USA > Alaska > History of Alaska : 1730-1885 > Part 7
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In connection with this first voyage of Bering, two expeditions were undertaken in the same direction under the auspices of Afanassiy Shestakof, a chief of the Yakutsk Cossacks. This bold man, whose energy was of that reckless, obstinate type that knows no defeat, went to St Petersburg and made several pro- posals to the senate forthe subjection of the independent Chukchi and Koriaks and the unruly Kamchatkans. The eloquence with which he advanced his scheme procured him applause and success. He was appointed chief of an expedition in which to accomplish his heart's desire.
The admiralty appointed a Hollander, Jacob Hens, pilot; Ivan Fedorof, second in command, Mikhaïl Gvoz- def, " geodesist," or surveyor; Herdebal, searcher of ores, and ten sailors. He was to proceed both by land and by sea. From the arsenal at Catherineburg, Siberia, he was to be provided with small cannons and mortars, and ammunition, and a captain of the Siberian regiment of dragoons at Tobolsk, Dmitri Pavlutzki,
1 Müller, Voy. 4, is in error when he says that 'the circumstances on which the captain founded his judgment were false, he being then in a bay which, although one shore did trend to the west, the opposite shore ran again to the east.' Bering's suppositions were correct in every particular.
38
THE KAMCHATKA EXPEDITIONS.
was ordered to join him, each receiving command over four hundred Cossacks, while at the same time all the Cossacks stationed in ostrogs and simovies, or winter-quarters, in the Chukchi district, were placed at their disposal. With these instructions Shestakof returned to Siberia in June 1727. At Tobolsk he re- mained till late in November, wintered on the upper Lena, and arrived at Yakutsk the next summer. There a dispute arose between Shestakof and Pavlutzki, which caused their separation. In 1729 Shestakof went to Okhotsk and there took possession, for the purposes of his expedition, of the vessels with which Bering had lately returned from Kamchatka. On the Ist of September he despatched his cousin, the syn- boyarski, or bastard noble, Ivan Shestakof, in the Gayril to the River Ud, whence he was to proceed to Kam- chatka and begin explorations, while he himself sailed in the Fortuna. This vessel was wrecked near Taniski ostrog, and nearly all on board perished, Shestakof barely saving his life in a canoe. With a small rem- nant of his men and some friendly Tunguses and Kor- iaks he set out for Kamchatka on foot, but on the 14th of March 1730 he was overpowered near the gulf of Penshinsk by a numerous body of Chukchi and received a mortal wound. Only three days before this Shestakof had sent orders to Taniski ostrog that the Cossack Tryfon Krupischef should embark for Bolsheretsk in a sea-going vessel, thence make his way round the southern point of the peninsula, touch at Nishekamchatsk, and proceed to the river Ana- dir. The inhabitants of the "large country lying opposite to this river" he must ask to pay tribute to Russia. Gvozdef, the navigator, was to be taken on board if he desired, and shown every respect.
After battling with adverse winds and misfortunes for about two years, the explorers passed northward along the Asiatic shore, by the gulf of Anadir, noting the Diomede Islands, and perhaps catching a glimpse of the American shore. The leaders were quarrelling
39
WHAT MIKHAIL GVOZDEF SAW.
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
FESTES LAND
VON SIBIRIEN
DAS FESTE LAND VON
Von den Englischen S See fahrernbemerkte Luseln
60
60
INF. PREOBRASHENIE
AMERICA
Chatyrskoi Nos.
Pachatschet Mys.
JOlutorskoi Nos.
KAMTSCHI ATSKISCHES
MEER
Durchfarth Isanok
Morshewolf
Spitze Alaska
SEMIDA
55
017 18 19
KUPFER EYLAND
ALEVTISCHE
216
TUGIDAK
9210
14
Brigin
TAK
UMNAK
UNALASCHKA
ATTU
BULDYR
1º
AGATTU
AMTSCHIGDA
TANAGA
KANAGA
HATCHA
Amlak
50 ==
50
30
20
Længe von Meridian von Ochotsk gerechnet 35
40
45
50
60
65
CHART OF GVOZDEF'S LAND.
