Journey of the sloop Good Intent to explore the Asiatic and American shores of Bering Strait, 1819 to 1822. Part one

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western cape. Toward noon we got to the middle one projecting at a blunt angle into the sea, and were in the curve of the shore extending between it and East Cape. This was about three o'clock in the afternoon, and then, an already rather brisk wind started to increase. The captain, fearing that we would be pushed against the shore, ordered us to proceed close-hauled, but the high seas threw us off, and the drifting was so strong with reefed topsails that the impossibility of maneuvering was obvious. It was necessary to add canvas or we were done for. We put up topsails to relieve the strain on the shrouds, left the topsails reefed in two rows, put on the topgallant sails, and put up the fore and mainsails. With such wind, this amount of sail produced the desired effect, the sloop started moving, and with its build and the high seas, almost incredible: we were going five knots. The topmasts bent like small twigs and we feared that they might break despite the precautions taken by us. The sloop lay completely on its beam ends. In this manner we spent two and a half hours between fear and hope. Finally, we reached a point from which it was possible to change course, ported the helm, braced the yards, clewed up the mainsail, and the sloop, as if sensing its dangerous position, inclined leeward, escaping the point of danger and flew southeast. Hiding from the heavy seas behind East Cape, we removed the topgallant sails, clewed up the foresails, and directed our course to St. Matthew Island, not having any hope of executing the given commission

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without a big loss of time.

On August 14, at six o'clock in the morning, the mentioned island came into our sight. Its forerunners were an infinite multitude of sea birds such as puffins, murres, seagulls, and loons. About noon we neared the island and determined its latitude, 60° 13' 48" N and longitude, 187° 45' 48" E of Greenwich. It consists of high bare rocks in which nest millions of the mentioned birds. Near the northern end is located a separate little islet, and at the southern, an immense rock resembling a saddle and named by Captain Clerke, Pinnacle [Pinnacle Island] . This large island is about 60 miles long, but completely sterile and uninhabited. The existence of multitudes of sea lions, seals, and sea otters on its low shore prompted Mr. Baranov, former manager of the colonies of the [Russian-]American Company, to settle a few score Aleuts there for hunting these animals, but after three years he was compelled to abandon this undertaking and to transport the rest of the people back to Unalashka and Umnak from where they had been taken. I say "the rest" because the greater part of them perished from the cruel colds existing on the high, unprotected island, and from scurvy. Furthermore, in autumn, ice brought a terrible scourge for the people and animals living in this land; that is, polar bears, by whom several persons also perished every winter.

At Unalaska

From here we went to Unalashka, and on the 17th saw St.

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Paul Island, which belongs, the same as St. George Island, to the Pribilof Islands and separated from it by a channel 60 miles wide.

On the 22nd, we saw Makushin Volcano with its constantly smoking summit. Having a rather strong NW breeze, by 10 o'clock we approached the harbor where we caught up with three single-hatch Aleut baidars [baidarkas?] returning with a full load of codfish caught by them. They announced that the "Discovery" had been in Unalashka for three days. Toward noon, accompanied by the mentioned baidars, we entered the harbor and dropped anchor near the "Discovery." Entering the harbor, the sloop had seven and a half knots of speed and the baidars outdistanced it. From this it is evident how fast and light these skin boats are.

The day after our arrival we started the most necessary repairs to the rigging. Preparing to sail on a most stormy, and very unjustly called Pacific Ocean, especially around the equinox, we tightened the lower mast shrouds, and as an aid put on the auxiliary shrouds.

The manager, [ Ivan Vasilevich] Kriukov, told us that on the northeast side almost at the entrance to the harbor, at the foot of a high mountain, is a hot spring. Our naturalist, desiring to investigate its character, was dispatched there in a cutter on the 25th in the company of officers not otherwise busy with tasks, and with the son of Kriukov. We were told that it shoots up out of the ground an arshin or more, that it

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is as thick as the arm of a man. But what did we find? Miserable remains of a spring that had formerly existed, scarcely visible under the ashes, which covered the whole island during the eruption of the Umnak volcano in 1819. This eruption was accompanied by a severe earthquake which was felt on all the islands of the Aleutian chain and finished with the sinking of the coastal lowland on Umnak Island for a distance of seven versts in circumference.

There were several rather strong earthquakes accompanied by a subterranean rumble during our stay on Unalashka.

The impossibility of obtaining in this place fresh meat and vegetables so necessary for the renewal and upkeep of the health of the crew prompted us to rush the repairs and taking on of water, especially as by all reports, we could get nothing until California, and had to expect difficult and exhausting voyages, first to Sitka and afterward to the port of San Fran- cisco to which rushed our common longings as to the promised land. Somehow, the meat was substituted with excellent fresh fish, and vegetables with wild garlic or ramson, but this did not have the desired effect, and the crew, although improved, still ailed. Of fish, we were given a kind of salmon of excellent quality, but we caught cod ourselves in the following manner. On a pole, seven feet long, we attached about 15 fish hooks baited also with cod. In the middle of the pole, we fastened a stone [iadro] instead of a weight, and lowered it to the harbor bottom. In about two hours, pulling up the

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pole, we found a codfish on every hook. The catch was so abundant that fish were cooked daily for the crew, and, in addition, eight barrels of it were salted.

During our stay on Unalashka, a dead whale, killed by an Umnak Aleut, was thrown up on Amaknak Island, determined by the arrow, on which every whale hunter cuts his work, still sticking under its left fin. He was immediately notified of it, and arrived the next day in company of many baidars for the division, because half of every animal used at that place (except for the skin, which is always the property of the Company) also belongs to [the Company]. The Aleuts use the meat of whale, sea lion, seal, and sea otter for food, especially the first mentioned. They also eat the fat, using it as a condiment, but mostly burn it instead of candles and wood in their yurts.

No matter how expert the Aleuts are in sailing baidars and in shooting arrows, whale hunting is done by only a small number of them because it requires special agility and skill. From accounts, they kill them in the following manner. On a clear sunny day when the whales sun themselves and play on the surface, the whale hunter puts out to the open sea in his small baidar. Sighting a whale, he approaches it exclusively from the left side to about 50 paces, that is, to the distance from which he can shoot an arrow, designated, as already mentioned, by his mark. It is one and one-half arshins long. In one end, one foot long, is inserted a [piece] of walrus