Coquitlam Public Library

Island of the blue foxes, disaster and triumph on Bering's great voyage to Alaska, by Stephen R. Bown

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

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historynot applicable

Island of the blue foxes

sound recording

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by Stephen R. Bown

disaster and triumph on Bering's great voyage to Alaska

The Great Northern Expedition was the most ambitious and well-financed scientific expedition in history, lasting nearly ten years and spanning three continents. Conceived by Peter the Great in the 1730s and led by Danish mariner Vitus Bering, the enterprise involved a cavalcade of nearly three thousand scientists, secretaries, interpreters, artists, surveyors, naval officers, mariners, soldiers and labourers, all of whom had to be brought across five thousand miles of roadless forests, swamps and tundra, along with tools, supplies, libraries and scientific implements--as well as the clavichord belonging to Bering's wife, Anna. Scientific objectives included investigating flora, fauna and minerals as well as outlandish rumours about the Siberian peoples. After the expedition reached the eastern coast of Asia, Bering oversaw the construction of two ships, the St. Peter and St. Paul, and sailed for America with one hundred and fifty men. The voyage was plagued by ill fortune--a supply ship failed to arrive, officers quarrelled and the ships were separated in a storm. While St. Paul reached Alaska and reported back to Russia, Bering's ship, St. Peter, was wrecked on a desolate island in the Aleutian Chain inhabited by feral foxes. A true-life adventure story of personal and cultural animosities, unimaginable Gothic horrors and ingenuity in the face of adversity. Winner of the 2018 Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction. 2017

adult

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