Vitus Bering Stuff

Bibliography: See F. A. Golder, Bering's Voyages (2
vol., 1922-25); G. F. Muller (1986) and C. Urness (1987).

Vitus Bering
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Vitus Bering
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Vitus Jonassen Bering (also, less correctly,
Behring) (August 1681–December 19, 1741) was a
Danish-born navigator in the service of the Russian
Navy, a captain-komandor known among the Russian
sailors as Ivan Ivanovich. He was born in the town
of Horsens in Denmark and died at Bering Island,
near the Kamchatka Peninsula.

After a voyage to the East Indies, he joined the
Russian Navy in 1703, serving in the Baltic Fleet
during the Great Northern War. In 1710–1712 he
served in the Azov Sea Fleet and took part in the
Russo-Turkish War. He married a Russian woman, and
in 1715 he made a brief visit to his hometown,
never to see it again. A series of explorations of
the north coast of Asia, the outcome of a
far-reaching plan devised by Peter the Great, led
up to Bering's first voyage to Kamchatka. In 1725,
under the auspices of the Russian government, he
went overland to Okhotsk, crossed to Kamchatka, and
built the ship Sviatoi Gavriil (St. Gabriel).
Aboard the ship, Bering pushed northward in 1728,
until he could no longer observe any extension of
the land to the north, or its appearance to the east.

In the following year he made an abortive search
for mainland eastward, rediscovering one of the
Diomede Islands (Ratmanov Island) observed earlier
by Dezhnev. In the summer of 1730, Bering returned
to St. Petersburg. During the long trip through
Siberia along the whole Asian continent, he became
very ill. Five of his children died during this
trip. Bering was subsequently commissioned to a
further expedition, and returned to Okhotsk in
1735. He had the local craftsmen Makar Rogachev and
Andrey Kozmin build two vessels, Sviatoi Piotr (St.
Peter) and Sviatoi Pavel (St. Paul), in which he
sailed off and in 1740 established the settlement
of Petropavlovsk in Kamchatka. From there, he led
an expedition towards North America in 1741. A
storm separated the ships, but Bering sighted the
southern coast of Alaska, and a landing was made at
Kayak Island or in the vicinity. Under the command
of Aleksei Chirikov, the second ship discovered the
shores of the northwestern America (Aleksander
Archipelago of present-day Alaska). These voyages
of Bering and Chirikov were a major part of the
Russian exploration efforts in the North Pacific
known today as the Great Northern Expedition.

Bering was soon forced by adverse conditions to
retrn, and he discovered some of the Aleutian
Islands on his way back. One of the sailors died
and was buried on one of these islands, and the
group was named after him (as the Shumagin
Islands). Bering became too ill to command his
ship, which was at last driven to refuge on an
uninhabited island in the Commander Islands group
(Komandorskiye Ostrova) in the southwest Bering
Sea, where Bering himself and 28 men of his company
died. This island bears his name. A storm
shipwrecked Sv. Piotr, but the only surviving
carpenter, S. Starodubtsev, with the help of the
crew managed to build a smaller vessel out of the
wreckage. The new vessel had a keel length of only
12.2 meters (40 feet) and was also named Sv. Piotr.
Out of 77 men aboard Sv. Piotr, only 46 survived
the hardships of the expedition which claimed its
last victim just one day before coming into home
port. Sv. Piotr was in service for 12 years,
sailing between Kamchatka and Okhotsk until 1755.
Its builder, Starodubtsev, returned home with
governmental awards and later built several other
seaworthy ships.

for many years, but Captain Cook was able to prove
Bering's accuracy as an observer. Nowadays, the
Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, and
the Bering Land Bridge bear the explorer's name.

In August 1991, Bering's grave and the graves of
five other seamen were discovered by a
Russian-Danish expedition. The remains were
transported to Moscow where they were investigated
by the forensic physicians who succeeded in
recreating Bering's appearance. Examination of
Bering's teeth showed no sign of scurvy, leading to
the conclusion that he died of some other disease.
In 1992, Bering and the other sailors were
re-buried on Bering Island.
[edit]

See also

* Georg Steller

[edit]

References

* This article incorporates text from the 1911
Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public
domain.

