Vitus Bering: The Kamchatka Expeditions

On 29 December 1724 in the Old Style Russian calendar (9 January 1725 by ours), Peter I ordered Vitus Bering to captain the First Kamchatka Expedition. The task was simple to state and huge in scale: map the new lands and find out whether Asia and America shared a land border. Peter died on 28 January, so his final papers became Bering's marching orders. Lieutenant Chirikov had already left on 24 January with most of the party; Bering followed on 6 February 1725, carrying the few maps the Tsar had managed to commission.

Location precision: The pin marks the centre of Saint Petersburg; the sources do not name a building where the order was given.

After crossing the Urals, the party reached Tobolsk on 16 March 1725, having already covered more than 1,750 miles. It was one of the main stopping points of the whole journey. Bering asked the garrison for 24 more men, then raised the request to 54, because the ship waiting at Okhotsk needed heavy repairs. The governor could spare only 39. On 14 May the enlarged party set off along the Irtysh, heading on towards the Pacific coast.

Location precision: The sources name the town, not a building; the pin marks Tobolsk generally.

Okhotsk, on the Pacific coast, was the end of the overland road. Bering's party arrived in October 1726; Spanberg and two other men of the advance party reached it on 6 January 1727. Residents called it the worst winter they could recall. Relief came in June 1727, when Chirikov's advance party arrived with 27 tons of flour. The Vostok was then readied and a new ship, the Fortuna, was built to cross to Kamchatka.

Location precision: The pin marks the modern town, only roughly where the expedition wintered.

The St. Gabriel set sail in July 1728, and Bering sailed into the strait that would later carry his name. On 13 August 1728 he asked his two lieutenants whether the land had turned west for good, which would prove Asia and America were separate. With ice advancing, he turned back on 16 August. Alaska would have been visible to the east on a clear day, but was not seen. Captain Cook later named the strait for Bering, despite knowing of Dezhnev's earlier voyage.

Location precision: The ship's exact track is not given in the sources; the pin marks the middle of the strait.

The St. Peter and the St. Paul reached Avacha Bay in south-eastern Kamchatka on 6 October 1740. Bering named the new settlement after his two ships, and it became Petropavlovsk, today Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Over the winter he recruited the naturalist Georg Steller for the voyage ahead. In spring 1741 the expedition sailed from here towards North America.

Location precision: The pin marks Avacha Bay, not a single quay or building.

On 16 July 1741 Bering's expedition became the first Europeans to sight Mount Saint Elias. Bering himself never went ashore on Kayak Island; on 20 July the naturalist Georg Steller landed with a watering party, so Kayak Island is the first place in Alaska where a non-native set foot. The island has no population today, and a commemorative Bering Expedition Landing Site was chosen here in 1978.

Location precision: The landing was at Kayak Island or its vicinity; the pin marks the island.

Storms drove the St. Peter to refuge on an uninhabited island in the Commander Islands. Vitus Bering died there in December 1741, and 28 of his men died with him; scurvy is commonly blamed. The survivors lived on seals and birds for ten months while Steller catalogued the island's wildlife, including the sea cow. Of 77 men aboard the St. Peter, 46 survived: they built a boat from the wreck and set sail for Petropavlovsk in August 1742. The island now carries Bering's name.

Location precision: The sources name the island, not a grave or camp site; the pin marks the island.