712 132 215
Steuermans
UND - FUCHS . EN Ch'S INSTA ERSTE
TSCHUGAY OD
TSCHECHU
Lehrling
JUNAKSA
SEGUYAM AMUCHTAL
Vorman
TANASI
ATSITKIN
Bot S. Michaelbenter dem
ADAK
SHANATAK
KISKA 1-
KADJAK
BERINGSEEYLAND
221
VLN
40
THE KAMCHATKA EXPEDITIONS.
continually, and Fedorof, the navigator in command, was lame and confined to his bed during nearly all the voyage. On their return to Kamchatka they made the most contradictory statements before the author- ities. From Gvozdef's report we are told that at some time during the year 1730 he found himself between latitude 65° and 66°, "on a strange coast, situated opposite, at a small distance from the country of the Chukchi, and that he found people there, but could not speak with them for want of an interpreter."2
The land expedition was more successful. In Sep- tember 1730 Jacob Hens, the pilot, received intelli- gence from Pavlutzki, dated at Nishnekolimsk, to the effect that Shestakof's death would not delay the expedition. Hens was to go with one of the ves- sels left at Okhotsk by Bering, to the river Anadir, to the head-waters of which Pavlutzki was shortly to march. Whereupon Hens proceeded in the Gavril to the mouth of the Kamchatka, where he arrived in July 1731, and was told that a rebellious band of Kamchatkans had come to Nishnekamchatsk ostrog, killed most of the Russians there, and set fire to the houses. The few remaining Russians took shelter in the vessel, and Hens sent men and reduced the Kam- chatkans to obedience. This, however, prevented his going to the Anadir River.
2 Muller's Voyages, 8-11. Of the commander of this expedition, Ivan Fedorof, we have but little information beyond the fact that he died in February 1733, and that he had been with Shestakof's expedition in 1727; that he had been ordered to join him together with the mate Hens, and the surveyor Gvozdef. His companion and assistant, and finally successor in command, Mikhaïl Spiridonovich Gvozdef, began his education in 1716, at the school of navigation, and in 1719 attended the St Petersburg Naval Academy, being in the surveying class. In 1721 he was sent on government duty to Novogorod, where he remained till 1725. In 1727 he graduated as surveyor, and was sent to Siberia to join Shestakof. After his exploration in Bering Strait, he was arrested in 1735 by the governor of Siberia at Tobolsk, upon an erroneous accusation, and sent back to Okhotsk in 1736. In 1741 he explored and surveyed the Okhotsk coast for 200 versts southward, and in 1742 he accompanied midshipman Schelting to the Shantar Islands, at the mouth of the Amoor. After the disbandment of the Kamchatka expedition he remained in Siberia till 1754, when he was appointed teacher in the naval corps of cadets. The date of his death is not known. Zapiski, Hydrografi- cheskago Departamenta, ix. 78-87.
It is possible that Gvozdef's voyage was of greater importance than the
41
HENS AND PAVLUTZKI.
Meanwhile Pavlutzki had arrived at Anadirskoi ostrog in September 1730, and the following year he undertook a campaign against the obstinate Chuk- chi. On the 12th of March 1731 he put in motion his column, composed of 215 Russians, 160 Koriaks, and 60 Yukagirs, moving along the head-waters of some of the northern tributaries of the Anadir, and then turning northward to the coast of the Arctic. After marching two months at the rate of about ten versts a day, stopping frequently to rest, Pav- lutzki arrived at the frozen sea, near the mouth of a river. For two weeks he travelled eastward along the coast, mostly upon the ice and far from the shore. This was done, probably, for the purpose of avoiding an encounter with the natives, but at last, on the 7th of June, a large body of Chukchi was seen advancing,
writers of that period ascribed to it. In the year 1743 Captain Spanberg of Bering's expedition was commissioned by the imperial government to inves- tigate the results of this voyage. In case of a failure to obtain satisfactory information, Spanberg was to take command of another expedition to review and correct the work of Gvozdef and Fedorof. Spanberg evidently entered upon this duty with his usual energy, and as upon his report the order for a new expedition was countermanded from St Petersburg, we may suppose that Spanberg at least was satisfied that the information obtained by Gvozdef and Fedorof was satisfactory. Spanberg found in addition to two depositions made to Gvozdef on the subject an original journal kept by Fedorof alone, 'for his own personal remembrance.' With the help of this document a chart was compiled by Spanberg under Gvozdef's supervision, illustrative of the voyage in question. The chart was finally transmitted to the admiralty college, where copies were executed, but the original can no longer be found. In his journal we find, after a detailed accurate description of the Diomede Islands, leaving no room for doubt as to their identity, an entry to the effect that after sailing from the mouth of the Anadir River they steered in an east- erly direction, and after sailing five days with favorable wind, they saw land on their left side (northerly side), and hoped to find it an island. They made directly for this land, but when they had approached within half a verst, they saw that it was not an island, but a continent. The coast was sand and there were dwellings on the shore, and a number of people. There was also timber on this land, spruce and larch. They coasted along this land, keeping it on the left side for five days, and then, not seeing the end of it, they did not dare to go any farther in that direction because the water became too shallow for their small craft. The same statement was confirmed in the deposition of Shurikhin, a member of the expedition, also examined by Span- berg. Gvozdef, Fedorof, and Shurikhin agree in the statement that the natives of the 'continent' used skin boats covered on top or the Eskimo's kiak, which is found only on the American side of the strait. The descrip- tion of the land would fit well the country about Norton Sound, the only point on all that coast where the timber approaches the shore. The shallow water found going to the southward, would also indicate that they approached the remarkable shoals lying off the mouths of the Yukon River. Sokolof, Istoria; Morskoi Ssbornik, passim.
