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The Pacific Passages

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase opened an important chapter in the story of Russian-American friendship. By that shrewd acquisition, the United States extended its territory far into the northwest, lands that today take in all or part of twelve states. Even before the conclusion of negotiations. Thomas Jefferson had commissioned Lewis and Clark to undertake their monumental journey of exploration into that unknown hinterland. The elusive Northwest Passage, a potential trade route to Asia, had been sought for over three hundred years, and the hope of securing it continued. The formidable Rockies, however, proved to be an insurmountable obstacle — exploration abruptly stopped. Although Lewis and Clark returned home in 1806 with a trove scientific data, promise of an easy access to the Pacific had been crushed.

But the expedition by the two explorers did ignite the imagination of a singular immigrant, John Jacob Astor, a butcher’s son from Waldorf, Germany. Arriving in the United States in 1784 at the age twenty to join his brother, Astor developed a fascination with furs. The young man had ample business sense, including insight, patience, perseverance, and a penchant for risk-taking. It didn’t take long for him to parlay a modest New York fur shop into the American Fur Company, a vast organization that came to dominate the fur trade of central and northern United States. It was America’s first monopoly. By 1808, Astor was a man of untold wealth.[1]

Early in his expansionist years, John Jacob recognized the potential offered by the Pacific coast. Not only did its shores provide easy access to the lucrative markets of the Far East, but they were also home to countless thousands of sea otters, their extraordinary glossy, rich, and soft pelts much in demand. In 1810, he travelled to those distant parts, and stopped at the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon. There he established a trading post that he named Astoria — much credit for the American presence on the Pacific coast, therefore, belongs to that venturesome German immigrant.

The Russians, however, had already been on North American shores of the Pacific for seventy years. From the times of Ivan IV, his people had been pushing east from Moscow across the Urals into Siberia. These were mostly Cossacks, traders, and trappers, plus a handful of missionaries. By the early seventeenth century, Irkutsk in central Siberia had grown into a commercial centre for the vast hinterland. Nascent trade relations with China were proving lucrative — tea, silk, and other luxuries were acquired in exchange for furs. Merchants and trappers pressed farther and farther east until the Pacific Ocean was finally reached in 1639 — on the Sea of Okhotsk north of Japan. With expanding Asian demand for furs, Moscow sought more effective and less costly means of transport of goods — ideally an avenue through the Arctic Ocean. Since most of the great Siberian rivers flowed into those polar waters, new and rich fur-trapping grounds would open up inland as explorers continued their work.

In 1721 Peter the Great burst onto the Russian stage, a man of boundless energy, intellectual curiosity and unfettered ambition. His overriding priorities were to consolidate and expand the empire and to bring his people into the world outside their country. Like the double-headed eagle in the Russian coat of arms, Peter gazed simultaneously in both directions — a push to the east was no less important than the much-coveted “window to the west.” The idea of a northeast passage, a sea lane that would connect Russia with China, intrigued him, as it would be a splendid avenue for developing the lucrative fur trade with the Far East and for expanding the empire.

Peter the Great.

William Faithorne. Engraving, c. 1700. Library of Congress.

Early in Peter’s reign, the young tsar had travelled to Western Europe, where, among other activities, he laboured as a volunteer carpenter in the Amsterdam shipyards of the East India Company. He was fixated on mastering every aspect of warship construction.[2] During that tour, he spent sixteen weeks in England, where in 1698 he met William Penn. The eccentric Quaker was not only a man of intellect and breadth of interests, but he also spoke Dutch, a language in which Peter had greater fluency than English. In his student days, Penn was much admired for his athletic ability but criticized for an exaggerated piety. He was expelled from Oxford for non-conformity; soon afterwards, Penn was imprisoned by London authorities on the same charge. But he was not held for long. Years later, Charles II awarded Penn the proprietary rights to the colony of Pennsylvania — a repayment of an enormous debt owed the father.

