Title:

Island of the Blue Foxes

Author:

Stephen R. Bown

Category:

Non-fiction

Rating:

Date Reviewed:

July 28, 2024

saw the book Island of the Blue Foxes when I was scanning the library shelves to pick up a copy of The Wager, and was intrigued by the title, so I checked it out. Since both books tell the story of shipwreck and stranded castaways in the age of sail, it makes sense that they would be shelved near each other. I have read a number of these tales of harrowing disaster tales now, and it never ceases to amaze me how human determination and ingenuity (and luck) allows some people to survive incredible hardship. (Though the sailors who didn't survive never got to tell their tale). The best of these true stories is Endurance, which is the story of the Shackleton expedition to Antarctica. I also read The Wager, Island of the Lost, In the Kingdom of Ice, Skeletons on the Zahara, and In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. Also, Nordoff's Mutiny on the Bounty trilogy is a great tale of survival at sea, even though it was mutiny and not a shipwreck that placed Captain Bligh and his loyal crewmen in such perilous situation. The White Ship was about the disastrous sinking of the ship that ruined King Henry's plans, but most of that book was actually about King Henry's reign, rather than describing the actual wreck that claimed the life of his only male heir.

Island of the Blue Foxes is subtitled Disaster and Triumph on the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition. In my opinion, although there was plenty of disaster involved, there was very little triumph, unless the fact that a few of men survived their ordeal is considered a triumph.

The book tells the story of the Russian expeditions to explore the North Pacific. It is the brainchild of Peter the Great, who wished to elevate Russia to the same level as the great European powers of the time. Those nations were sailing around globe, exploring new lands and claiming colonies, and so Peter the Great wanted to see Russia achieve similar feats. He imagined a team of Russians traveling across Siberia to the coast of the Pacific. There, these intrepid men would build sailing ships and sail east to America, claiming the region for the Russian Empire. Although Peter the Great dies before the expedition is launched, his dream is carried on by his successors.

Because Peter the Great imported Europeans to upgrade Russia's intellectual heft, a Danish commander, Vitus Bering was selected to lead the massive undertaking. Simply reaching the Pacific was an arduous journey - the vast wilderness had no roads, all the supplies needed for building ships (including cannons!) had to be hauled over the harsh terrain.

When the expedition finally reached the Sea of Okhotsk, they built a ship to sail across to Kamchatka. Once they reached Kamchatka, they unloaded all of the supplies and made another challenging wilderness trek 500 miles overland to the Pacific Ocean - because they did not know that Kamchatka was a peninsula, and they could simply have sailed south and around to the Pacific!

Two sailing ships were built on the coast of Kamchatka - the St. Peter and the St. Paul. Each ship would hold a crew of about 70 men on a voyage across the Pacific. The Russians had maps that showed a large island, Gama Land, to the southeast of Kamchatka, so when they embarked, they headed out into the wide empty waters of what is today called the Bering Sea. Gama Land obviously does not exist, but the search for it wasted many precious days of good summer weather when the expedition could have been exploring Alaska. Finally giving up on finding the mythical land mass, the ships sailed north-east, but became separated by storms.

The St. Paul sailed all the way to the islands around present-day Juneau, but lost their small boats in the dangerous tides. They found themselves unable to depart their ship and go a shore! None of the surviving crew of the St. Paul ever left the ship. Desperately low on water, wracked by scurvy, fighting storms, the St. Paul eventually limped back to Kamchatka.

The St. Peter, under the command of Bering himself, suffered even worse. Although they did manage to investigate some island in the Aleutian Archipelago, their findings were meager. They sailed along the south coast of Alaska, but fog, storms and rocky cliffs prevented them from doing much exploring. Disaster struck when sailing back to Kamchatka. Stricken with scurvy, buffeted by storms, low on water and food, the St. Peter ran aground on a desolate, treeless island populated with hundreds of bold, ravenous blue foxes. Death claimed many of the crew, including Bering himself, as they were forced to overwinter on the cold, stormy island (which is today called Bering Island).

The biggest outcome of the Bering expedition was the discovery of the abundant sea otters. For some reason, their pelts were highly prized in China, so even though they were in desperate circumstances, the men leaving Bering Island manage to find a way to stow 900 sea otter pelts on their newly built ship (it was a small craft built from the ruins of the St. Peter, there was no trees on the island). The men hoped that these pelts will make them rich if they survive to return to Avacha Bay. The sea otter pelts incited a boom in fur trapping - Russians poured into the north Pacific and pretty much slaughtered every sea otter they could find. (These trappers also directly led to the extinction of the Steller's sea cow and Steller's cormorant - the book notes that Steller, who sailed on the St. Peter, was the only naturalist to lay eyes on these creatures before they were all killed). So efficient and ruthless were the Russian trappers that the sea otter population completely collapsed, and Alaska was considered worthless, which is why the Russians sold it to America for $7 million.

There are a couple maps in the front of the book, and I consulted them constantly. The immensity of Siberia is apparent. I had not appreciated how vast the distance was between Kamchatka and the Gulf of Alaska. Although the distance between Asia and North America is not that distant at their closest point, the Bering Strait is much further north than the waters that the St. Peter and St. Paul sailed upon. It seemed to me that the meager returns and the huge loss of life was hardly worth the meager amount of science and exploration gleaned from these doomed voyages.