|
From the late 1500s Russia expanded swiftly eastwards across the
vast Siberian wilderness between the Urals and the Pacific. The
density of the river network, the weakness of native resistance, and
the absence of foreign opposition brought Russians to what they
rightly regarded as the Eastern Ocean before the middle of the 1600s
The advance was spearheaded by promyshlenniki fur hunters/traders -
whose main lure was the "soft gold" of sable fur. the most valuable
on the European market at Leipzig. Siberia had a monopoly on sables,
with the exception of the Manchurian frontier of the Amur River
Valley, which the Russians proceeded to exploit in the second half
of the 1600s. until they were forced to retreat by a resurgent China
under the Manchus. So the Russians turned northeastwards to the
virgin peltry of the Kamchatka Peninsula, which was annexed at the
beginning of the 1700s.
After only two decades, however, Kamchatka’s superior sables and
foxes (bigger and darker than those elsewhere) had also been
depleted by this Raubwirtschatt. State coffers as well as private
purses suffered, for the government taxed the promyshlenniks's catch
at the rate of one-tenth and exacted fur tribute (yasak) from the
natives to the tune of a certain number of pelts per man per year;
furthermore, the government imposed duty on foreign trade in furs If
the private profits and state revenues - vital to Peter the Great's
costly modernization program - were to be maintained then a fresh
source of furs had to be found and tapped. This imperative meant, in
turn that the new source would have to be sought within or beyond
the North Pacific, for Siberia ended in Kamchatka, which, happily
for the landlubberish Russians, protruded far into the ocean and
approached the Aleutian chain - the whole forming a convenient
causeway to the American mainland Hence the First and Second
Kamchatka Expeditions of Vitus Bering, who sought to extend Russian
enterprise and dominion, not to determine whether Asia and America
were joined. Ever since Semyon Dezhnyov's voyage of 1648 around the
"Great Rocky Cape" of Chukotka the Russians had known the answer to
that question, but it served to accord Bering's voyages legitimacy
before European scientists and camouflage against imperial
competitors.
The second voyage did the trick. Not only did Bering and Chirikov
discover new territory in the form of the American mainland and the
intervening archipelago - and territory that was apparently not yet
occupied by another colonial power - but they also uncovered virgin
peltries. Chirikov returned to Petropavlovsk first in the St. Paul
with news of a "great land" (Alaska); a year later the survivors of
Bering's foundered St. Peter returned from Bering Island, where
their commander had perished and they had wintered, with 700-900 sea
otter skins, plus news of numerous arctic foxes and fur seals.1 The
very soft, thick, dark, and glossy fur hairs of the sea otter's pelt
made it even more beautiful and lucrative than the sable's, at least
in the North China market. Steller declared flatly: "As to the
beauty of the animal, and particularly of its skin (pelt|. this sea
otter is alone incomparable. without a peer; it surpasses all other
inhabitants of the vast ocean, and holds the first rank in point of
beauty and softness of its fur " Also, the darkness of sea otter fur
was much more constant than that of sable fur. and. asserted
Steller, "sable skins never shine with so deep a natural blackness
as the otter’s."3 He added that because sea otter fur was so thick
and heavy, their skins were for that reason dearer to the Chinese
than the skins of sables and foxes, and they are better suited to
increase the weight of the too light silk gowns.
In addition to their beauty they make the silk fit more closely to
the body and resist the wind better, and for those reasons the
Chinese make of this fur borders of a hand's breadth and put them
around their robes on every side.4
With the discovery of their value to the Chinese, sea otter skins
jumped in price - in Kamchatka from 5-6 rubles each in the middle
1720s to 25-30 rubles each in the middle 1740s.5 In 1735 and 1736 at
Kyakhta the main mart for Russian-Chinese trade on the Mongolian
frontier, a prime pelt fetched twenty rolls of kitaika (a cheap
cotton cloth) that iniurn brought 100 rubles at Irkutsk.6 In the
late 1730s pelts were each worth 90 rubles and more at Kyakhta, and
Russian traders made a "great profit" on their sale despite the
“heavy expenses, losses, and injuries” in transit.7 After Steller’s
return to Kamchatka in 1742 a prime pelt fetched 20 rubles at
Bolsheretsk. 30 at Yakutsk. 40-50 at Irkutsk, and 80-100 (in goods)
at Kyakhta.8 By way of comparison. Steller's annual salary upon his
appointment in 1737 as an adjunct in natural history' of the Academy
of Sciences was 680 rubles9 - the value of seven prime pelts at
Kyakhta.10 Little wonder that some of the survivors were so eager to
get more pelts that they were willing to spend another dismal winter
hunting sea otters on Bering Island before returning to Kamchatka.11
And what the Russians called "sea beavers" were not only valuable
but also abundant. Indeed, to Steller the "constant appearance" of
sea otters in the waters east of Kamchatka - locally known as the
Otter Sea - during Bering's voyage offered the "strongest evidence"
that the American continent was nigh.12 And their capture would be
well worth the effort. In a letter to a compatriot and fellow
academician. Johann Gmelin. Steller wrote that sea otters were so
numerous among the Aleutian Islands "that from them the costs of the
most expensive expedition could be regained without much trouble in
a few years.”13
To do so, however. Russian entrepreneurs had to secure two
essentials. Firstly, they had to change from being zemleprokhodtsy
(landsmen) to being morekhody (seafarers). This conversion was eased
by the fact that the promyshlenniks had gained much experience in
Siberia in riverine and coastal boating, which were directly
applicable to the peninsula-girded and island-dotted waters between
northeastern Asia and northwestern America. Even though these
uncharted waters were subject to foul weather, experience in pelagic
navigation was not really necessary in order for the Russians to ply
them. And small, crude, flimsy ships - so slight that they were
called shitiki, "sewn ones," for want of nails- were all that were
necessary for sailing these same waters. Secondly, the Russians had
to find a reliable source of food.
