Description

Vitus Jonassen Bering (1681‒1741) sailed from Kamchatka to Alaska in the summer of 1741, thereby commanding the first European ship to explore the northwestern coast of North America. The crews of Bering and his assistant, Aleksei Chirikov (1703‒48), returned to Russia with valuable sea otter pelts. The quest for fur soon overtook the initial interest of the state in mapping and acquiring geographic knowledge of the North Pacific. Beginning in 1743, a succession of Russian promyshlenniki (frontiersmen) followed in the wake of Bering by sailing along the Aleutian ...