Khvostov and Davydov make their way to the east, passing through one of the Kuril straits and into the North Pacific. Being experienced navigators, they have no difficulty finding the Aleutians, and in this installment, they make their way almost as far as the Alaskan mainland, on their way to Kodiak.
The previous installment:
Davydov offers detailed observations in the Aleutians. I’d particularly highlight his observation about their volatile character, though he seems to waffle between a conjecture that the islands are remnants of an eroded mountain range, and the realizations that they’re volcanic islands, which are still growing.
We will encounter a new unit: temperature measured on the Réaumur scale. It was of French invention, and it varied quite a bit in its particulars during the 18th Century, but by 1802 it had settled down to a standard where 0º is the freezing point of water (so 0ºRé = 0ºC) and 80º is the boiling point (80ºRé = 100ºC). Because Russia is so cold for much of the winter, Russian idiom (even today) gives temperatures above zero as so many “degrees of heat,” and those below zero as a number of “degrees of frost.”
DAVYDOV’S NARRATIVE (Continued)
CHAPTER III (Cont’d).
6 September.
The weather was foggy. At noon we saw a shoreline, which we thought was the island of Paramushir [one of the larger of the northern Kurils –JT.]; but as the gloom did not allow us to be sure, we turned away from it.
7 September.
All day there was a thick fog, so we could only see the shoreline for a short time. It was mostly calm.
8 September.
When dawn broke and the fog cleared a little, then we saw ourselves between the Alait island, the Kuril shoulder (this is the name of the southern end of Kamchatka) and the first Kuril Islands. Of course, our ship was carried here by the current overnight, for yesterday we were more than two German miles from this place. When the wind blew from the Kamchatka coast, we moved away from it, and we passed a sleeping whale. Soon a squall came up, and then it became calm again.
<< The whale brings to mind something I can’t resist mentioning, even if it’s a bit of a spoiler. Three years later, Khvostov and Davydov were in America for a second tour. They met a New England trader named D’Wolf, who sold his ship, the Juno, to the Russian-American Company. A large portion of his payment was in the form of a bill of exchange on St. Petersburg, and he decided to travel there – across the North Pacific (in a ship probably much like the Elizaveta), Siberia, and Russia – to collect. In his memoir Voyages, the German naturalist Georg Langsdorff, who was with D’Wolf, recorded an incident that occurred while his ship was somewhere near our mariners’ current location:
“An uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself, lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived by anyone on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail, was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D’Wolf applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel had received any damage from the shock, but we found that happily it had escaped entirely uninjured.”
Astute readers may recognize the passage. It entered our literary canon through the efforts of D’Wolf’s nephew, Herman Melville, who quoted it in Chapter XLV, “The Affidavit,” of Moby-Dick. We might well imagine that Davydov was happy to let sleeping whales drift.>>
The appearance of this land is very wild, and in many places snow was visible. Mist covered the tops of some mountains and lay in the middle of others. In the distance we could see Mount Opala [a volcano in the southern part of Kamchatka –JT.], perhaps exceeding the height of the Peak of Tenerife. In general, the entire coast seemed to consist of high peaked mountains. In addition to this new sight for me, whales were playing around the ship and launched waterspouts.
9 September.
In the morning, we had 5½ degrees of heat according to the Réaumur thermometer [about 45ºF – JT.], which was the only one with us, and always served to measure the warmth and cold. The calm and fog continued until noon, and then suddenly there was a strong wind from the east. The night was pitch dark, and the waves threw onto the deck a multitude of luminous insects, making the whole sea seemed covered with fiery sparks.
12 September.
From midday a light favorable breeze came up, the sky cleared, we saw the coastline and entered the third Kuril Strait. [This is also known as the Luzhin Strait, around the south end of Paramushir Island –JT.]
13 September.
We had a very slight breeze from the SW, and we moved forward little by little. The following wind carried us about eighty miles: how well the ship sailed! Dolphins, or orcas, played in schools around the ship. At 11 o'clock in the morning a fire broke out in the galley. The smoke was coming out from under the stove, so we ordered the beam under it to be cut down; then the fire appeared, which was soon extinguished, and we saw that half of the beams had already burned out. An hour later, fire appeared again, so we were forced to break up the oven to put it out. Who would not be surprised to learn from what trifle we could have perished? Sidor Shelikhov, the Manager of the Company’s Okhotsk Office, in keeping with his praiseworthy habit of saving money by any means necessary, underpaid the stove-maker by 1 ruble 70 kopecks, so the latter, out of vexation, promised to build on the ship an oven in which we could not cook more than once. The promyshlenniks heard these threats from him but did not tell anyone about them. The stove-maker, the villain, kept his word and by this stupid revenge almost killed many people who had never done him any harm.
