anatomy of nearly every creature that frequented the island, including observations of their seasonal activities and their behavior. He also wrote about dozens of plants, including flowers, shrubs, and others that formed a thick and dense tangle over most of the low places inland apart from the dunes near the camp. His descriptions were precise and insightful, and he engaged his friend Plenisner to sketch dozens of illustrations to accompany them. As an afterthought, to fulfill his obligations as set out in his orders, Steller also reported to Waxell that during his rambles and investigations of the island, he “had prospected the island for metals and minerals and had found none.”

  WITH THE SEA-COW HUNT relieving anxiety over food and freeing up labor, the work on the new ship proceeded rapidly. By mid-July the hull was fully planked. The design of the new vessel confirms necessity as the mother of invention. Wooden structures were adapted for new purposes. “For the keel,” Waxell recalled, “we used the old ship’s mainmast which was sawed off three feet above the deck.… The remaining stump had to serve as the new vessel’s prow. The sternpost we made from a capstan we had had on the old ship.” Other masts could be transferred, because even though most were broken, the new ship was smaller and needed shorter masts and spars. Since the hull on the old St. Peter proved to be more damaged than they had estimated, the new hull was completed with old deck planks. “These were full of nail and bolt holes and much splintered and cracked from being wrenched loose.” The most damaged pieces were used for a second layer of interior planking, secured with giant spikes. They built a small cabin in the rear just large enough for the principal leaders, Waxell, his son, Khitrov, and Steller. The galley was built in the front, and sleeping room for the crew was in the hold, below the single deck. It was clear to all that the ship would be small and crowded for the number of men.

  As August approached and the ship took form, there was a palpable excitement. Any who had worked reluctantly or slowly, urged to action under Waxell’s scrutiny, now moved with vigor and purpose, without exhortations or commands. Men rowed into the bay to search for the anchors and found the small grappling, others picked apart old ropes and heated the segments to melt the tar and then used it to caulk the hull, while still more repaired barrels for freshwater or hunted and salted sea cows. On August 1, Waxell again called a meeting of all the men on the beach in front of the ship. He announced, “Our ship with God’s help will be soon finished.” He then began a discussion of the future. It was obvious that all of the equipment, supplies, and materials from the old St. Peter would never fit in the new ship. Much would have to be left on the island if all the men were to sail away in the new ship. Even though Khitrov had inventoried everything and certified that most of it was “worthless and rotten,” it was still government property and had value. The nearly two thousand pounds of items slated for abandonment on the island include
d all the artillery and associated equipment; all the axes, crowbars, hammers, saws, and other tools; surplus navigational items such as compasses, lanterns, and sounding cables; flags; copper cooking pots and utensils; and surplus tobacco. Even during all their months of smoking ashore, it still hadn’t been consumed.

  No one wanted to be left behind to guard these items, no matter how valuable, and they all concluded that it would be “dangerous,” since there was no food apart from what could be hunted. “If we should leave a guard, we should have to come after him next year. There is no harbor here, nothing but rocks and reefs and the open sea, and there is great danger in wrecking the vessel.” Therefore, “taking these arguments into consideration,” they unanimously agreed to leave no one behind on the island. Once again, they all signed the agreement to spread the blame, should any be forthcoming. There was no real intention to leave anyone behind, and it is hard to imagine their actually doing so, waving good-bye to the lone stranger as the rest sailed away, but Waxell and Khitrov wanted a written record of all of their decisions, showing the unanimity of the crew. They planned to construct a storehouse out of scrap wood to protect the material from the continual fog and rain, on the off chance a future expedition was shipwrecked. Room was made in the new ship for nearly nine hundred sea-otter pelts, apportioned to each person according to rank. Somehow Steller ended up with more than three hundred, perhaps as gifts for his services as pastor and physician.

  IN THE FINAL WEEKS before the departure, everyone was busy preparing food and making piles on the beach. “No one wanted to be idle, because everyone was exceedingly anxious for deliverance from this desert island.” They had to launch the ship before they could load it and had constructed wooden runnels or a sliding bilge block, leading from the beach out into the water. This was a mighty construction, as it needed to be 150 feet long (45 meters) to get the ship clear off the sandy beach. Waxell was nervous because once the ship was afloat, it would essentially be unprotected from the open sea, and a storm or strong offshore wind could drive the vessel ashore again and deprive them “of our last hope of rescue.” On August 8, a typical overcast day with sporadic rain and wind, Waxell judged the time right to catch a high tide and launch the ship into the water. After a quick prayer and a toast to the new ship with burda, the drink made from fermented or soured flour paste boiled in water and seal oil, they began winching the ship along the runners. The ship was too heavy. The runners pressed into the sand, and the ship became stuck. A wave of horror washed over everyone. They rushed about, trying to lift the ship higher and hauling on ropes, to no avail. The tide receded, leaving the ship stuck lopsided in the sand. Waxell rallied everyone with good cheer, and they spent the day jacking the ship higher by wedging planks under the runners. The next day, they hauled on the ropes again, and the ship slowly slid into the water and was moored in eighteen feet, tethered to the shore with ropes. They named the ship after the old one, a new St. Peter, only it was now called a “hooker,” the term for a smaller single-masted ship. The ship later remained in use for many years as a transport vessel between Okhotsk and Kamchatka.