Not without reason, Peter was charmed by this uncommon individual, despite Penn’s irritating attempts to convert him to Quakerism. The two took special delight in debating matters related to exploration and geography. It was in one of these sessions that Penn challenged Peter to determine whether North America was connected by land to Asia.[3]

And now, in 1725, at the twilight of his reign Peter set out to meet that challenge. On the recommendation of the Ministry of Marine, he appointed Captain Vitus Bering to undertake an exploration east. A Dane serving in the Russian navy, Bering was reputed to be audacious and single-minded as well as in possession of sharp seamanship skills. He had once sailed from Denmark to the East Indies — a daring voyage for those days. But the man’s scientific training was sorely lacking, as well as any sense of curiosity.

The tsar commissioned him to cross Siberia to the shores of the Pacific, and from there do what was necessary to ascertain whether a physical connection existed between Siberia and North America. If not, the Dane was to carry on with the search for the elusive passage west via the Arctic Ocean. If anyone could do it, it would be the likes of Bering. Peter, however, did not live to savour the fruit of his initiative. Within six months, he died at age fifty-three — all but ten of them as autocratic sovereign of the massive Russian empire. His widow and successor, Catherine I, endorsed the commission, and urged Bering to get on with it. The instructions dictated by Peter are brilliant, as much for their brevity and as for their naiveté. In part:

1 You shall cause one or two convenient vessels to be built at Kamchatka or elsewhere.

2 You shall endeavor to discover, by coasting with these vessels, whether the country towards the north, of which at present we have no knowledge, is a part of America, or not.

3 If it joins to the continent of America, you shall endeavour, if possible, to reach some colony belonging to some European power. In case you meet with any European ship, you shall diligently inquire the name of the coasts, and such other circumstances as it is in your power to learn. These you will commit to writing, so that we may have some certain memoirs by which a chart may be constructed.[4]

On the morning of Sunday, January 24, 1725, twenty-five sleds pulled out from the Admiralty in St. Petersburg with an entourage of ninety-seven carpenters, blacksmiths, seamen, and support staff. Bering had begun an arduous twenty-one-month passage to the Sea of Okhotsk across seemingly endless and inhospitable stretches of Siberia. Roads for the most part were non-existent and those available were primitive. Numerous rivers had to be forded without available boats. Settlements were few and far between. Freezing temperatures and deep snows brought misery in winter; unbearable heat and clouds of mosquitoes were common in summer. Their first winter was especially harsh — “the local people who have lived here more than twenty years say that it is the worst winter in memory,” one diarist noted. The passage of the resolute travellers was made all the more laborious by the immense quantity of food and equipment being hauled. Additionally, a hefty amount of iron was loaded aboard the sledges, material deemed essential for the construction of a vessel sturdy enough to battle the roughest waters. Builders on the Okhotsk normally used leather thongs to strap together a ship.

The tiny settlement of Okhotsk proved to be a miserable collection of native huts and houses belonging to a handful of Russian colonists. Since departing St. Petersburg, nearly two years had passed, and five thousand miles had been travelled. At this point, in keeping with the Russian naval tradition of consultation with subordinates, Bering summoned a conference to consider the next step. Despite their fatigue, they agreed to speed up matters, all in the interests of a rapid return home. They would now push forward to Kamchatka, another thousand miles. By the early spring of 1727, Bering’s party had not only established itself on the peninsula’s forlorn coastline, but the men had constructed a shipyard of sorts. A rapid start was made in the building of a vessel, and in less than three months the job was done. The iron brought from St. Petersburg was indeed an effective means of reinforcing the hull, but the caulking was primitive, made from heavy grass bonded together by a crude tar distilled from bark. On July 13, the St. Gabriel was launched and Bering immediately set sail on his mission. Access to the Northeast Passage would be his — if, in fact, it existed.