Track for this installment in orange. Map by Jake Chila
At 9 o'clock in the evening, while we were passing the strait between Paramushir and Onnekotana [apparently a small volcanic island off the southwest part of Paramushir –JT.], we heard a human voice on the left side and saw a small baidara, which, with the help of a line we threw down, tied up to the ship. One Kuril climbed onto the deck, while three more and one woman remained in the baidara. Everyone spoke Russian, the one who came on board the ship gave us a fox and asked to be sold gunpowder and lead; but we told him that we were not selling anything here, but would give it without the fox; after which we gave them three pounds of gunpowder, two pounds of tobacco, and a few crackers; and we gave everyone a glass of vodka. Then Kurils asked if we would give him some vodka for ten rubles and showed us a banknote. We wanted to know where they got our money, and they responded that Russians from Kamchatka come to them every year to collect yasak and to trade for animal skins. We wanted to give the Kurils some vodka, but the difficulty lay in what to pour it into, for we had almost no glassware on board. Then the islander brought from the baidara a tied bladder of seal fat, emptied it, turned out the bladder, and poured in the vodka.
The Kurils who came to us lived on Paramushir. They are small in stature, and their face is small, round, and almost overgrown with a short but curly beard, on which the hair, like that on the head, is black. The first one to board the ship said that there were no more than 40 of them left on the island, as the rest had left to hunt for animals. Previously, sea otters, which are generally called sea beavers, were found near Paramushir, but now they only catch seals (according to the local Nerpa) and foxes, among which the genus called Ognevki is considered the best. Kurils have guns, but often lack gunpowder and lead. One of their habits is worthy of note: when the Kuril invites someone to visit, he puts all his clothes on him, so that the guest cannot even move. Then he feeds him and plies him with fat, even after the sweat starts pouring from the guest in streams, and he shows the strongest evidence of inability to eat and drink more.
14 September.
It was calm in the morning, and from noon the wind arose from E by S, which toward evening became so strong that we took a reef in the topsails. By midnight, the wind had become a strong reef-marcel [strong enough to call for reefing the topsails –JT.] from SE, but we did not take another reef, for fear of becoming pinned to the lee shore of Kamchatka, because then the ship would have handled even worse – besides, it had no stability at all and was subject to a restless side roll; on the windward side it was constantly coming out of the water, and on the leeward side it shipped water.
15 September.
At 1 o'clock in the morning we wore ship [literally, turned through the stern wind –JT.] to the port tack. In the morning the wind very soon moved to SSW, so we stood to E; the day became warm and beautiful. In the afternoon the wind was very strong, and the ship had a restless roll, but it went pretty well.
17 September.
After a calm, the wind blew from the S, and we stood to the ENE. Several petrels and seagulls have been seen today.
21 September.
Seagulls again appeared and flew around in flocks.
25 September.
Up to this time the wind had been mostly light and variable; but from midnight came up a pretty fresh breeze from NNW, and we stood to ENE. We saw a lot of marine plants, or fucus, called by the proyshlenniks sea cabbage, carried over the sea; it also appeared farther from the land, only in smaller quantities. At 3 o’clock in the afternoon we saw the island of Agattu, near which gulls and petrels flew in great numbers. Having approached the islands of Attu and Agattu [the westernmost of the Aleutians –JT.], we lay up overnight; for we have heard from many that in the strait between these islands there is a rocky shoal, barely covered with water.
26 September.
At dawn, we made sail and went between Attu and Agattu, then left two more islands in our right hand. The wind blew from NW very fresh; the weather was cloudy with fog and sleet all the time.
27 September.
At 2 o'clock in the morning, the lookout shouted that they saw land in front of the bow on their left hand. We did not expect this, and for this reason we lay up until dawn. It was believed that we were carried away by the current, or there was a large easterly declination of the compass, which we could not verify in the persistent cloudy weather [This is the discrepancy between magnetic and true north. Cloudy weather prevents observing true north either from the direction of the sun at its zenith (noon), or Polaris at night –JT.]. With the coming day, we made sail and directed our course to N in order to move away from the Aleutian Islands; then we went to NNE, but at 9 o'clock we again saw the island in front of us. Then we descended to ESE and E, and it seemed we were sailing into the strait between two small islands, but when the fog cleared a little, we saw that we had entered the big bay of Tanaga Island [This island is now called Barabara Island, but the bay Davydov mentions, something of a trap for sailors, is still called Tanaga Bay. –JT.], open from the western side. We wanted to maneuver from it, but on such a bad ship, every turn brought us closer to the shore, so we dropped one anchor, and then another, at a depth of 24 sazhens; bottom fine stone with coarse sand. After that, we fired two cannons to let the inhabitants of this island know about our arrival, if there were any.