Both Chirikov's and Bering's voyages had underlined the importance
of provisionment. Although Chirikov had returned on schedule in the
St. Peter, six of the seventy-five men had died of scurvy, including
the astronomer Louis Delisle de la Сroyere after making home port
(and another fifteen had been lost - probably swamped by high waves
or killed by hostile Tlingits – in two longboats on the Alaskan
coast)14. Bering fared worse. The St. Peter had left Petropavlovsk
on June 15 with 217 puds (1 pud = 36.113 pounds or 16.381 kilograms)
of groats, 165 of beef. 80 of butter. 70 of pork, 18 of salt. 250 of
flour, and 382 of hardtack, plus 1,434 puds of water (in 102
barrels) and 990 of wood, for seventy-seven men. expecting to return
at summer's end. But the homeward voyage from Kodiak Island from
September 7 was delayed by adverse winds and frequent fogs, and the
number of men on the sick list rose steadily from seven on that day
to fourteen on September 29, twenty-one on October 24, thirty-three
(including Bering himself) on October 29, and thirty-seven on
November 12. By November 16 twelve men had died of scurvy,
thirty-four were "totally disables." and ten were only able to work
"with great difficulty." and little fresh water remained, so it was
decided not to try to reach Petropavlovsk but to make the nearest
land (Commander Islands16). When the St. Peter ran aground on Bering
Island on November 18, forty-nine men were on the sick list, and
during the ensuing winter sixteen more died, including the captain
(who lent his name to the island and his rank to the archipelago),
and by August 4, 1742 only forty-five men remained alive to sail in
a makeshift hooker to Kamchatka, thirty-two having succumbed to
scurvy.17
The Second Kamchatka Expedition had been provisioned from Eastern
Siberia, but the undertaking had cost too much and taken too long.18
Every year for ten years Irkutsk Province provided up to 50.000 puds
of rye flour and 3.000 puds of groats, besides other supplies such
as hemp, and these requisitions and their delivery, plus the
recruitment of workers (who were away from home ten years and more),
ruined many peasants and caused crop failures, especially in the
Ilimsk Plowland. the breadbasket of Irkutsk Province between the
middle Angara and upper Lena Rivers, where the peasants were reduced
to eating grass and bark.19 Altogether the province supplied 60.000
puds of provisions at a cost of 2 rubles per pud as far as Okhotsk.
Russia's Pacific outlet; Chirikov had 1.000 river vessels built on
the upper Lena for transport downriver to Yakutsk, and overland from
Yakutsk to Okhotsk Russian peasants maintained 600 oxen and Yakut
stockmen provided 500-600 and sometimes 1.000 pack horses yearly,
not half of which returned from Okhotsk.20 Not even precious sea
otter skins could offset such costs.
An alternative was commercial agriculture on the Pacific seaboard.
However, growing and rearing conditions were marginal, owing mainly
to the inimical climate. The sheltered, alluvial Kamchatka River
Valley - sunnier, drier, and warmer than the rainy, foggy, windy
coasts - held the most promise, but even there the few peasants
struggled to survive the long, cold winters, early and late frosts,
and damp summers. Captain Chirikov reported to the Admiralty in the
spring of 1742 that trials had shown that grains and vegetables did
not thrive in the peninsula because of the "short summer season,"
which was worsened by fog and rain, while for livestock enough hay
had to be made in the short, damp summer to last at least seven and
a half months.21 Farming was primarily subsistent, leaving little
surplus for embarking promyshlenniks.
The solution was found by the St. Peter's survivors, who uncovered
not only abundant and valuable fur bearers but also an ample source
of tasty food for those who ventured to hunt them. Their supplies
having been consumed during the prolonged and fateful voyage, with
the exception of a little rye flour, salted beef, and peas, the
ship's scorbutic castaways were forced to survive the foul winter of
Bering Island by living of the land. They fared "extremely poorly"
because of the flimsy shelter (holes in the ground covered with
sails), scanty firewood (which had to be fetched as far as eight
miles away), severe scurvy (which killed Bering himself on December
19. 1741 after four months of the disease), and meagre food (the
meat of sea animals, which had to be bagged as far as twenty miles
away, including beached carcasses as well as live animals)22.
Initially they ate mostly ptarmigan, but the flesh of fur seals,
hair seals, sea lions, and especially sea otters soon became their
"principal nourishment."23 Steller declared that the sea otter
"deserves the greatest respect from us all, because for more than
six months it served us almost solely as our food."24 He found their
flesh "rather good to eat and tasty"; the females were "tenderer and
tastier” than the males, particularly just before, during, and just
after parturition, and suckling otters - both roasted and boiled -
rivalled suckling lamb in tenderness.25 According to Lieutenant
Waxell, however, the survivors ate sea otter meat "at first with
great repugnance, for it is very tough and consists mostly of
sinews.”26 At any rate, by March of 1742 the island's sea otters had
been slaughtered and frightened so much that it was no longer
possible to catch them.27
The men then turned to sea lions, fur seals, and hair seals. Sea
lion was much superior to sea otter flesh. To Steller the sea lion's
meat tasted like veal and its fat like beef marrow;28 to Waxell the
meat of young sea lions afforded "the best eating of all," its taste
being "particularly good."29 All other sea animals, he added,
bloated their stomachs and constipated their bowels.30 From
mid-April until mid-June mostly fur seals were eaten, although its
meat was malodorous and caused vomiting and diarrhea in "many" of
the men.31 Waxell found the meat "revolting, because it has a very
strong and very unpleasant smell, more or less like that of an old
goat." He added: "The fat is yellow, the flesh hard and sinewy.
Though loathing it, we had to live on it for two whole months."32 To
Master Sofrom Khitrov too, fur seal meat was "quite distasteful."33
Hair seal meat was "equally disgusting”.34
By spring all of the sea animals had grown very wary of the
marauding survivors, and the breeding fur seals had become "quite
savage" and aggressive.35 However, spring also brought relief. Many
edible and tasty plants and roots, such as sarana lily and sweet
grass, alleviated the men's scurvy.36 More importantly, a large,
gentle, whale-like beast appeared, apparently to breed.3 These
strange creatures provided their "best" food, being delicious and
healthful, and enabled them to finish building a makeshift boat from
the wreckage of the St. Peter and leave the island.38 "None of us
properly recovered until we began eating them," wrote Waxell, "so
suitable for eating" were they.39
What was this unknown "beast of the sea" that saved the survivors?