* G. F. Müller, Sammlung russischer
Geschichten, vol. iii. (St Petersburg, 1758)
* P. Lauridsen, Bering og de Russiske
Opdagelsesrejser (Copenhagen, 1885)

Vitus Bering
(1681 - 1741)

Timeline

Amundsen

Baffin

Barents
Bering

Davis

Franklin

Frobisher
Hudson

Nansen

NW Passage

Parry

Peary

Rasmussen

Ross

Stefansson

Vitus Jonassen Bering was a Danish navigator and
explorer. Under the service of the Russian Navy, he
is credited with discovering Alaska and the strait
between it and Russia. This strait, and its
associated sea, are both named for him.

Bering actually duplicated the discovery by Semyon
Dezhnev, who sailed in 1648 but whose report lay
unnoticed until the 18th century. Chosen to lead an
expedition seeking a sea route around Siberia to
China (the so called Northeast Passage), Bering was
also sent to survey the possibility of Russian
expansion into the North American continent.

Departing Kamchatka, Siberia in 1728 Bering
explored the northeastern coast of Russia, sailing
south through the Bering Sea and into the Bering
Strait. On August 16, 1728, his crew sighted the
Diomede Islands on St. Diomede's Day. The three
miles separating Big Diomede Island (Asia) and
Little Diomede Island (North America) is the
shortest distance between the two continents. The
International Date Line runs right between them.
Continuing on his journey, Bering and his crew were
prevented from finding the coast of Alaska by bad
weather and dangerous ice conditions which
eventually forced their return.

A second expedition, launched in 1733, was
overambitious, poorly organized, and underfinanced,
but it did succeed in mapping much of the Siberian
coast. Sailing again in 1741, Bering reached the
southwest coast of Alaska, exploring several of the
Aleutian Islands. Misfortune and hardship plagued
the two ships, which became separated. The crews
were both racked by scurvy. Eventually Bering's
ship was wrecked, and he died on December 19, 1741
on the island that today bears his name. A few
survivors reached Russia to tell of their
exploration.

Bering Sea

The Bering Sea extends 1,488 miles east to west and
992 miles north to south. Its area is about 878,000
square miles and the greatest depth is 13,500 feet.

Bering Strait

Frozen over from October until June, the Bering
Strait is an arm of the North Pacific Ocean,
bounded on the east by Alaska, on the south by the
Aleutian Islands, and on the west by Siberia
(Russian Asia) and the Kamchatka Peninsula. It
averages between 100 and 170 feet deep.

Vitus Bering was a Danish navigator and notable
explorer. He was born in Horsens, Jutland in 1681.
When he was still a young man, he left for the sea,
and spent most of his life exploring. He joined the
Russian Navy in 1703, married and fathered several
children.

Bering distinguished himself during Russia's war
with Sweden, and when it concluded, he was employed
by Russia to seek out the eastern-most limits of
the north coast of Asia. In those days, much of the
world was uncharted, and it was still not known
whether Asia and America were connected or separate
land masses. Bering left St. Petersburg on February
5, 1725 leading an expedition that travelled across
Siberia and set up a base in Kamchatka. From here,
they constructed ships and prepared for sea. In
1728, he sailed through the strait that now bears
his name, proving that indeed America and Asia were
separate continents. The expedition returned to St.
Petersburg in 1730.

Russia commissioned Bering for another expedition,
an enormous undertaking that became known as The
Great Nordic Expedition. Some say that ten thousand
men took part in the quest to map the
Russian-Siberian coast, and the western coast of
America, as far south as Mexico. It wasn't until
1740 that Bering reached Kamchatka, having spent
the first years of the journey exploring northern
Siberia. The 1733 expedition eventually spanned a
decade. Bering sighted the volcano Mount Saint
Elias in 1741, and sailed past Kodiak Island.
Storms and sickness prevented Bering from
completing his explorations, however. His ship
became wrecked on a desolate island (later named
for him), and Bering died on the island in December
of 1741. Vitus Jonassen Bering

Born: 1681
Place: Horsens, Jutland
Died: December 19, 1741
Place: Bering Island Vitus Bering was one of
the world's famous explorers. In 1728, Bering
discovered that Asia and America are two separate
continents, and in 1741 he was the first one to map
the west coast of Alaska. As Columbus tied together
the world to the west, Bering tied it together to
the east.