.
42
THE KAMCHATKA EXPEDITIONS.
and as they would not listen to Pavlutzki's summons to obedience, he attacked and put them to flight. About the last of June another battle was fought and with the same result. After a rest of three days the march toward Chukotskoi Noss was resumed, but another larger body of natives was met with there and a third battle ensued, during which some articles were recovered which had been in possession of Shestakof. Pavlutzki claimed this engagement, also, as a victory and declared his total loss in the three battles to have been but three Russians, one Yukagir, and five Ko- riaks killed. But the Chukchi were by no means subdued. After reaching the cape the expedition re- turned across the country in a south-easterly direction and in October reached ostrog Anadirskoi.3 Pav- lutzki finally died at Yakutsk with the rank of voivod. His explorations were carried on with indomitable courage and rare ability, and altogether his achieve- ments furnish a worthy prelude to those of Bering and Chirikof a few years later. The feat of marching across the country of the warlike Chukchi was not repeated till half a century later, when a party under Billings, not as an army defying interference, but as an humble expedition, were suffered to pass by the insolent natives, who robbed them at every step with impunity.
The second Kamchatka expedition, under the auspices of the empress Elizabeth, was the most brilliant effort toward scientific discovery which up to this time had been made by any government.4 It
8 Muller's Voy., 11-15; Coxe's Russian Discoveries, 237; Burney's Chron. Hist., 128-37, 196 et seq.
4 The sources of information concerning this expedition are numerous, but not altogether satisfactory. The first account, brief and wholly unreliable, was published by the Parisian geographer De L'Isle, in 1752, in a pamphlet entitled Explication de la Carte des Nouvelles Decouvertes au Nord de la Mer du Sud. In 1753 there was printed at Berlin, also in French, and immedi- ately translated into English and German, though never published in Russian, a Letter of a Russian Naval Officer, which was ascribed to Müller, who con- tradicted the statements of De L'Isle, and gave his own version. Engel, in his Geographische und Kritische Nachrichten, ii. 44, 47, endeavors to prove
43
ARCTIC GEOGRAPHY.
must be borne in mind that Siberia, discovered and named by the Cossacks in the sixteenth century, was in the earlier part of the eighteenth but little known to European Russia, and the region round
Müller to be the author of the letter. In 1758 Müller published a volume entitled Voyages and Discoveries of the Russians in the Arctic Sea, and the Eastern Ocean, in both German and Russian, which was translated into Eng- lish in 1771, and into French in 1776. The volume is accompanied by maps, and covers the entire ground, without, however, going into minor details, and without doing justice to the vast work performed by the attendant scientists. This was the chief authority until Sokolof took up the subject in a lengthy communication to the Zapiski Hydrograficheskago Departamenta in 1851.
