Three Accounts of the Vasil'ev-Shishmarev Expedition of 1819-1822

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To the Aleutian Islands

Toward noon of the 21st, the wind gradually started to abate, and toward evening, completely died down. Immense heavy seas continued to rock the sloop and did not permit us to begin the necessary repairs, which we could start only in the evening of the next day. Hoisting new topsails and attaching a brand-new suit of sails, we directed our course with a steady SW toward a group of small islets. The usual passage from the ocean into the Kamchatka Sea [i.e. the Bering Sea] for ships sailing to Unalashka, goes through Umnak Pass, in the middle of which stands a tremendous rock resembling a ship under sail [Polivnoi Rock?] for which it is was so named. For this reason, and because of the narrowness of the pass in which the current sometimes is very strong; also because the captain intended to examine John the Theologian Island [Bogoslof Island], which lay more to the west and which had surfaced at the end of the last century, we directed our course toward the pass near Amchitka Island.

At dawn of the 27th we saw the whole northern horizon bordered by a long chain of high wild islands, and directly in front of us Amchitka. Toward midday we approached this island, and toward three o'clock, safely sailed through the pass and entered the Kamchatka Sea. Amchitka Island is lower than all the rest of the Fox Chain [ Aleutian Islands ]. Its length from E to W is about 1 1/2 miles and its width from N to S is about 3/4 of a mile. [ Amchitka Island is 35 miles long and about three miles wide.] It consists of bare red

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rock on which is seen not the slightest vegetation. On its low banks lay thousands of sea lion-seals and sea otters, which at our approach, with noise and roaring plunged into the water, crowding each other. Toward the northwest at a distance of six miles from Amchitka, Semisopochnoi Island present itself to sight, a sight unique in the world. It received its name from seven conically-shaped volcanoes of almost the same height, called sopki in these regions. Three of these volcanoes smoke constantly, and according to the Aleuts on Unalashka only recently had strong eruptions.

With our entrance into the Kamchatka Sea, the constant SW winds left us, and changeable weak ones blew more from the SE and E instead of them, which slowed down our sailing considerably, and we were able to approach Bogoslof Island only on the first of June.

This island appeared from the water and rose to its present height of about 250 feet above the surface during a violent earthquake and eruption of the Umnak and Unalaskan volcanoes in 1797 [1796]. Since it had not been more closely explored by anyone as yet, and the weather was quiet and clear, the captain ordered us to lower the tender for a trip there by our naturalist. The management of the tender was entrusted to Lieutenant Lazarev, who was assisted by the junior pilot, Vedeneev. Stocking up with provisions and water for seven days in the event of fog or other unforeseen events preventing his