Alaska (27 page)

When sailors asked what they were, Cook allowed his officers to explain: 'Wort is a brew of malt, vinegar, sauerkraut, such fresh vegetables as we can procure, and other things. It smells bad, but if you drink it properly, you will not catch the scurvy.'

'Rob,' said another officer, 'is an inspissated mixture of lime, orange and lemon juice.'

'What's inspissated someone always asked, and the officer would reply: 'Captain Cook uses the word all the time,' and someone would persist: 'But what's it mean?' and the

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officer would growl: 'It means ”You drink it.”If you do, you'll never get scurvy.'

The officers were correct. Any sailor who consumed his wort and rob was miraculously immune from the gray killer of the seas; in wort about half the ingredients were by themselves ineffective, especially the malt, but the sauerkraut, and particularly its fermented juice, worked miracles, and of course, although the lime and orange juice were of small account, lemon juice was a specific. The inspissation, in which Cook put so much store, had no effect whatever; it was merely a process which thickened the lemon juice and made it easier to transport and administer.

By his stubborn insistence that scurvy could be cured, this quiet man and devoted leader saved thousands of lives and enabled Britain to build the world's most powerful fleet. Now, in the years when England was fighting her American colonies in places like Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the British government had sent this great explorer forth once more to end speculation about the North Pacific, and he, having solved the various riddles of the South Pacific, eagerly accepted the challenge to confirm once and for all whether Asia did join with North America, whether there was a Northwest Passage across the top of the world, whether the Arctic Ocean was free of ice because a learned scientist had proved that unless ice was somehow moored to land, it could not form in an open sea and particularly, what the coastline of the newfound Alaska was. If he could solve these nagging questions, Great Britain would be in position to claim all of North America from Quebec and Massachusetts in the east to California and the future Oregon in the west.

On his famous Third Exploration, which would cover parts of four years, 1776-79, Cook would not only discover the Hawaiian Islands but also become the first European to explore properly the jagged coastline of Alaska. He would chart and name Mount Edgecumbe, that splendid volcano at Sitka; he would explore where the future Anchorage would locate; he would cruise the Aleutian Islands and position them properly in relation to the mainland; and he would run far north to where the frozen Arctic Ocean confronted him with a wall of ice eighteen feet high along its face, the ice that the earlier expert had proved could not exist.

It was a marvelous journey, a success in every respect, for although he did not find the fabled Northwest Passage which navigators had been seeking for almost three hundred years since Columbus discovered America, he did demonstrate that the supposed passage did not enter the Pacific in ice-free 172

waters. In moving to the north to prove this point, Cook had to penetrate the wall erected by the Aleutians, and he did so by heading for the passage just east of Lapak Island. When he cleared the headland and looked west he saw rising from the Bering Sea the volcano Qugang, the Whistler, which now stood one thousand one hundred feet above the surface of the sea.

Cook, after surveying the construction of Lapak, was the first to deduce from its semicircular form that it had once been a volcano of immense dimension whose center had exploded and whose northern rim had vanished in erosion, but he was more impressed by the copious and inviting harbor, where he sent ashore a foraging party to procure such provisions as the islanders could provide. The two young officers in charge were men destined in later years to make resounding names for themselves. The senior was Shipmaster William Bligh; his assistant, George Vancouver. The first watched carefully everything that happened on the island, taking careful note of the two Russians who seemed to be in command, Zagoskin and Innokenti, whom he did not like at all and whose insolent manner he said he would correct in short time if the two served under him. Vancouver, a born navigator of unusual abilities, noted the position of the island, its harbor capacity, its capacity for provisioning large ships, and its probable climate insofar as that could be judged from a brief visit. It was obvious that Cook had picked his staff with care, for these two were among the ablest men sailing the Pacific that year.

The visit lasted less than half a day, for by midafternoon Cook felt that he must push the Resolution

northward, but he took with him only a fraction of the information he could have had, and the fault was his. Amazingly, in view of his meticulous foresight in planning his cruises, on this one into northern oceans where it was known that the Russians had penetrated, he brought with him no one who could speak Russian, nor any dictionary of that language; authorities in London still refused to believe that Russia already had a sizable foothold in western North America and had every intention of enlarging it. However, Cook was able to make this entry: We came upon a promising chain of treeless islands whose occupants came to greet us in two-man canoes wearing the most enchanting hats with long visors and decorations.

I encouraged artist Webber to make several depictions of both the men and their hats, and he complied.

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The chain of islands contained one called Lapak if we understood what its Russian occupants were saying. We mapped the whole and charted a fine harbor on the north coast, guarded by a beautiful dead volcano 1,100 feet high six miles due north. It was named something like Lewgong, but when I asked a second time for the name they whistled at me, signifying what, I do not know. Perhaps it is their sacred volcano.

George Vancouver in the last hour of his stay ashore met up with the Russian named Trofim Zhdanko, and in this grizzled warrior he recognized a man much different from the two brash younger men whom both he and Bligh had disliked. Desperately he longed to share ideas with this wise old man, and the Russian just as eagerly wanted to ask these strangers how they had managed to get such a fine ship, how they had navigated it from Europe, and what they judged the future of these islands to be. Alas, the two could not converse except in the most fragmentary sign language.