In 1820 another brief description of the expedition was furnished by Sarychef, under the title of Voyages of Russian Naval Officers in the Arctic Seas, from 1734 to 1742, printed in vol. iv. of the publications of the Russian admiralty department. In the mean time other publications connected with or resulting from the expedition, though not treating of it, appeared at vari- ous times, such as the Flora Siberica, by Gmelin, published serially between 1749 and 1769; A Voyage through Siberia, also by Gmelin, in 1752; A his- tory of Siberia, under the title of Sammlung russischer geschichten, by Müller, in 1732-6; Description of the Kamchatka Country, by Krashennikof, in 1755; History of Siberia, by Fisher, in 1768 (this was in German, the Russian translation appearing only in 1774); Description of the Kamchatka Country, by Steller, in 1774; Journal of a Voyage from Kamchatka to America, also by Steller, published in 1793, in Pallas, Neue Nord. Beitr .; A Detailed Descrip- tion of the Voyages from the White Sea to the Gulf of Obi appeared in the Four Voyages of Lutke, in 1826; in 1841 Wrangell published a Voyage in Siberia, with frequent allusions to the second Kamchatka expedition. A few articles on the results of the expedition in the fields of natural history, astronomy, and history appeared in papers of the Imperial Academy of Sci- ences, and the documents collected by Müller from the Siberian archives for his history of Siberia have been published from time to time in the proceed- ings of the imperial Russian historical and archaeological commission. The most reliable source of information upon this subject has been found in the archives of the Russian naval department. The documents concerning the doings of the Bering expedition comprise 25 large bundles of over 30,000 pages; these documents extend over a period of 17 years, between 1730 and 1747. The archives of the hydrographic department of the Russian navy contain the journals of navigation of nearly all the vessels engaged, all in copies only. The original journals and maps were sent in 1754 to Irkutsk and placed in the hands of Miatlef, governor of Siberia, with a view to a resumption of the labors of the expedition; thence the papers were trans- ferred in 1759 to Governor Saimonof at Tobolsk, and they were finally given to Sokolof, above mentioned, by N. N. Muravief, governor general of eastern Siberia, for the purpose of writing an account of the expedition. The greater part of these documents were copies made by pupils of the naval corps of cadets and of the nantical academy, and though written clearly and care- fully, they are full of egregious errors. The collection comprises over 60 manuscript volumes. The copies of the original maps accompanying the journals were also carelessly made. In the archives and library of the imperial academy there exists the so-called ' Müller Portfolio,' containing a large number of reports, letters, and journals of members of the academy accompanying the expedition, written in Russian, French, German, and Latin. The only naval journal found in this collection was kept by Master Khitrof, and is the most valuable thing in the portfolio. Sokolof's account of the second Kamchatka expedition begins with the following dedication of his work to Peter the Great: 'To thee I dedicate this work, to thee without
44
THE KAMCHATKA EXPEDITIONS.
Kamchatka scarcely at all. The maps of the day were problematical. The semi-geographical mission of the surveyors Lushin and Yevreinof to the Kurile Islands in 1719-21 had been barren of results. The first expedition of Bering from 1725 to 1730 had advanced along the river routes to Okhotsk, thence by sea to Kamchatka, and northward to the straits subsequently named after him, but made few discov- eries of importance, determining the astronomical positions of points and places only by latitude without longitude, but revealing the trend of the Kamchatka coast to the northward. The expedition of Shestakof from 1727 to 1732 was more of a military nature, and resulted in little scientific information. The ex- ploration of Hens, Fedorof, and Gvozdef, made about the same time, was scarcely more satisfactory in its results, though it served to confirm some things re- ported by Bering during his first voyage.
Russia wished to know more of this vast uncovered region, wished to map its boundaries, and mark off her claim. The California coast had been explored as far as Cape Mendocino, but over the broad area thence to the Arctic there still hung the great North- ern Mystery,5 with its Anian Strait, and silver moun- tains, and divers other fabulous tales. The northern provinces of Japan were likewise unknown to the enlightened world; and now the Muscovite, who had sat so long in deep darkness, would teach even the Celt and Saxon a thing or two.
Soon after the return of Bering from his first expe- dition, namely, on the 30th of April 1730, the com- mander presented to the empress two letters called by him, "Proposals for the Organization of the
whom it would not exist, since the discoveries described in the same are the fruit of the great ideas conceived by thee, the benefactor, father, and organizer of this vast empire; to thee are thy subjects indebted for law, good order, and influence within and without, as well as for morality, knowledge, and every- thing else that makes a nation fortunate and important.' Zapiski Hydrografi- cheskago Departamenta, ix. 199.
5 For a full exposition of which see Ilist. Northwest Coast, i., and Hist. Cal., i., passim, this series.
45
SCIENTISTS IN SIBERIA.
Okhotsk and Kamchatka country," and advised an immediate discovery of routes to America and Japan for the purpose of establishing commercial relations with these countries. He also recommended that the northern coast of the empire between the rivers Ob and Lena be thoroughly explored.6 The organization of the country already known, commanded the first attention of the empress, to which end she issued, on the 10th of May 1731, an oukaz ordering the former chief prokuror, or sergeant-at-arms of the senate, Skorniakof Pisaref, then in exile, to assume control of the extreme eastern country, and be furnished with the necessary means to advance its interests. The residence of the new official was to be Okhotsk, to which point laborers and settlers were to be sent from Yakutsk, together with a boat-builder, three mates, and a few mechanics.7 The exile-governor did not however long hold his position. Scarcely had he assumed office when the second Kamchatka expedi- tion was decided upon and Vitus Bering received the supreme command of all the territory included in his explorations.
