Bering, Vitus Jonassen

Bering, Vitus Jonassen (1680-1741), Danish navigator, born in Horsens, Denmark. He entered the newly formed navy of the Russian tsar Peter the Great and in 1724 was appointed to conduct an expedition to explore the water routes between Siberia and North America. Having taken supplies across the continent, Bering sailed from the Kamchatka peninsula in 1728, into what is now the Bering Sea. He passed north through what was later named Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean, but because of bad weather he did not sight the North American continent; he did prove, however, that the Asian and North American continents are not joined. Returning to St Petersburg in 1730, he sought another expedition to explore north-eastern Siberia.

In 1733 Bering assumed command of a much larger and more ambitious undertaking, which was eventually responsible for the mapping of large areas of the northern Siberian coast. In June 1741 Bering set sail from Petropavl (which he had founded the previous year) for the North American continent. He sailed into the Gulf of Alaska and sighted the continent north of what is now Cape St Elias, Alaska, on July 29, and shortly afterwards landed on Kayak Island. During the return voyage Bering and most of his crew were ill with scurvy, and his ship, encountering storms and fog, was wrecked on an uninhabited island, subsequently named Bering Island in his honour. Bering died there of exposure one month later and was buried on the island, but a few survivors built a vessel in which they returned to Kamchatka in 1742.