At first Steller thought that it must be a horse because before he
spotted the beast itself he found its dung, which so closely
resembled horse manure that "it would deceive the most expert stable
boy" (and from this false premise he argued that Bering Island must
adjoin the American mainland, since there were no horses in
Kamchatka)40. Because Steller was the first (and only) person to
examine and describe it scientifically, it was subsequently dubbed
Steller's sea cow also known as the North Pacific, or great
northern, sea cow/1 in 1895 it was formalized by Zimmermann as
Hydrodamalis gigas - "gigantic water cow." It constituted one of
three families of the order Sirenia, the two surviving families
comprising the manatee and the dugong.42 Steller's represented one
of five species of sea cow, and it was the largest and the only
temperate species. It evolved from a subtropical species that
migrated from the Atlantic via a submerged Panamanian isthmus and
became widespread around the North Pacific as recently as 20,000
years ago.43 Its Pleistocene range from the Sea of Japan to the Sea
of Cortes coincided with that of the sea otter, which controlled the
population of sea urchins, which in turn would otherwise have
stripped the kelp beds needed by the sea cow. When sea cows were
encountered by the St. Peter's survivors in 1742, their range had
already been severely reduced (probably by aboriginal hunting with
spears - which may have been a crucial step in the development of
aboriginal whaling - since they had no competitors except sea
urchins and no predators except possibly sharks and killer whales)
to the Commander Islands alone, where they numbered perhaps
1.500-2.000 44
Sea cows were striking in appearance. They were small-eyed,
small-eared and short-necked but otherwise large. It has been
estimated that the largest adult weighed eleven tons (ten tonnes)
and reached twenty-five feet (eight metres) in length45. In spite of
their huge size, they were so highly adapted to seaweed grazing in
shallow water close to shore that they had lost their ability to
dive, and they simply floated with their backs out of the water (and
often topped by a glaucous gull picking parasites). Their presence
was indicated by kelp stems and fronds that had been discarded and
beached, especially from 100-foot laminarias. The animal was called
kapustnik ("sea cabbage [kelp] eater") by the Kamchadals, who
occasionally found carcasses washed ashore the southeastern coast of
Kamchatka opposite the Commander Islands.46 Because of its soft
algal diet, the sea cow had horny plates instead of true teeth. As
protection against rocks and ice it had a dark, rough, hard
inch-thick hide that was so tough it almost resisted cutting by an
axe. The hide resembled the bark of an old oak, prompting German
sailors to call it Borkentier, "bark-like animal." Under the hide
lay a four- inch layer of fat, which kept the animal warm in the
cold water of the Bering Sea.
According to the log of the St. Peter kept by Waxell and Khitrov,
the survivors did not begin to hunt sea cows until June, pursuing
them in the longboat, which had to be repaired, having been damaged
the previous fall on the rocks.47 The creatures stayed inshore to
eat seaweed, particularly around river mouths, so they were
accessible: and being vegetarians, their flesh neither smelled nor
tasted repugnant.48 Heretofore the men's diet had been
"disgusting."49 And the animals were not only delicious and
nutritious but abundant, too. Steller noticed them "everywhere
around this [Bering] island in vast numbers." enough in his opinion
to supply the entire coast of Kamchatka "continually" and
"plentifully” with both fat and meat50. The provisionment problem of
the castaways was finally solved. In honour of their saviour they
dubbed the southern point of Bering Island Cape Manatee."51
At first Bering's men tried to hook sea cows, but their hide proved
too tough, so they resorted to harpooning from the longboat with
five rowers and steerers and one harpooner.52 Khitrov described the
hunt:
This animal does not stay far out at sea but keeps close to shore.
Its back is above water, and with the flood tide it moves toward the
shore to feed on the sea cabbage [kelp]. As the tide goes out the
sea cow goes along so as not to get stranded, being such a large
animal. At the time when it was nearing the shore our men in the
longboat would pull up close to it, and one of them, standing in the
bow, hurled at it a large iron harpoon with sharp teeth. To the
harpoon was made fast a cable [thick rope] from 4 to 5 inches in
thickness, which cable was held by 20 men who were ashore. When the
harpoon had penetrated the flesh and held, the men on shore pulled
with all their might while the men in the boat went up close to the
animal, cutting and stabbing with sharp iron weapons in order to
weaken it and prevent it from breaking the rope, which sometimes
happened. This cow is so powerful that it took all these men to hold
her. Counting meat and fat, the sea cow gives about 200 puds. From
the time on when we began hunting the sea cow we were not in want.
Of all the animals mentioned above [fur seals, sea lions, sea
otters, hair seals, whales, and sea cows] the flesh of the cow is
the best tasting. We brought with us to Kamchatka a considerable
quantity of it salted.53
Such an enormous creature (it measured up to 30 feet long and up to
21 feet thick, according to Steller54) provided plenty of meat, fat,
guts, hide, and bones - some 200 puds altogether, including 50-60
puds of meat and even more fat.55 Waxell estimated that the four or
five that they killed weighed 166-222 puds (6.000-8.000 pounds) each
and that one kill sufficed to feed the entire command of forty-six
men for more than a fortnight. 56
The officers also agreed that both the meat and the fat were tasty.
To Waxell the meat of younger sea cows tasted like "really good
reindeer meat".5 to Steller it resembled veal, and "when boiled it
soon became tender, and if the boiling is continued it swells up
like young pork so that it takes up twice as much space in the pot
as it did before boiling . 8 The meat of older sea cows was
indistinguishable from beef, although redder and somewhat tougher
and coarser.59 When salted, it tasted like corned beef.60 Moreover,
Steller found the meat "remarkable" in that "even in the hottest
summer months it keeps in the open air without becoming rancid for
two whole weeks and even longer, despite its being so defiled by
blowflies that it is covered with worms everywhere.61
The fat. which on some parts of the animal was nine inches thick,
was no less remarkable. Steller extolled it:
The fat of this animal is not only oily or flabby but rather hard
and glandular, snow-white, and, when it has been lying several days
in the sun, as pleasantly yellow as the best Dutch butter. The
boiled fat itself excels in sweetness and taste the best beef fat,
is in color and fluidity like fresh olive oil, in taste like sweet
almond oil, and of exceptionally good smell and nourishment. We
drank it by the cupful without feeling the slightest nausea.62
Moreover, the fat was medicinal in that it acted as a gentle
laxative and diuretic.63 It also served as lamp oil; "it bums clear,
without smoke or smell." noted Steller.64 And finally, like the
meat, "it can be kept a very long time, even in the hottest weather,
without becoming rancid or strong."65 The sea cow fare soon
rejuvenated the castaways. "All who ate it felt that they increased
notably in vigor and health." Steller remarked.66 It ensured the
deliverance of the forty-six survivors, enabling them to finish
building the makeshift vessel and to leave the island.