Winter comes early to those parts and that year the weather turned steadily foul at the start of September. Continuous fogs and drenching rains beset the tiny vessel. Frigid, depressing dampness enveloped the decks of the St. Gabriel. The hull’s rudimentary caulking began to give way, and what started as minor seepage developed into a worrisome flow, which seemed to increase by the hour. After fifty-three days at sea, shipboard conditions had become wretched. Weather and high seas were developing into a threat. The Siberian coast seemed to go on and on — and there was no sign of a connection with America. Enough was enough. The dispirited Bering wished nothing more than to quit the inhospitable waters and return to St. Petersburg, and his colleagues agreed unanimously.

The St. Gabriel in its sail had all along been hugging the Russian coastline, land to port and heavy fog to starboard. In reaching 67º 18' north, Bering had in fact penetrated the Arctic Ocean, and unwittingly sailed through the very strait they were seeking. It was at this juncture that Bering came about for the return home “because the coast did not extend farther north and no land was near.”

On the return passage, the fog cleared sufficiently to reveal a small, rocky island, which Bering named St. Diomede (known today as Big Diomede). Had the Dane ventured to circumnavigate the island, he would undoubtedly have spotted Little Diomede, the place where the unwavering Lynne Cox started her swim in the 1980s. But lacking the will for further exploration and because the fog closed in once more, he never laid eyes on the American shoreline. Sighting or no sighting, Bering was satisfied that the two continents were unconnected.

By March 1729 the expedition returned home after an absence of four years. The fledgling Academy of Science received Bering’s comprehensive report with skepticism and no small degree of dissatisfaction. The academicians heatedly debated the data, which for the most part they judged inconclusive. Agreement was eventually reached and a report submitted to the newly enthroned Empress Anna. The sovereign concurred with the Academy of Science’s recommendations and agreed to send a follow-up expedition to the Pacific. Despite the manifold criticism and rebuke that had been levelled at Bering, he successfully persuaded the authorities once more to trust him, but this time with an enlarged (and significantly more costly) enterprise.

The objective of his new commission was twofold: first, to explore a coastline east of Siberia, which charts showed was there, a land called Terra da Gama.[5] Bering and crew were to find it and proceed south as far as latitude 46° (5.5 on today’s maps, a point just north of the U.S.-Canadian border); second, the expedition was to return north and continue the search for the Northeast Passage.

In the spring of 1733, the fifty-three-year-old Dane set out once more from St. Petersburg to travel the arduous trans-Siberian route to Kamchatka again. On the earlier expedition, he carried nearly a hundred men. By the time the second expedition was completed, three thousand men had been drawn into the work. The original budget for the enterprise was ten thousand rubles, but it ultimately cost over three hundred thousand rubles. It took the cumbersome enterprise eight years to cross the immense distance, to establish a base of operations on the Okhotsk and to complete the construction of two vessels. (It might be noted, however, that much of the time spent on the trans-Siberian segment had been devoted to assigned scientific studies.)

Bering christened his two new ships the St. Peter and the St. Paul. They were small double-masted riggers, approximately eighty feet in length, each carrying fourteen guns. He commanded the St. Peter; the sister ship was under Captain Alexei Chirikov, a veteran of the first expedition. Chirikov was much younger than the Dane, but he was well educated in the sciences and possessed a developed sense of curiosity. The vessels sailed out of Kamchatka on June 4, 1741, and headed due east to Terra da Gama, whatever it was.

The best of plans can go astray and these certainly did. Shortly after quitting Russian shores, an impenetrable fog enveloped the ships and sight of each other was lost. Days of circling and searching for the other came to naught. In exasperation, the two frustrated captains, each on his own, gave up the exercise and continued on solo.

A fortnight later, Chirikov was making slow but steady progress south, confident that the elusive shore lay just ahead. Then, on July 26, through the gloom of lingering fog, a flock of forest birds were heard and then sighted. They hovered over the ship, circled a couple of times, and landed on the St. Paul’s yardarms. This was clear evidence that land was nearby.

