Semyon Dezhnyov Finds the Bering Strait—Eighty Years Before Bering | Research & Encyclopedia Articles

Semyon Dezhnyov Finds the Bering Strait—Eighty Years Before Bering

Overview

In 1728 Vitus Bering (1681-1741) discovered the strait that bears his name, a body of water just 53 miles (85 kilometers) wide at its narrowest point, which separates the Asian and North American land masses. But Bering was not the first European to pass through the Bering Strait: Semyon Ivanov Dezhnyov (c. 1605-1673), a Cossack whose surname is sometimes rendered as Dezhnev, had done so 80 years before, in 1648. Dezhnyov, however, did not know what he had accomplished; nor, thanks to a number of factors—not least of which was czarist secrecy concerning Russian exploration efforts—did the rest of the world.

Background

In an attempt to compete with Spain and Portugal as trading powers during the sixteenth century, both England and Holland launched efforts to locate the Northeast Passage, a sea route from Europe through the Arctic Ocean to East Asia. These attempts would meet with disaster, and in fact it would not be until the nineteenth century that anyone managed to successfully traverse the icy seas above Siberia. By then sailors had long since recognized that the Northeast Passage was only for adventures, and as a trade route had no value.

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