Horsens 1677. By Peder Hansen Resen.
Horsens 1677. By Peder Hansen Resen.


Vitus Jonassen Bering was born in Horsens in
1681. He went to sea as a young man and began a
long career as a seaman. In 1703, Bering enlisted
in the Russian navy. He moved to Russia, where he
got married and had children. Apart from a single
visit to Copenhagen in 1715, Bering never saw
Denmark again.

The first Kamchatka Expedition (1725-1730)
In the early 18th century it was unknown whether
America was connected with Asia. Therefore the
Russian Zar, Peter the Great (1672-1725), sent out
an expedition lead by Vitus Bering to solve the
proplem. The expedition travelled through Siberia
and reached Kamchatka, where a camp wass set up and
ships were built.
On the 13th of August 1728, Bering sailed round the
north-east corner of Asia, thus proving that there
was water between Asia and America. The American
coast was hidden in fog, though. Bering returned to
Sct. Petersburg with the news but was criticised
for not having actually seen the American coast.

The second Kamchatka Expedition (1733-1743)
The second Kamchatka Expedition, the so-called
Great Nordic Expedition, was the largest expedition
the world ever saw. It included 10.000 men all in
all. Vitus Bering was the leader and besides the
overall organisation it was his task to find and
map the west coast of America. He reached America
on the 15th of July 1741.
On the way home his ship stranded on a small bare
island. Bering and his crew had to spend the winter
on the island, living in driftwood huts that were
dug into the sand. It was later given the name
Bering Island.

Bering is found
Although world famous, the exact look of Vitus
Bering is unknown. A few portraits exist, but there
are doubts about their authenticity. This was the
primary reason for establishing a Soviet-Danish
research team which was to find and excavate
Bering's grave and subsequently recreate his face
from the cranium. The research team consisted of
Soviet archaeologists and forensic physicians as
well as archaeologists from Horsens' Museum.

Vitus Bering

In August 1991, Bering's grave and the graves
of five other seamen were discovered. The remains
were transported to Moscow where they were
investigated by the forensic physicians who
succeeded in recreating Bering's appearance. In
1992, Vitus Bering and the other seamen were buried
again on the Bering Island.

The exhibition in Horsens' Museum shows the exiting
expedition in words and pictures and also exhibits
the interesting results of forensic medicine in
theLauridsen, Peter. Vitus Bering: The Discoverer
of Bering Strait, S.C. Griggs, 1889, reprinted by
Books for Libraries Press, 1969.

· Golder, Frank A. Bering's Voyages, 2 volumes,
American Geographical Society, 1922.

· Stejneger, Leonhard. Georg Wilhelm Steller: The
Pioneer of Alaskan Natural History, Harvard
University Press, 1936.

· Frost, O.W., ed. Steller, Journal of a Voyage
with Bering, 1741-1742, Stanford University Press,
1988.

· Waxell, Sven. The Russian Expedition to America,
introduction, translation and notes by M.A.
Michael, Collier Books, 1962.

· Krasheninnikov, S.P. Explorations of Kamchatka,
North Pacific Scimitar, translated by E.A.P.
Crownhart-Vaughan, Oregon Historical Society, 1972.
Other Excellent Sources

· Coxe, William. The Russian Discoveries between
Asia and America, 2nd edition, T. Cadell, 1780,
reproduction by Readex Microprint, 1966.

· Dall, William H. A Critical Review of Bering's
First Expedition, 1725-30: Together with a
Translation of His Original Report upon It, Ye
Galleon Press, 2000.

· Dall, William H. Early Expeditions to the Region
of Bering Sea and Strait: From the Reports and
Journals of Vitus Ivanovich Bering, translated by
William H. Dall, with a summary of the journal kept
by Peter Chaplin, U.S. Government Printing Office,
1891.

· Divin, Vasilii A. The Great Russian Navigator,
A.I. Chirikov, translated by Raymond H. Fisher,
University of Alaska Press, 1993.

· Frost, O.W., ed. Bering and Chirikov: The
American Voyages and Their Impact, Alaska
Historical Society, 1992.

· Golder, Frank A. Russian Expansion on the
Pacific: 1641-1850, Peter Smith, 1960. form of a
recreated bust of Vitus Bering, a cast of Bering's
craniium and a reconstruction of the grave.