The survivors returned to Kamchatka, then, at the end of the summer
of 1742 with news of an abundance of valuable sea otters, fur seals,
and arctic foxes on the nearby Commanders, as well as a large and
tasty source of food The news triggered a "fur rush" to the east
along the island chain to Alaska, a rush that would eventually take
the Russians to the southern end of the sea otter's range on both
the eastern (California) and western (Hokkaido) sides of the
Pacific. The first venture was launched in the very next year in a
ship that was meaningfully named the St. Peter and whose crew even
more meaningfully included two members of the Second Kamchatka
Expedition They wintered on Bering Island and obtained 1,200 sea
otter and 4.000 fox skins worth 64.000 rubles in Okhotsk prices.67
Altogether from 1743 until 1798 ninety-two ventures gained 7.901.647
rubles's worth of furs from the "eastern islands" and Alaskan
mainland, and 162,067 rubles's worth were taken from the Kurile
Islands by another eight ventures. Some entrepreneurs made their
fortunes; one band of promyshlenniks under Navigator Pribylov
discovered his eponymous archipelago in 1786 and in two years reaped
2,800 sea otter. 30,000 fur seal, and 8,000 blue fox skins, plus 700
puds of walrus tusks, all worth 250.000 rubles in average Okhotsk
prices.68
That return alone would have defrayed one-sixth of the enormous cost
(1,500,000 rubles) of the Second Kamchatka Expedition69 (or
two-thirds of its cost in Kyakhta prices).
Initially, at least, these ventures left Okhotsk or Kamchatka in the
summer, wintered on the Commanders, proceeded to the Near, Fox, or
more easterly Aleutians, and returned the second or third year.
Bering or Copper Island was their first stop because it offered -
besides cheap food in the form of sea cows - not only sea otters but
fur seals, too. The Commanders were second only to the Pribilof’s as
a fur seal rookery, the animals arriving from the south in May to
give birth to their young, which the hunters clubbed in October and
November as they were about to migrate south again.70
The sea otter and fur seal hunts are well documented, but not the
sea cow hunt. It is known that in 1745-46 a party of thirty-two
promyshlenniks under Sergeant Yemelyan Basov, who was making the
second of his four voyages, wintered on the archipelago, and on
Copper Island they found a "great many sea cows, which could likely
feed many people if they were hunted.71. And in 1758-62 the Moscow
merchant Ivan Nikiforov financed a voyage of promyshlenniks to the
Aleutians "for bringing the local untaxed people into subjugation
and tribute paying." Their vessel, the Julian, wintered in 1758-59
at Copper Island, where they lived on sea cows, hair seals, and sea
lions, whose meat they salted.72 Finally, in the early autumn of
1759 forty-three promyshlenniks under the Totma trader Stepan
Cherepanov left Nizhne-Kamchatsk in the Zakhar and Elizabeth (which
measured only 42 feet in length and 15 in width) and bore ESE for
the Aleutian Islands to hunt furs but because of the lateness of the
season had to winter on Bering Island, where "they hunted sea cows
for food." Theirs is the only detailed record of a sea cow hunt, and
as such it deserves to be quoted:
Of marine animals, sea cows, sea lions, and whales are fairly
abundant, but there are very few sea otters, which are seldom seen,
and of these animals they catch only sea cows for their food. They
are hunted as follows: when there are no winds or waves at sea, ten
men embark in a skin baidara [umiaki, ready with a pole, one end of
iron and thirty-five inches in length, and an anchor fluke
[pokolyuga] forty-two inches in length in the form of a sword, and
sometimes they even use swords. Seeing a sea cow stopped at a spot
in the sea, which it sometimes does for eating or napping or nursing
its young, they row quietly towards the feeding sea cow to within
fourteen feet or closer and strike it with the fluke about its
forelegs; the more they strike, the sooner they are spent in the
baidara, and they row away from it in order not to be sunk (for as
it is being struck the sea cow beats its flippers up to ten times,
and if they are near it and do not row away, they-may be injured by
the waves [resulting! from the beating [flippers]), and then it
swims off, not leaving the shore and not moving fast; and they chase
it in the baidara and, overtaking it, strike it with half a dozen
iron pikes that are [each] ten and a half inches long, a rope, two
and a half or three inches [thick] and three hundred and fifty feet
or less long, is attached to the pikes; once embedded, the pike
remains in the sea cow. They keep hold of the горю and chase it
until it dies, and after it dies they pull it to the shore and cut
it up in the shallower water, using it for their subsistence. One
sea cow is, say, twenty-eight feet or more in length, seventy inches
in thickness, and seven feet in width, and in the front under the
breast it has two legs, twenty-eight inches or less long and about
twenty-eight inches thick; instead of hooves, like a camel, it has
at the back soft flippers, like a whale; under the forelegs there
are two teats, as in cattle, except that they are not white, and are
the size of hens's eggs; there are five thousand, four hundred and
seventeen pounds of meat and two thousand, one hundred and
sixty-seven pounds of fat plus two kidneys, as in cattle, weighing
two hundred and fifty-three pounds together, and the entrails of a
sea cow are similar in all respects to those of cattle; the meat and
fat are very delicious and healthful food, and especially the
kidneys are tasty.
The promyshlenniks lived on sea cows until June (and presumably
berries and sarana roots, which were "fairly abundant"), when they
left with a stock of dried sea cow meat and some fat for the
Aleutians73.
Between 1743-44 and 1778-79 at least twenty-five such voyages were
made to the Commander Islands (seven in the 1740s. ten in the 1750s,
six in the 17605, and two in the 1770s, including only two after
1768), each of them usually spending a winter on Bering or Copper
Island before proceeding the following summer to the Aleutian
Islands 74. The sea cow could not long survive such wasteful
hunting. Peter Yakovlev, a mining engineer, was sent to Copper
Island by the Russian government in 1754 to investigate its alleged
deposits of native copper. He was obliged to winter on Bering Island
because there were no more sea cows on Copper Island. On Bering
Island he observed that passing promyshlenniks who stopped to
provision their ventures hunted the animals by sending eight men in
a boat to harpoon them and then immediately towed them ashore for
butchering, since the meat would begin to spoil if left to the next
day. But a very wasteful method was used by sojourners, who were
scattered over the island in groups of twos or threes hunting fur
bearers. They often had to hunt sea cows sin- glehandedly, sneaking
up on one close to shore and mortally wounding it with a spear. The
wounded animal seldom died outright and usually went out to sea to
die, its carcass being fit to eat if washed ashore the same day but
not the next. Yakovlev was so struck by this improvidence that he
predicted the sea cow’s speedy demise unless precautions were taken.
