8,921
edits
Changes
→See also
In 1719, Tsar Peter I ordered an expedition to Kamchatka to settle the question of whether Asia and north America were joined or not. This expedition was unsuccessful. Peter was so obsessed to have a precise answer to this question before he died that he ordered a second, larger expedition. This one was to be led by the Dane Vitus Bering. Before the expedition could start Tsar Peter died. After Peter’s death in 1725, the order for the expedition was continued by his widow, Catherine I.
[[Image:Sts Peter and Paul Church Saint Paul Island, Alaska.jpg|right|thumb|[http://oca.org/parishes/OCA-AK-STPSPP Sts Peter and Paul Russian Orthodox Church], on [[w:Saint Paul Island (Alaska)|St. Paul Island, Alaska]], founded 1830.]]
Following the route pioneered by Kopylov in 1639, the Vitus Bering led expedition that took a year and a half to reach Okhotsk, arriving in the fall of 1727. Bering moved on to Kamchatka the following spring. Here his expedition built a boat, named ''Saint Gabriel'', that sailed north along the Siberian coast looking for evidence of the American continent. After searching for two months he convinced himself that the two continents were not joined, but he had not sighted the American coast. Returning to St Petersburg, Bering was criticized for not physically confirming the separation of the continents. A new expedition was formed that finally sailed in June 1741 from the base on the Kamchatka peninsula, named Petropavlovsk, in two small square rigged ships, the ''Saint Peter'' and ''Saint Paul'', commanded by Bering and Captain-Lieutenant Alexis Chirikov respectively. Separated by the foggy gloom of the northern seas, the St Peter, with Bering on board, arrived on [[July 16]], 1741 at the Alaskan coast with a view of the snow covered mountains that were to be named the Saint Elias Mountain Range. On the same day Chirikov on board the Saint Paul discovered Sitka Bay.
*[[Juvenaly of Alaska]]
*[[Peter the Aleut]]
'''Wikipedia'''
* [[w:Russian America|Russian America]]
==SourceSources==
* C. J. Tarasar, Gen. Ed. ''Orthodox America 1794-1976 Development of the Orthodox Church in America.'' The Orthodox Church in America, Syosett, New York, 1975.
* Hector Chevigny. ''Russian America - The Great Alaskan Venture 1741-1867.'' The Viking Press, New York, 1965.
* Robert R. Rathburn. ''The Russian Orthodox Church as a Native Institution among the Koniag Eskimo of Kodiak Island, Alaska.'' '''Arctic Anthropology.''' Vol. 18, No. 1 (1981), pp. 12-22.
* Nora Dauenhauer, Richard L. Dauenhauer, Lydia T. Black. ''[http://books.google.ca/books?id=yFa4anGH6U0C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false Russians in Tlingit America].'' Volume 4 of Classics of Tlingit oral literature series. University of Washington Press, 2008. 491 pp. ISBN 9780295986012
==External links==
*[http://www.helium.com/items/438755-russian-orthodox-missionaries-in-early-alaska Russian Orthodox missionaries in early Alaska]
*[http://www.akhistorycourse.org/articles/article.php?artID=128 Russia's Colony]
[[Category: Places]]
[[Category: Church History]]