28 September.
The wind continued to blow from W, but the fog cleared a little in the morning and we could see the shore around us. The northern one consisted of high mountains, of which three rose dramatically, especially the middle one, ending in a sharp conical top, while the eastern one, which breathed fire, emitted smoke. The peaks of all three were covered with new snow, which was different in its whiteness from the old, which had a bluish color. There was also a lot of snow in the hollows. The southern coast of this bay was much lower and ended in a low-lying rocky cape. At 6 o'clock in the morning the baidara was sent to the northern shore; at 4 o'clock in the afternoon it returned with eight wild geese, of which there are a great many on the island. In the northeastern part, they found a small cove, convenient as a dock for rowboats. The depth is nine feet. A little to the west there is another, and in both there are streams with good fresh water. After they returned, I went to the island in the same baidara. The depth was almost constant, though not far from the shore it began to decrease; the bottom was burnt or black fine sand. When we began to row up to the island, we saw something blackening on the water. Some said it was a seal, others a piece of wood; but out came a sea otter, which was sleeping on its back and, hearing the sound of oars, turned over and went into the water. We dragged the baidara onto the shore and spent the night under it.
29 September.
Getting up at dawn, I went into the interior of the island. At first, I walked along low hills covered with thin moss and overgrown mostly with sedge. This is waist-deep, making it extremely difficult to walk in this swampy place. Between these hills there are many sedge-covered lakes and small streams. There were plenty of geese, ducks and partridges; I shot only one duck. Having passed these swampy places, I climbed a high ridge, but between the fog and the higher mountains surrounding me from all sides, I could not see anything. Returning to the shore, I saw a hut left by the Aleuts who came here at one time to hunt for animals in the mountain gorge. Having filled our water barrels, we returned to the ship.
In the afternoon came a squall from E; we raised the remaining anchor (one was raised during the night) and made sail to depart the bay, but then the wind died down and we began towing with both baidaras but, making no headway, we were forced to drop anchor.
30 September.
The weather since arriving at Tanaga Island was quite warm and good. At about noon, with the wind blowing from the east, we weighed anchor, but then the wind reversed, and soon we had to anchor again. At 3 o’clock we went ashore and landed in the bay west of the where I had been before. Here a small river flowed into the sea, from which it is very convenient to obtain water. Not far west of this place, there is a quadrangular cave on the side of the mountain, about ten sazhens in length, three in width and the same height. It looks regular and as if deliberately made. From here we reconnoitered in different directions: I set off for the interior of the island, climbing over many ridges, each one located further from the coast higher than the last. When I reached the large steaming mountain, it was already dark, and so, afraid of losing my way, I returned to my companions.
The land near this bay is less swampy, but it is also overgrown with tall, hard grass; the shoreline is steep and consists of black burnt sand, constantly crumbling, and making climbing very difficult; because it rolls down very easily with the sand, with nothing to hold on to. None of us shot anything, for the geese became extremely cautious and sat on only the highest visible places; and the ducks rarely swam close to the shore. I forgot to say that when we sailed up to the island, on the rocks separated from it, we found ourselves amidst a multitude of Urils (Cormorants of the genus Baklanov). We shot several of them, but we could not catch a single one; for this bird is very strong and can dive for a long time when wounded.
Along the shore of the bay we saw a some scattered driftwood, the only useful trees here, because not one grows on all the Aleutian islands, and on many there are not even bushes or shrubs. We saw no trace of land animals, but of aquatic animals we saw seals and one sea otter. On the beach, we found the shells of round sea crayfish and shrimp, of course eaten by the Aleuts. The Americans [remember that this is what the Russians called the Alaskan natives –JT.] on the ship dug here a yellow root that tasted like beans and whose stem produced pods; and another, radish-like, white root which they cook for food. Several cod were caught from the vessel.
