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VITUS BERING A Dane travelling at the behest of Peter the Great, Vitus Bering sailed through the strait in 1728. Starting from St. Petersburg, Bering and his men traveled 5,000 miles overland across Siberia to Kamchatka. Bering and his group then built their boats from scratch to sail through the strait's ice-clogged waters. A persistent heavy fog obscured Bering's view: He never realized that Alaska was just a few miles away. During a later attempt to map the arctic coastline, Bering became ill with scurvy, lost control of his ship, and ran aground on what is now known as Bering Island. He and his crew were marooned for nine months; Bering eventually died on the island. Decades later, Captain James Cook named the strait in his honor. |
