Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Chapter IX.
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Arctic coast of Siberia was planned and inaugurated
by Bering himself. He could now apply all his
energies to the Pacific expeditions. He constructed a
multitude of river-craft, and erected barracks, magazines,
winter-huts, and wharves along the river-route to
Okhotsk. In the vicinity of Yakutsk he established an
iron foundry and furnace, whence the various vessels
were supplied with anchors and other articles of iron.
In fact, he made this place the emporium for those
heavy supplies that in the years 1735-36 were brought
from South and West Siberia, and which later were to
be sent to Okhotsk.
At Okhotsk the exiled Major-General Pissarjeff was
in command. He had been sent there as a
government official, with authority on the Pacific coast and
in Kamchatka, to develop the country and pave the
way for the expeditions to follow, by making roads
and harbors, erecting buildings in Okhotsk,
introducing agriculture,—in fact, make this coast fit for human
habitation. The government had given him ample
power, but as he accomplished nothing, he was
succeeded by Captain Pavlutski as chief in Kamchatka,
and Pissarjeff was reduced to a sort of harbor-master
in Okhotsk. A command that had been sent to his
assistance under first mate Bireff, he nearly starved to
death; the men deserted and the town remained the same
rookery as ever.
In this condition Spangberg found affairs in the
winter of 1734-35. With his usual energy he had
pushed his transports to Yakutsk in the summer
preceding, and with the same boats he proceeded up the
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