At 9 o'clock in the morning we heard a cannon shot, which signified that the wind had become favorable; so we began to prepare for departure, anticipating two more shots to signal that the ship was weighing anchor; but as they did not follow, we stayed for the night, some of us under the cover of the sky, and others under the baidara.
1 October.
In the morning we arrived at the ship. In the afternoon the wind blew out from SE, we weighed anchor and, having covered about two English miles, anchored again in a depth of 22 sazhens; for the wind became contrary and it was not possible to round the western cape of Tanaga. In the evening the wind came from the E, with the help of which we went to sea.
They really did have to wait for an east wind to get out of Tanaga Bay. (N is at the top)
Porpoises (Marsouins) swam in great numbers near the ship and made a little noise when diving. The wind blew from E and SE almost the whole time.
5 October.
In the morning seagulls flew in great numbers and porpoises swam around the ship. The wind blew NW; we lay to E.
12 October.
At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, we saw an island to the northwest of Unalaska, and named The Pillar, because of its appearance [This seems to be Bogoslof Island, still an active volcano, according to the USGS. What Davydov calls The Pillar seems to be Castle Rock, which the USGS dates to an eruption in 1796, a few years before our adventure. Castle Rock has now eroded significantly –JT. https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/monitoring-alaskas-remote-and-restless-bogoslof-volcano ]. This island suddenly came out of the sea, of course from a strong eruption in the seabed. Another island of the same kind appeared suddenly to the north of Unimak, and this one, according to the Aleuts and the promyshlenniks, is constantly growing [and it is still growing today –JT.]. At first, the mentioned island was so hot that people approaching it could not go ashore, but it cools from year to year. A glance at the Aleutian Islands, each of which constitutes a mass of mountains, mostly peaked, it is evident that this side of the world has been subject to the greatest shocks and changes, and that the Aleutian Islands are an extension of the mountains of northwestern America, going through the Alyaksa Peninsula, and remaining after the absorption of all the lands lying between them and the Bering Strait. The following reasons lead me to think so:
1st, from Unalaska to the Bering Strait, the depth of the sea is nowhere, it seems, more than 65 or 70 sazhens; 2nd, on the Kotov Islands, when these were discovered, there were no plants, but then the grass began to grow gradually: a sign that this land is new, of course emerging from the bottom of the sea. 3rd, the coast of America, especially between Bristol Bay and Cape Alaska, is all shallow; for which reason we can conclude that once there was land here; 4th, a lot of extinct volcanoes, and the appearance even now of islands emerging from the bottom of the sea, clearly show that even now this country is still subject to a strong effect of underground fire, and earlier incomparably more so. 5th, the similarity of languages and customs between the Aleut and the Greenlanders attests that these peoples are descended from the same tribe, and maybe they had some communication with each other. The 6th, found in pieces of copper on a copper island, clearly shows the action of the underground fire in those places. There may be more than these, unknown to me.
At dawn we saw the island of Unalaska, consisting of many peaked mountains, some of which were covered with snow. We passed the strait separating Unalaska from Unalga island.
The Aleutian and Kuril Islands provide an obstacle to ebb and flow, the movement of which goes through the straits dividing these islands with a large amount of water bursting through narrow straits and causing very fast currents in them, both at high tide and at low tide. When the current changes, the water spirals noisily in the strait, and produces splashing waves and rushes in the most irregular, sometimes circular, courses. This continues until the new current overpowers the old, which happens extremely quickly, but then gradually decreases; and the tumult, or bursts, also begin to subside. Such rapids are called here Suloi; the inhabitants always know when they will occur, and at those times they do not dare to move across the straits, which, from the great bursts of sometimes extremely high and irregular tumult, seem to be boiling. During a strong wind, rip currents are dangerous even for sailing ships, which they toss around, shake very hard and irregularly, overtop the deck with breakers, and sometimes break topstays and even masts. A strong rip is an extraordinary sight. It seemed to us quite large in the strait between Unalga and Unalaska; but according to the Aleuts it was quite normal.
14 October.
In the morning we saw Unimak with other islands, and in the distance the Alaska Peninsula. At about noon, the lookouts shouted that they were seeing a ship, to approach which would bring us to the side-hauled port tack, with the wind blowing from N. But when we came abeam it, instead of the supposed ship, we saw a stone pillar, similar to the one on the northern side of Umnak. This one, as far as I know, has not yet been seen by anyone.
In the next installment: Chapter III of Davydov’s narrative concludes. The Elizaveta finally reaches Kodiak Island, at the time the American headquarters of the Russian-American Company. They will spend the winter there.