You’ve probably heard of the Bering Sea, the region of the northern Pacific Ocean that separates Asia from North America. The narrow part of the separation is the Bering Strait. In the Bering Strait, near the Asia or western side, you can find Bering Island. And if you travel east from Bering Island, across the Bering Strait, you’ll find Bering Glacier, the glacier whose meltwater feeds Vitus Lake.
What’s with all this stuff? Everything is named after Vitus Bering, the Danish explorer and Russian naval officer who discovered all of it. Although we’re not entirely sure when he was born, he was baptized on August 5, 1681 in Horsens, which at the time was in the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway. Nowadays it’s in Denmark.
Bering went to sea at 15, serving as a ship’s boy (also known as a cabin boy), and received naval training in navigation and mapmaking in Amsterdam. He enrolled in the Russian Navy when he was 23, where he served for the next 20 years. He resigned because he was embarrassed that he hadn’t been promoted as far as he thought he deserved — but as part of his retirement he was promoted, to captain. That promotion evidently changed his mind, because later that same year he rejoined the navy, keeping his new rank.
Bering was well-enough known that Tsar Peter I selected him to lead the First Kamchatka Expedition, which sailed north from the Kamchatka Peninsula to try to determine whether Asia and North America were connected by land. After a three-year expedition, Bering concluded in 1728 that there was a sea between the continents, although he hadn’t conclusively proven it.
The expedition was considered a great success, and Bering was rewarded with a promotion to “Captain Commander,” and also with money and prestige. He immediately started getting ready for a second, more ambitious, bigger expedition. These things take time, especially in light of political upheavals in Russia and the accession of a new Empress, Anna Ivanovna. Bering was enjoying his new social status and wealth, and with one thing and another, his next expedition didn’t set off until until 13 years later in 1741.
Bering’s second expedition made more discoveries, including Mount Saint Elias, Kodiak Island, and the Aleutian Islands, but ran into trouble when many of the crew, including Bering himself, became ill. They were probably suffering from scurvy. The Bering Sea can be incredibly stormy, and the expedition sought refuge on an uninhabited island, where Bering died at the age of 60. That’s the island that bears his name. 28 other crew members died there with him.
The Russian government kept Bering’s discoveries secret for the next century or so, but when the story of his voyages came out, Captain Cook named several things after him, including the Bering Sea. Two other things that bear his name are the Bering Land Bridge and Beringia, the land that connected Asia and North America tens of thousands of years ago.