Two days later, the vessel dropped anchor just off the shore, in a wide basin of still water. The shoreline seemed to blend neatly into the woodland, which rose vertically into sharp mountains. Latitude 55º 21' had been reached, just south of Sitka, midway down the Alaskan panhandle. Delighted with the prospect of replenishing the ship’s supply of freshwater and the larder with meat, Chirikov dispatched a party of crew members to feel out the prospects. Hours passed with no return of the men — then more hours passed. The worried captain sent out more crew to search for the missing party, and these men also failed to return.

Eight anxiety-filled days passed. Then, at a distance, two dugouts of Natives were spotted paddling toward the ship. When they came within hailing distance, one of the Natives stood up and, gesticulating angrily with his arms, let fly with an unintelligible stream of words. The perplexing message delivered, the two little boats paddled away speedily. Chirikov notes dryly in his diary, “Some misfortune had happened to our men.… The fact that the Americans did not dare to approach our ship leads us to believe that they have either killed or detained our men.” Whatever happened, his crew had vanished, as though swallowed up by the eerie silence that now resounded all about.

The lengthy passage to American shores in untenable conditions was bad enough. The disappearance of fellow crew members, plus the unfriendly encounter with the Natives, was even more unsettling for those remaining on board the St. Paul. The men petitioned Chirikov to quit the terrible place for a prompt return home. As he thought about the idea, the situation grew worse — mutiny was in the air. With little to gain by remaining where they were, he gave in. Anchor was weighed and sails were raised for a return to Kamchatka, despite the nearly empty water casks and sparse larder.

On October 19, the battered St. Paul at last reached its destination. The crossing had been anything but smooth — appalling weather, high seas, privation of every sort, and illness plus torn sails and a leaking hull all played havoc with the voyage. For a significant portion of the trip, the captain had been bedridden with an unidentified illness.

Days after their arrival in Kamchatka, Chirikov died.

While Chirikov had been following his path, Bering — chagrined over having lost the St. Paul — continued on his own way. But everything changed for Bering and his crew on July 6. The fog unexpectedly cleared and skies opened up into dazzling blue. Ahead of him, a brilliant congregation of snow-covered peaks came into view, soaring almost vertically — the range that stands on the Alaskan-Canadian border, with mountains exceeding eighteen thousand feet. Bering named the tallest one Mount St. Elias. Today’s visitors to the area are no less awed by the sight of it all than were those early Russian explorers. For them, however, it was not simply dazzling nature; it was justification for years of gruelling search. The American continent had been found, unconnected to Siberia.

As suddenly as the skies had cleared for the St. Peter, they became thick again; the ship once more found itself in dense fog. Bering couldn’t wait to quit the place — enough of rain and fog, of fickle sea, and volatile winds. He was satisfied that his commission had been executed — they had actually seen the separate continent, and that was sufficient, so it was time to turn about and head for home. After a steady month at sea, however, his shipmates were unready for an immediate departure; they yearned to stretch their legs and run about. The scientists on board particularly objected — the new land promised to be a trove for discovery. Only upon the strongest persuasion of his senior officers and the scientists did Bering grudgingly acquiesce and permit a ten-hour shore leave. He himself did not go ashore — the discoverer of Alaska never set foot on it.

With shore leave over, the impatient Bering turned the St. Peter about, and made sail for Kamchatka. The story of that return journey is a lamentable saga. Shortly after quitting Alaskan waters, a wave of much-dreaded scurvy struck the unfortunate crew — eleven men eventually died and virtually everyone else became incapacitated to some extent. Weeks later, when they were at the farthest point of the Aleutian archipelago, a violent gale struck with overwhelming force. Try as they did, the decimated crew was unable to cope with the frightful situation. Bering decided that their only salvation was to beach the ship on one of the nearby islands. The St. Peter was steered ashore, beached, and in the process wrecked. The stranded crew camped over the long, dark, and frigid winter months in conditions beyond the pale.

