Vitus Jonassen Bering (baptised 5 August 1681 – 19 December 1741), also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering, was a Danish-born Russian cartographer, explorer, and officer in the Russian Navy. He is known as a leader of two Russian expeditions, the First Kamchatka Expedition and the Great Northern Expedition, exploring the northeastern coast of the Asian continent and from there the western coast of the North American continent. The Bering Strait, the Bering Sea, Bering Island, the Bering Glacier, and Vitus Lake were all named in his honor.
Early life and family background
Vitus Bering was born in the port town of Horsens in Denmark to Anne Pedderdatter and her husband Jonas Svendsen (a "customs inspector and churchwarden") and was baptized in the Lutheran church there on 5 August 1681. He was named after a maternal great-uncle, Vitus Pedersen Bering, who had been a chronicler in the royal court, and was not long deceased at the time of Vitus Jonassen Bering's birth. The family enjoyed reasonable financial security, with two of Vitus's elder half-brothers both attending the University of Copenhagen.
Vitus instead signed on as a ship's boy at age 15. Between 1696 and 1704, he traveled the seas, reaching India and the Dutch East Indies while also finding time to complete naval officer training in Amsterdam. He later claimed (not without some supporting evidence) to have served on Danish whalers in the North Atlantic, visiting European colonies in the Caribbean and on North America's eastern seaboard.
In 1704, he enrolled with the rapidly expanding navy of Tsar Peter I. Under Norwegian-born Russian admiral Cornelius Cruys's guidance, Bering gained an officer's commission into the Russian Navy, with the rank of sub-lieutenant. He was repeatedly promoted in Peter the Great's rapidly evolving navy, reaching the rank of second captain by 1720. In that time, it appears he was not involved in any sea battles, but commanded several vessels on potentially dangerous missions, including the transport of a ship from the Azov Sea on Russia's southern coast to the Baltic on its northern coast. His work in the latter stages of the Great Northern War (ending in 1721), for example, was dominated by lightering duties.
On 8 October 1713, Bering married Anna Christina Pülse; the ceremony took place in the Lutheran church at Vyborg. Over the next 18 years, they had nine children, four of whom survived childhood. During his time with the Russian Navy—particularly as part of the Great Northern War—he was unable to spend much time with Anna, who was approximately 11 years Bering's junior and the daughter of a Swedish merchant.
Bering served with the navy in significant but non-combat roles during the Great Northern War. At the war's conclusion in 1721, Bering was not promoted like many of his contemporaries. The omission proved particularly embarrassing when, in 1724, Anna's younger sister Eufemia upstaged her by marrying Thomas Saunders, already a rear-admiral despite a much shorter period of service.
To save face, Bering retired from the navy to avoid the continuing embarrassment of his low rank to his wife, and upon retirement was promoted to first captain. He was also able to secure two months pay. Shortly after, the family—Bering, his wife, and two young sons—moved out of St. Petersburg to live with Anna's family in Vyborg.
Bering was permitted to keep the rank when he rejoined the Russian Navy later that year.
After five months of joblessness, Bering, keenly aware of his dependents, reapplied to the Admiralty. He was accepted for a renewed period of active service the same day. By 2 October 1724, Bering (retaining the rank of first captain he had secured earlier in the year) was back on the sea, commanding the 90-gun Lesnoe (Russian: Лесное, lit. 'Forest'). But the tsar soon had a new command for him.
On 29 December 1724 [N.S. 9 January 1725], Peter I of Russia ordered Bering to captain the First Kamchatka Expedition, an expedition set to sail north from Russian outposts on the Kamchatka Peninsula, with the charge to map the new areas visited and establish whether Asia and America shared a land border.
Preparations for the trip had begun some years before, but with his health rapidly deteriorating, the Tsar had ordered that the process be hurried, and it was with this backdrop that Bering (with his knowledge of both the Indian Ocean and the eastern seaboard of North America, good personal skills and experience in transporting goods) was selected ahead of the experienced cartographer K. P. von Verd.
His lieutenants for the journey, which became known as the First Kamchatka Expedition, were the hardened Danish-born Russian Martin Spanberg and the well-educated but relatively inexperienced Russian Aleksei Chirikov, a respected naval instructor. They would receive annual salaries of some 180 roubles during the trip; Bering would be paid 480.
The final papers from Peter before his death on 28 January made it clear to Bering that he should proceed to the Kamchatka Peninsula, build one or two ships there, and, keeping the land on his left, sail northwards until the land turned westwards, making it clear that there existed sea between Asia and North America.
Instructions were left on how to proceed if North America was sighted during the voyage, which was scheduled to last three years. The natural route to Kamchatka was along tributaries of the Lena; but after the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) this looked politically infeasible. Instead, Bering's party, it was decided, would travel over land and river from St. Petersburg to Okhotsk, a small port town on Russia's eastern coast, and then by sea from Okhotsk to the Kamchatka Peninsula, where they could start their voyage of exploration.
On 24 January, Chirikov departed with 26 of the 34-strong expedition along the well-travelled roads to Vologda, 411 miles (661 km) to the east, aided by the expertise of Lieutenants Martin Spanberg and Aleksei Chirikov. The party took on men as it headed toward Okhotsk, encountering many difficulties before arriving at the settlement.
Having waited for the necessary paperwork to be completed, Bering and the remaining members of the expedition followed on 6 February 1725. Bering was supplied with what few maps Peter had managed to commission in the preceding years.
From there, the men sailed to the Kamchatka Peninsula, preparing new ships there and sailing north—repeating a little-documented journey of Semyon Dezhnyov 80 years earlier.