Upon his return to Kamchatka in 1755 he petitioned the local
authorities to ban this method of hunting "in order that Bering
Island may not be devastated in the same manner as Copper Island,"
but his warning went unheeded.75
Yakovlev's prediction soon came true. According to Sauer, the sea
cow was extinct by the end of 1768, when the last animal was killed
on Bering Island.76 En route to Kodiak Island in the galiot Three
Saints, the merchant Grigory Shelikhov and his crew wintered on
Bering Island from October. 1783 until July, 1784, and in his
published account of this voyage Shelikhov does not mention sea cows
at all, noting only that the island offered sea lion, fur seal and
hair seal meat, as well as fish, wildfowl, and roots77. The
elephantine creature’s undoing was not only persistent and
extravagant hunting however. It was already nearing the end of its
existence when the Russians discovered it, its numbers already
having been greatly depleted and its range sharply curtailed by -
presumably - aboriginal hunting. Sauer asserted that sea cows had
been found along the coast of Kamchatka and among the Aleutian
Islands,78 but he was undoubtedly mistaken Steller's Cossack
adjutant, Foma Lepyokin, a veteran of Kamchatkan service, told the
scientist that the animal "existed nowhere on Kamchatka."79 And
probably no more than 2.000 animals remained on the Commander
Islands at the time of the Second Kamchatka Expedition. So the
Russians simply administered the coup de grace to an already doomed
80 species.80
The sea соw’s extinction was also hastened by some of its own
traits: its gregariousness, its docility, its slowness, its dull
sensory organs, its defencelessness, its inability to escape
stranding by moving on land or to escape hunting by diving into
deeper water or going farther out to sea, its restricted diet, its
solicitude for each other, and its low rate of reproduction. If the
sea cow's had kept to themselves as individuals or even in families
rather than congregate, it would have been more difficult for
hunters to make a kill "Like cattle on land." noted Steller, "these
animals live in herds together in the sea, males and females usually
going with one another, pushing the offspring before them all around
the shore."81 And being "not in the least afraid of human beings,82
at least at first, the hapless creatures were so docile as to invite
their own destruction. Steller found his namesakes on Bering Island
so tractable that "when the tide came in they came up so close to
the shore that I often hunted them with my stick or lance, and
sometimes even stroked their backs with my hand." "If they were
badly hurt” he added. "they did nothing but withdraw to a distance
from the shore, and alter a short time they would forget their
injury and come back83. Even if the sea cows had been wary, their
want of swiftness and alertness would still have rendered them easy
prey. Slow in their movements they were readily overtaken by
hunters, whose presence, moreover, they failed to detect for as
Steller noted, "they see and hear but little, because they keep
their heads under water" "At all events." he added, "the animal
himself seems to neglect and despise the use of these organs [eyes
and ears]84. Perhaps it had remained unmolested for so long that its
eves and ears had atrophied.
Even if the sea cows had wanted to put up a fight, they lacked the
means. Wanting teeth claws tentacles, or stingers they were
defenseless, except for their powerful tails. Indeed, given the
absence of natural competitors save sea urchins and of natural
enemies save possibly sharks and killer whales the creatures really
did not need weaponry So they were quite helpless in the face of men
armed with harpoons, spears, swords, daggers and muskets And when
attacked they could not easily escape, for they were unable to swim
fast or dive deep. They "half swim and half walk " wrote Steller85.
Not being amphibious, they were awkward on land. The "structure of
the animal is totally unfitted to moving on dry land” he explains.
He rolled that in Bering Island it happened that as the tide went
out the waves receded from under one of the animals sound asleep and
left him high and dry upon the shore but he was helpless and unable
to get away, a pitiable object, at the mercy of our cudgels and
axes."86 Indeed, the sea cows were so sedentary that "they remained
constantly in one spot, no matter how many of them were wounded or
killed.87 They only went out to sea to avoid stranding themselves at
low tide: at high tide they returned, "often so close that we could
reach and hit them with poles from the beach88.
The sea cows were further exposed by their preoccupation with kelp
which grew inshore. "These animals are fond of shallow sandy places
along the seashore " noted Steller. 'but they like especially to
live around the mouths of rivers and creeks, for they love fresh
running water”89. Indeed, their fondness for kelp was fatal, making
them oblivious to danger "These animals are busy with nothing but
their food." Steller found.90 He added that they "are very voracious
and eat incessantly, and because they are so greedy they keep their
heads always under water, without regard to life and safety."91
Moreover, this single source of food undoubtedly decreased with the
depletion of sea otters, which controlled the population of sea
urchins, which also liked seaweed.
The solicitude of the sea cows for each other was likewise fatal.
One animal would readily risk its own life by coming valiantly to
the aid of a wounded mate or calf. Steller wrote:
... they have indeed an extraordinary love for one another, which
extends so far that when one of them was cut into, all the others
were intent on rescuing it and keeping it from being pulled ashore
by closing a circle around it. Others tried to overturn the yawl
[longboat]. Some placed themselves on the rope or tried to draw the
harpoon out of its body, in which indeed they were successful
several times. We also observed that a male two days in a row came
to its dead female on the shore and inquired about its condition.92
If the sea cow had been able to propagate prolifically, it might
have been able to withstand the Russian onslaught. But it was not a
fecund animal. It seems to have been monogamous, breeding in spring
and calving in autumn. From the shortness of the cow’s uterine
cornua and the presence of only two mammae, Steller concluded that
it bore a single offspring. He himself never saw a mother with more
than one calf.93
Thus, within a quarter of a century the sea cow, like the dodo bird
and the great auk, was eaten to extinction by hungry mariners. All
that remains of this bovine behemoth are ten composite skeletons
(1951) in the world's museums (two others in Hamburg and Dresden
were destroyed in bombing raids during World War II); no complete
skeleton (or hide) has survived.94
Russian promyshlenniks, however, still required provisions, so what
did, they substitute for sea cows? The answer is flour and beef,
which had to be brought to Okhotsk from Baikalia and Yakutia,
respectively. They could not be provided in abundance by Kamchatka,
where stock raising and vegetable gardening underwent only modest
improvement, and grain growing none at all, in the years
(1770s-1780s) immediately following the sea cow’s demise.95 Surplus
grain was available from Russian peasants in both the Prebaikalian
and Transbaikalian steppe, and surplus cattle from Yakut herders in
the lowland of the "big bend" of the Lena River.