Their island was teeming with foxes, and their curiosity was aroused since they never had encountered humans. Initially, they circled the encampment cautiously, but with each ensuing visit they became increasingly bold and more aggressive. So close did the fearless foxes approach that the men were forced to beat them off with clubs — scores were thus killed and skinned. The pelts were bountiful enough for fur coats to be stitched for each crew member. Fox pelts were also used for caulking the makeshift cabins the group had built.

With the passing of time, illness — scurvy above all — took its toll on the men and many lives were lost. The frozen ground made proper burial impossible. The deceased, therefore, were dragged away distantly, but insufficiently far to prevent the spectacle of foxes fighting over and playing with the cadavers.

As critical as conditions were during those months, most of the crew survived principally because of the abundant animal life. Slowly over time, a small, rudimentary vessel was ingeniously constructed from the wreckage of the St. Peter. In spring, surviving crew members managed to raise sail and reach home base on Kamchatka. Among those welcoming the returnees were a handful of colleagues — the survivors of the ill-fated St. Paul.

What a curious spectacle it must have been: a bearded, bedraggled bevy of wild-looking individuals garbed from head to toe in fox furs. (Vitus Bering was not among them. At age sixty, the expedition leader had quietly died of scurvy months earlier.)

The discovery that Asia and America were unconnected ultimately proved to be an unimportant one. Nothing really came of the Northeast Passage — nor, for that matter, of the Northwest Passage — and the rich benefits Peter had envisioned accruing to Russia were illusory. And poor Bering. What he did not know was that Europeans had long before found the strait that eventually came to bear his name. In 1648, an adventurous Cossack, Semyon Dezhnev, had sailed a flimsy boat from the mouth of the Kolyma River at the eastern reaches of the Arctic Ocean south through the strait. The record of that particular exploit, however, was uncovered only in 1736, at the very time that Bering was at sea carrying out his explorations.

Northeast Passage or not, a successful offshoot of Bering’s expeditions was the greatly expanded knowledge not only of Siberia’s Pacific coast but also of its interior. But above all, through the discovery of Alaska and northern American territories, the Dane brought to Russia and Europe a clear understanding of the immense potential of the Pacific fur trade. The Asiatic and American shores teemed with fur-bearing animals, all there pretty much for the taking. At no time was this more graphically illustrated than when Bering’s bedraggled, fur-clad crew stepped ashore on Kamchatka lugging bundles of high-quality pelts — seal, sea otter, and blue fox, in particular.

By the time John Jacob Astor made his venturous move in establishing his Oregon trading post on the Columbia, enterprising Russians had long been reaping rich harvests from the craggy shores and the boundless northern forests. Northeast of Astor’s outpost, inland within the British territory of western Canada, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company were prospering mightily in the fur trade.

Eleven years before Lewis and Clark began their effort to search out an overland passage to the Pacific, an employee of the North West Company in Canada successfully achieved precisely that. Setting out from the inner part of the continent, Alexander Mackenzie and his party of nine crossed the Rockies in 1793 and made it to the Pacific Ocean.

They did it in just over a hundred days. The nine-member party travelled in three birch bark canoes, carrying limited supplies. The expedition commissioned by Thomas Jefferson, on the other hand, was staffed by a well-equipped force of forty-five trained soldiers travelling in sturdy vessels, fully equipped.

On a boulder in Bella Coola, the Canadians inscribed in vermilion and bear grease the words “Alex Mackenzie from Canada by land, 22nd July 1793.” Years later, a similar inscription was carved on a tree: “Capt William Clark December 3rd 1805 by land. U. States in 1804–1805.”

Alexander Mackenzie, a Canadian hero who showed that the impossible was possible ... and in the process indirectly helped to send off Lewis and Clark on their mission.