杏吧原创

SOME might call it ambitious, others madness. The Great Northern Expedition, dreamed up by Peter the Great in 1724 and completed five Russian rulers later in 1743, was the biggest, longest scientific expedition in history 鈥� undeniably ambitious, then. Thousands of people trekked 8000 kilometres from St Petersburg on Russia鈥檚 western coast to Okhotsk on the Pacific, a terrible journey through the roadless and lawless wilds of Siberia. Those who then went on to sail in search of the Great Land (Alaska), endured scurvy and shipwreck. Only the overly optimistic could have believed it anything but madness.

In Island of the Blue Foxes, Stephen Bown has drawn on journals, logs, letters and official reports to piece together a story never fully told before. And what a story: adventure and discovery, misery and death, and a cast of characters by turns admirable and appalling, brilliant and hopeless, annoying and plain nasty. Two of them 鈥� Vitus Bering, the Danish leader of the expedition, and German naturalist Georg Steller 鈥� have long been heroes of mine. Thanks to Bown鈥檚 revelations and brilliant storytelling, I now know just how astonishing their exploits were.

鈥淭he foxes bit the sick and dying and ate the hands and feet of corpses before they could be buried鈥�

In 1725, Bering led a preliminary expedition to Russia鈥檚 far east, then built a ship and sailed north along the coast of Kamchatka in search of a passage to the Arctic Ocean. He found what is now the Bering Strait, but thanks to thick fog failed to spot Alaska. In 1733, he set out again, charged with stamping Russia鈥檚 authority on Siberia, laying claim to Alaska and opening up new trade routes, as well as exploration and discovery.

Bering retraced his route, this time with an army of scientists, soldiers, servants, wives, children and labourers 鈥� and everything they needed, from tools, ropes and sails to candelabra, silk gowns, powdered wigs and his wife Anna鈥檚 clavichord.

After four years of hard travel, they reached Okhotsk. There, they built a dockyard and two ships, the St Peter and St Paul, to explore the far north Pacific. What happened next is the stuff of nightmares. The two ships lost contact. Fog, storms and blizzards meant they were sailing almost blind in uncharted waters dotted with islands and reefs. In July 1741, both ships reached Alaska but neither stayed long, fearful of being trapped over the winter. By October, the St Paul was back in Siberia, with 21 men lost or dead from scurvy.

The St Peter was even less fortunate. In November, with the crew sick, dying or dead from scurvy, the ship was wrecked on a desolate island. The survivors lived in holes dug in the beach, with little protection from the weather and hardly any food. They were attacked by packs of a dark-furred subspecies of Arctic fox. The foxes 鈥渃rowded into our dwellings and stole everything they could carry鈥�, Steller reported. They bit the sick and dying and 鈥渁te the hands and feet of the corpses before we had time to bury them鈥�, wrote Lieutenant Sven Waxell.

鈥淪tuck on the island, Steller was also able to do what he came to do: observe and describe nature鈥�

Then Bering died. The survivors鈥� fate now lay in the hands of Waxell, the new leader, and Steller, who became revered for his botanical knowledge and skill in treating scurvy. Stuck on the island, he was also able to do what he came to do: observe and describe nature.

In the event, Steller was the only naturalist to see some of the species he described. His sea cow was a gigantic, 4-tonne manatee with blubber 鈥渁s agreeably yellow as the best Holland butter鈥� and beef-like meat that stayed good for weeks. The goose-sized spectacled cormorant was easy to catch, and one bird was 鈥渟ufficient for three starving men鈥�. The island鈥檚 birds and marine mammals were a vital source of food for shipwrecked men, but Steller worried the expedition would open up new routes for hunters who would destroy what he had discovered. He was right.

Ten months after the wreck, Bering鈥檚 men sailed back to Kamchatka in a small ship built from the remains of the St Peter. Ambitious or mad? You decide.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淭riumph and tragedy鈥