But the grain had to be boated to Yakutsk and packhorsed to Okhotsk,
and the cattle driven from Yakutsk to Okhotsk. The annual number of
horses packing between Yakutsk and Okhotsk rose from 4.000-5.000 in
the 1740s- 1750s (when sea cows still existed) to 20.000-30.000 in
the 1780s- 1790s.96 Meanwhile, the 1770s and 1780s saw no
substantial improvement of the notoriously difficult Yakutsk-Okhotsk
Track,97 so provisions remained very dear at Okhotsk and even dearer
in Kamchatka.
Thus, their high cost had to be offset by economies elsewhere,
namely, in the maritime fur trade. The last third of the century saw
fewer, larger, and more stable companies with more capital and more
expertise. Better ships were built; shitiki were replaced by
gvozdenniki ("nailed ones") with iron nails or wooden pegs instead
of rawhide thongs, willow osiers, or whale bone for securing the
boards, as well as with ribs. Better sailors were employed, more
apprentice navigators and fewer labourers and Kamchadals were hired
(especially after smallpox killed from two-thirds to three-quarters
of Kamchatka’s natives in 1768-6998). The more seaworthy ships and
the more competent sailors, plus the accumulated knowledge of
sailing conditions (winds, currents, tides, shallows, rocks,
harbours), meant fewer shipwrecks. Taxation became lighter with the
ending in 1774 of the treasury 's "tenth'' tax on Siberia's exports
and imports.99 Costs were likely reduced, too, by deregulation; in
1762 the ban on private Russian-Chinese trade was lifted with the
abolition of the state's monopoly on this traffic.100 Finally,
profits may have increased with the depletion of sea otters, their
skins becoming dearer as they became scarcer and Chinese demand
staying strong At Kyakhta the value of a skin increased by
two-thirds to three-quarters between 1746 and 1770.101
All of this "restructuring" meant that henceforth most of the
ventures were outfitted at Okhotsk, not in Kamchatka, which was
twice as far from the supply point of Yakutsk. Despite its exposed
situation and shallow harbour. Okhotsk remained Russia's main
Pacific port until the middle 1800s. when it was supplanted by first
Petropavlovsk and then Vladivostok. By then, however, the fur trade
that had made Okhotsk, and undone the sea cow was over.
1F. A. Golder, Bering's Voyages: An Account of the Efforts of the
Russians to Determine the Relation of Asia and America (New York;
American Geographical Society, 1922-25), 2:216-17, 245; Gerhard
Friedrich Muller, Bering's Voyages: The Reports from Russia, trans.
Carol Urness (Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press. 1986), 120, 5.
Muller, Voyages from Asia to America, For Completing the Discoveries
of the North West Coast of America, trans. Thomas Jefferys (London:
T. Jefferys, 1761), 59. In his journal the expedition's botanist,
Georg Steller, wrote that between November 6, 1741 and August 17,
1742 more than 700 sea otters were killed on Bering Island by the
survivors, their meat eaten, and their skins taken to Kamchatka
(Georg Wilhelm Steller, Journal of a Voyage with Bering 1741-1742,
trans. Margritt A. Engel and O.W. Frost [Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1988], 145); elsewhere, in his classic treatise De
Bestus marinis, Steller stated that "upward of 800" were killed
(Georg Wilhelm Stelleri, "The Beasts of the Sea, by George William
Steller," trans. Walter Miller and Jennie Emerson Miller, in David
Starr Jordan, The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North
Pacific Ocean [Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1899],
3:215). According to Berkh, Chirikov also returned with 900 sea
otter skins (Vasili Nikolayevich Berkh, A Chronological History of
the Discovery of the Aleutian Islands or the Exploits of Russian
Merchants With a Supplement of Historical Data on the Fur Trade,
trans. Dmitri Krenov, "Alaska History Series," No. 5 [Kingston, ON:
Limestone Press, 1974], 1, 76), but he seems to have confused the
cargoes of the two ships.
2[Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:215.
3Ibid., 210.
4Ibid., 212.
5Ibid., 211.
6Ibid., 212.
7S. P. Krasheninnikov, Opisanie zemli Kamchatki [A Description of
the Land of Kamchatka], ed. L. S. Berg, A. A. Grigoryev, and N.N.
Stepanov (Moscow-Leningrad: Izdatelstvo Glavsevmorputi, 1949), 284.
8Golder, Bering's Voyages, 2:220; Muller, Voyages from Asia to
America, 59; Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 147. Lieutenant Waxell,
who accompanied Steller on the St. Peter, wrote that a pelt was
worth 15-25 rubles in Kamchatka and 50-70 in China (Sven Waxell, The
American Expedition, trans. M.A. Michael [Edinburgh: William Hodge,
1952], 190).
9Golder, Bering's Voyages, 2:1.
10Indeed, although Steller's share of the Bering Island return was
only 80 (Golder, Bering's Voyages, 2:245), he returned to Kamchatka
with 300 skins of his own, in according to Academician Muller
(Muller, Bering's Voyages, 120); if so, at Kyakhta they would have
been worth up to forty-four times his annual salary.
11Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 165. Their eagerness is reminiscent
of the nearly mutinous clamour of some of Captain Cook's crewmen at
Canton, after learning the high value of sea otter skins there in
1779, to return immediately to the Northwest Coast to get more
pelts, with two of the Resolution's men deserting with its cutter
for that purpose.
12Ibid., 59.
13Golder, Bering's Voyages, 2:245.
14Ibid.. 1:315-17, 321,326.
15Ibid., 48.
16The native Kamchadals had long known of the existence of the
Commander Islands, and the Russians of Nizhne-Kamchatsk near the
mouth of the Kamchatka River had been aware of them from the very
beginning of the 1700s. In 1710 the Yakutsk authorities ordered
their probing and mapping, but the resultant expedition was aborted
by the death of its leader (George Vilgelm Steller, Dnevnik
plavaniva s Beringa к beregam Ameriki 1741-1742 [Journal of a Voyage
with Bering to the Coast of America, 1741-1742], trans. Ye.L.
Stanyukovich [Moscow: "PAN," 1995], pp. 197-98, n. 248).
17Golder, Bering's Voyages, 1:132, 161, 186, 191, 205, 209, 21112,
215, 219, 223-224, 226,230, 235, 282n, 2:22n.