At that time several circumstances combined to carry forward the plans of Bering to their highest consummation. The empire was at peace and the imperial cabinet was presided over by Count Oster- mann, who had formerly been secretary of Admiral Cruce, and had devoted considerable attention to naval affairs. In the senate the expedition was earnestly supported by the chief secretary Kirilof; in the ad- miralty college Count Golovin presided as the ruling
6 Appendix to Sokolof's Second Expedition. Zapiski Hydrograficheskago Departamenta, ix. 434.
7 Grigor Skorniakof Pisaref was appointed to command Okhotsk as an in- dependent district. His annual salary was fixed at 300 rubles, 100 bushels of rye meal, and 100 buckets of brandy. This individual had a checkered career. In 1715 he was a captain in the Preobrashenski lifeguards, and attached to the academy of naval artillery; in 1719, he was made comman- der of the naval academy; in 1720 he published a book, Practical Manual of Statistics and Mechanics; in 1722 he was made 'chief prokuror' of the senate; in 1723 he was relieved from the academy by Captain Narishkin; in 1727, he was punished with the knout and sent to Siberia as an exile. Morskoi Sbor- nik, i. 11, 17.
46
THE KAMCHATKA EXPEDITIONS.
spirit, while the prokuror was Saimonof, the rival of Kirilof. The foreign members of the Academy of Sciences, in order to preserve their prestige, were looking about for fields of activity, anxious to serve their new fatherland. The spirit of Peter the Great was yet alive among the leading subjects of the empire; his plans were still fresh in the memory of men, and all were eager to execute his progressive purposes. And soon all Siberia was flooded with men of science searching out things both larger and smaller than sables, and throwing Cossack and promyshlenik completely into the shade. By toilsome processes the necessary means of subsistence and materials were collected at the central stations throughout Siberia, and along the thirteen hundred leagues of Arc- tic sea-coast were placed at various points magazines of supplies for explorers. From six to seven months were sometimes occupied in transporting from the forest to the seaports trees for ship-building. And many and wide-spread as were the purposes, every man had his place. To every scientist was given his work and his field, to every captain the river he was to reconnoitre, or the coast he was to explore. And when the appointed time came there set forth simultane- ously, from all the chief river-mouths in Siberia, like birds of passage, little exploring expeditions, to begin their battle with the ice and the morass. Some brought their work to a quick and successful issue; others encountered the sternest difficulties.
But the adventures which chiefly concern us are those pointing toward the American continent, which were indeed the central idea of all these undertakings, and by far the most important outcome from this Siberian invasion by the scientists. Before embark- ing on the first great eastern voyage of discovery, let us glance at the personnel of the expedition.
Captain-commander Ivan Ivanovich Bering, so the Russians called him, notwithstanding his baptismal name of Vitus, was a Dane by birth, as I have said, who
47
PETER'S INSTRUCTIONS.
had been in the Russian naval service about thirty years, advancing gradually from the rank of sub-lieuten- ant since 1704. He was strong in body and clear of mind even when nearly sixty; an acknowledged man of intelligence, honesty, and irreproachable conduct, though in his later years he displayed excessive care- fulness and indecision of character, governed too much by temper and caprice, and submitting too easily to the influence of subordinates. This may have been the effect of age, or of disease; but whatever the cause, he was rendered thereby less fit to command, especially so im- portant and hazardous an adventure in so inhospitable a region as Siberia at the beginning of the eighteenth century. He had been selected by Peter the Great to command the first expedition upon the representa- tions of admirals Seniavin and Sievers, because " he had been to India and knew all the approaches to that country."8 After his return he had advanced gradu-
8 In the archives of the admiralty council in St Petersburg there is still preserved a manuscript copy of the original instructions indited by Peter the Great for the first Bering expedition. The instructions were finally promul- gated by the admiralty college, or perhaps by Count Apraxin, and had been corrected in the great tsar's own handwriting, to read as follows:
'1. To select such surveyors as have been in Siberia and have returned thence; upon which, at request of the senate, the following surveyors were ordered to the province of Siberia: Ivan Evreinof (died), Feodor Lushin, Peter Skobeltzin, Ivan Svostunof, Dmitri Baskakof, Vassili Shetilof, and Grigor Putilof.
'2. To select from naval lieutenants or second lieutenants, such as are fit to be sent to Siberia and Kamchatka. In the opinion of Vice-admiral Sievers and Contre-admiral Seniavin, the most desirable individuals of that class were lieu- tenants Stanberg (Spanberg?), Zveref or Kessenkof, and the sub-lieutenants Chirikof and Laptief. It would not be bad to place over these as commander either Captain Bering or Von Verd; Bering has been to East India and knows the routes, and Von Verd was his mate.
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