18For details, see James R. Gibson, "Supplying the Kamchatka
Expeditions, 1725-30 and 1733-42," in 0. W. Frost, ed., Bering and
Chirikov. The American Voyages and their Impact (Anchorage: Alaska
Historical Society, 1992), 90-116.
19A. Pokrovsky, ed., Ekspeditsiya Beringa: Sbornik dokumentov /
Bering's Expedition: A Collection of Documents] (Moscow: Glavnoye
arkhivnoye upravlenie NKVD SSSR, 1941), 365,366.
20Ibid., 370; Vasili A. Divin, The Great Russian Navigator, A. I.
Chirikov, trans. Raymond H. Fisher (Fairbanks: University of Alaska
Press, 1993), Appendices, doc. 2:271. For an abridged English
translation of Bering's report to the Admiralty at the end of 1737
on the difficulties of transport from Yakutsk to Okhotsk, see Peter
Lauridsen, Vitus Bering: The Discoverer of Bering Strait, trans.
Julius E. Olson (Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, 1969),
Appendix 1, 195-201.
21A. I. Alekseyev, T. S. Fyodorova, A. L. Narochnitsky, and I. N.
Solovyov, eds., Russkie ekspeditsii po izuchenivu severnoy chasti
Tikhovo okeana v pervoy polovine XVIII v.- Sbornik dokumentov
[Russian Expeditions for Investigating the North Pacific Ocean in
the First Halff of the 18th Century: A Collection of Documents]
(Moscow: Izdatelstvo "Nauka", 1984), doc. 148:252-53.
22Ibid., doc. 156:268.
23Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 143.
21Ibid., 148.
25Ibid., 147; also see [Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:211,
21 Martin Sauer, secretary to the Billings-Sarychev expedition of
the late 1780s, asserted that the flesh of sea otter cubs resembled
that of suckling pig (Martin Sauer. An Account of a Geographical and
Astronomical Expedition to the Northern Parts of Russia . . .
[London: T. Cadell, Jr. and W. Davies, 1802), 181).
26 Waxell, American Expedition, 137-38; also see ibid., 189, 205
Muller, too, that the sea otter meat, "especially that of the male,
was found distasteful, very hard, and tough as leather, so that they
could hardly chew it” (Muller, Bering's Voyages, 119).
27Waxell, American Expedition, 141.
28Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 150; also see [Steller], "Beasts of
the Sea," 3:209.
29Waxell, American Expedition, 141; also see Muller, Bering's
Voyages, 121, who added that generally the animals were too large,
strong, and aggressive to be bagged.
30Waxell, American Expedition, 14М2; also see ibid., 193-94.
31Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 156.
32Waxell, American Expedition, 141; also see ibid., 190, 205.
33Golder, Bering's Voyages, 1:238; also see Muller, Bering's
Voyages, 120.
34Waxell, American Expedition, 205; also see Muller, Bering's
Voyages, 120.
35 Golder, Bering's Voyages, 1:238, 279.
36Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 156-57; Golder, Bering's Voyages,
1:237-38.
37The sea cow did not migrate, however, unlike the fur seal;
presumably it simply came inshore in order to mate on the beach.
Steller reported that sea cows were "found at all times of the year
everywhere around this [Bering) island," and that they had been
present when the St. Peter ran aground in mid-November (Steller,
Journal of a voyage, 128, 162).
38Waxell, American Expedition, 122,151.
39Ibid., 194.
40[Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:192.
41See Georg Wilhelm Steller’s, "De Bestus marinis," Novi Commentari
Academiae Scieniarum Imperialis Petropolitanae 2 (1751):289-298.
Krasheninnikov also described the sea cow (Krasheninnikov, Opisanie
zemli Kamchatki, 286-89), but his description is derived entirely
from Steller. It would be an interesting exercise, incidentally, to
determine the extent to which Krasheninnikov's account of the
peninsula, published posthumously in St. Petersburg in 1755, is
based upon Steller's Beschreibung von dem Lande Kamtschatka, also
published posthumously in 1774 in Frankfurt - or vice versa.
The sea cow was but one of several species that have been named
after Steller - e.g., Steller's sea lion, Steller's sea eagle,
Steller's jay - because he was the first to identify them
scientifically. For a contextual bibliography, see Mary C. Grier,
Oceanography of the North Pacific Ocean, Bering Sea and Bering
Strait A Contribution toward a Bibliography, "University of
Washington Publications: Library Series," Vol. 2 (New York:
Greenwood Press, 1969), a reprint of the 1941 edition.
42For a helpful general study of the sirenians in English, see John
E. Reynolds and Daniel K. Odell, Manatees and Dugongs (New York:
Facts on File, 1991). The sirenians are supposedly the source of the
mermaid myth.
43Daryl P. Domning, "Steller's sea cow and the origin of North
Pacific aboriginal whaling," Syesis 5 (1972): 187, 188.
44Ibid.; Leonhard Steineger, "How the Great Northern Sea-Cow Became
Exterminated," American Naturalist 21 (Rhytina) (1887): 1,049.
45Victor B. Scheffer, "The Weight of the Steller Sea Cow," Journal
of Mammalogy, 53(1972): 913.
46Steller, Journal of a voyage, 164; [Steller], "Beasts of the Sea,"
3:200.
47Alekseyev et al. Russkie ekspeditsii, doc. 145:249; Steller,
Journal of a voyage. 159.
48Waxell, American Expedition, 194.
49Alekseyev et al., Russkie ekspeditsii, doc. 156:268.
50Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 162; [Steller], "Beasts of the Sea",
3:201.
51 Golder, Bering's Voyages, 1:236, 241.
52 Steller, Journal of a voyage, 159. On this change in the method
of hunting, see O. W. Frost, "Adam Olearius, the Greenland Eskimos,
and the First Slaughter of Bering Island Sea Cows, 1742: An
Elucidation of a Statement in Steller's Journal," in Richard A.
Pierce, ed., Russia in North America: Proceedings of the Td
International Conference on Russian America, "Alaska History
Series,” No. 35 (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1990), 121-35.
53Golder, Bering's Voyages, 1:237-38; also see Steller, Journal of a
Voyage, 159-60 and [Steller), "Beasts of the Sea," 3:198-99. The
forty-six survivors left Bering Island in late August with at least
5 casks of salted sea cow' meat, 1 barrel of salted beef, 25 puds
(11 sacks) of rye flour, and 2 puds of peas, as well as 10 casks of
water (Golder, Bering's Voyages, 1:241; Steller, Journal of a
Voyage, 166). According to Steller, incidentally, it took all of the
other survivors - forty, not twenty - to haul a harpooned sea cow
ashore (Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 159).
54Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 160; [Steller’s, "Beasts of the
Sea," 3:182.
55Alekseyev et al., Russkie ekspeditsii, 156:268; Golder, Bering's
Voyages, 1:237, Ekspeditsiya Beringa, 360; Steller, Journal
[Steller), "Beasts of the Sea," 3:201.
56Waxell, American Expedition, 122, 194-95.
57Ibid., 194. doc. 145:249, doc. 237n.; Pokrovsky, of a Voyage, 163;
58[Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:200; also see Steller, Journal
of a voyage, 163.
59Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 163-64; [Steller], "Beasts of the
Sea," 3:200.
60[Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:200.
61Steller, Journal of a voyage, 163; also see (Steller), "Beasts of
the Sea," 3 :200. Admittedly, the summer months on Bering Island are
hardly hot, July and August temperatures C. rarely rising above the
teens.
62 Steller. Journal of a Voyage, 163.
63Ibid.; [Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:200.
64[Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:200.
65Ibid.
66Steller. Journal of a Voyage, 164.
67Raisa V. Makarova, Russians on the Pacific 1743-1799, trans.
Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly, "Alaska History Series,"
No. 6 (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1975), 39, 209.
68G. A. Sarychev, Puteshestvie po severo-vostochnoy chasti Sibiri,
Ledovitomy moryu i Vostochnomu okeanu [A Voyage through the
Northeastern Part of Siberia, the Arctic Sea, and the Eastern Ocean]
(Moscow: Gosudarstvennoye izdatelstvo geograficheskoy literatury,
1952), 175-76.
69Pokrovsky, Ekspeditsiya Beringa, 370.
70[Carl Heinrich Merck), Siberia and Northwestern America 1788-
1792: The Journal of Carl Heinrich Merck, Naturalist with the
Russian Scientific Expedition Led by Captains Joseph Billings and
Gavriil Sarychev, trans. Fritz Jaensch, "Alaska History Series," No.
17 (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press, 1980), 88.
71A. I. Alekseyev, R. V. Makarova, A. L. Narochnitsky, I. N.
Solovyov, T. S. Fyodorova, and S. G. Fyodorova, eds., Russkie
ekspeditsii po izucheniyu severnoy chasti Tikhovo okeana vo vtoroy
polovine XVIII v.: Sbornik dokumentov [Russian Expeditions for
Investigating the North Pacific Ocean in the Second Half of the 18th
Century: A Collection of Documents] (Moscow: "Nauka,” 1989), doc.
2:33.
72V. A. Divin, comp., Russkaya tikhookeanskaya epopeya [The Russian
Pacific Ocean Epic] (Khabarovsk: Khabarovskove knizhnove
izdatelstvo, 1979), doc 67:314-15.
73A. I. Andreyev, ed., Russkie otkrytiya v Tikhom okeane i Sevemoy
Amerike v XVIII veke [Russian Discoveries in the Pacific Ocean and
in North America in the 18th Century) (Moscow: Ogiz, 1948), doc.
8:113-15.
74Makarova, Russians on the Pacific, 39-40, 42-44, 46, 48-49, 52-
55, 59, 61, 63-66, 69, 73; also see Berkh, who lists twenty such
voyages between 1743-44 and 1772-73 (Berkh, Chronological History,
1-4, ' 6-9, 12-17, 19-21, 29, 35, 49, 52).
75Steineger, "Great Northern Sea-Cow," 1,051-52. Stejneger does not
cite a source for this account, and I have been unable to trace
Yakovlev’s report.
76Sauer, Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition, 181.
77Grigoni I. Shelikhov, A Voyage to America 1783-1786, trans. Marina
Ramsay, "Alaska History Series," No. 19 (Kingston, ON: Limestone
Press, 1981), 36-37.
78Sauer, Account of a Geographical and Astronomical Expedition, 181.
79Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 128. Upon his return to the
peninsula, Steller learned that the sea cow was, however, "known" to
the natives of the eastern coast between Cape Kronotsky and Avacha
Bay, but presumably in the form of beached carcasses (ibid., 164;
[Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:200).
80Frost has rightly noted that the killing of sea cows on Bering
Island by the St. Peter's survivors not only assured the letter's
deliverance but also signalled the former's extinction (Frost, "Adam
Olearius, the Greenland Eskimos, and the First Slaughter of Bering
Island Sea Cows," 121).
81Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 161-62; also see [Steller), "Beasts
of the Sea," 3:197.
82Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 162.
83[Steller], "Beasts of the Sea." V 197-98
84Ibid 199.
85Ibid,198.
86Ibid, 197.
87 Steller Journal of a Voyage,162
88Ibid
89[Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:197.
90Steller, Journal of a Voyage, 162.
91[Steller), "Beasts of the Sea," 3:198.
92Steller, Journal of Voyage, 162; also see [Steller), "Beasts of
the Sea," 3:199.
93[Steller], "Beasts of the Sea," 3:198.
94Victor Scheffer, "The last days of the sea cow," Smithsonian 3
(1973) :66. A Soviet zoologist, however, wrote that in the 1840s the
natural scientist Ilya Voznesensky, who was fascinated by sea cows,
collected "numerous remains" on the Commander Islands, including an
"entire skeleton," now housed in the Zoological Museum of the
Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg (Academy of Sciences
of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, The Pacific: Russian
Scientific Investigations [New York: Greenwood Press, 1969], 139).
Two contemporary drawings of the sea cow have survived, both
probably done by the surveyor Friedrich Plenisner, Steller's friend
and fellow castaway. One was reproduced on a map accompanying
Waxell's account of the expedition (see Sven Vaksel, Vtoraya
Kamchatskaya ekspeditsiya Vitusa Beringa [The Second Kamchatka
Expedition of Vitus Bering], trans. Yu. I. Bronshtein
[Leningrad-Moscow: Izdatelstvo Glavsevmorputi, 19401, 112-13), and
the other was published in P. 5. Pallas's Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica
(Petropoli, 1811), 1:plate 30.
95See James R. Gibson, feeding the Russian Fur Trade: Provisionment
of the Okhotsk Seaboard and the Kamchatka Peninsula
1639-1856(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969), 207-08.
96Ibid., 98, Table 7.
97See ibid.. 143-44.
98 Ibid.. 196
99Makarova. Russians on the Pacific, 110.
100Ibid., 112-13.
101Ibid., 113
|