When shots were fired from the Resolution, warning Bligh and Vancouver that sailing time was at hand, the old cossack did hand each of the officers who had been so congenial a seaotter pelt, but unfortunately, he had, in his generosity, given them two of the best, and Innokenti, seeing this, unceremoniously grabbed the pelts from the hands of the English officers and substituted two' of inferior quality. Vancouver, always a gentleman, saluted and thanked both father and son for their generosity, but Bligh glared at Innokenti as if he wanted to smash his insolent face. However, when the two men regained their ship, Bligh penned in his logbook a revealing entry: On this Island of Lapak I met a most disagreeable Russian named, if I caught what he said, something like Innocent. He repelled me from the moment I saw him, and the longer I suffered his unwelcome attentions the deeper grew my loathing, for he seemed the worst type of Russian.

But when I observed the compliant manner in which the natives obeyed him and the enviable peace and order prevailing on his island, it was clear to me that someone in authority governed this place firmly, and that is always to be desired. I suspect that prior to our arrival, there may have been disturbances here, but prompt action on the part of someone quelled them, and if the credit goes to this Innocent, I withdraw my

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strictures against him, for order in any society is of maximum value, even if sternly achieved.

In this casual manner, and with such bland acceptances of what the Russian terror had achieved, the great English navigator James Cook crossed lanes with the Russian navigator Vitus Bering: each landed briefly at Lapak; each remained about the same amount of time; each sent ashore a subordinate who would gain fame on his own account Cook sending two, Bligh and Vancouver; Bering only one, Georg Steller and each sailed on, the Russian in 1741, the Englishman thirty-seven years later in 1778.

How different the two men were: Bering the bumbling, unlucky leader, Cook the impeccable captain with only one detectable flaw and that showing itself only at the end; Bering, who sailed under the most rigorous orders from his tsar or tsarina, Cook, who once he left sight of England sailed under his own orders; Bering the hesitant explorer who scurried back at the first sign of adversity, his tasks uncompleted, Cook the nonpareil who invariably went the extra mile, the extra continent; Bering, who advanced the art of navigation in no particular, Cook, who altered the definitions of the words

ocean and mapmaking;

Bering, who had grudging support from his government and no international acclaim whatever, Cook, who lacked for nothing in England and who heard the cheers of an entire world ringing in his ears for more than a decade; Bering often with no uniform and then a miserable one that fitted poorly, Cook with his prim hand tailored officer's garb topped by an expensive cockaded mariner's hat. How differently the two men behaved and how different their careers and contributions.

When Cook sailed on his second of three great journeys, England and France were at war, and the fighting at sea was vigorous, but both warring nations agreed that James Cook in his

Resolution

be allowed free passage anywhere he chose to sail, for it was acknowledged that he was doing the work of civilization in general and would not fire upon an enemy French warship even if he met up with one. During his third voyage, the one to Alaska, England was at war with her American colonies and, by extension, with France also, but once more the three warring nations agreed among themselves to let James Cook sail where he would, for by his perfection of the cure for scurvy, which Georg Steller had pioneered, and his promotion of this treatment through the fleet, he saved far more lives than would have been gained in a victorious battle. This second safe-passage arrangement was masterminded in part by Benjamin Franklin, the practi-175

cal-minded American ambassador to France, who knew an international benefactor when he saw one, and Cook was that.

It was said earlier that as a navigator Cook had only one failing. He was apt, when tired, to be short-tempered, so that when, in February 1779, he found himself in Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island of Hawaii surrounded by mildly hostile natives who could have been placated with gifts, he lost his patience and fired a gun into a threatening crowd, in which a Hawaiian of some importance had already been killed.

In a flash the infuriated watchers fell upon Cook, clubbed him from behind, and held his head under water when he fell into the surf.

Vitus Bering and James Cook, two of the grandest names in Alaskan history, had mournful ends, the first dying of scurvy on a bleak, treeless, wind-swept island at the age of sixty-one, his life and his work incomplete. The second, having conquered scurvy and the farthest oceans, died at fifty-one because of his own impetuousness on a beautiful tropical island far to the south. The oceans of the world were made more available by the explorations of such men.

BUT THERE WAS IN THESE YEARS ANOTHER KIND OF Ex plorer, the commercial adventurer, and in 1780 such a one wandered almost accidentally into Lapak Bay in a small, incredibly tough little ship called the Evening Star,

a two masted, square-rigged whaling brig out of Boston. It was captained by a small, wiry man as resolute morally as his ship was physically. He was Noah Pym, forty-one years old and already a veteran of the dreadful gales at Cape Horn, the trading marts at Canton, the lovely coastline of Hawaii, and all the vast empty spaces of the Pacific where whales might hide, for if his ship was not big, it was valiant, and in it Pym was ready to challenge any storm or any group of hostile natives gathered on a beach.

Unlike Bering and Cook, Pym never left port with support from his government or cheering notice from his fellow citizens. The most he could expect would be a oneline notice in the Boston newspaper: 'On this day the Evening Star,

Noah Pym with crew of twenty-one, sailed for South Seas, intended stay six years.'

And as for the great nations agreeing among themselves to give this tough little fellow free passage, they were far more likely to sink him on sight in the supposition that he was sailing for the enemy. Indeed, he had in his time fought off the warships of both France and England, but this was a misnomer, for what he really did was maintain a sharp

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lookout and run like a frightened demon at the first sight of a sail that might prove threatening.

Zagoskin and Innokenti were out in their two-man kayak chasing sea otters when the Evening Star

hove into sight off the south shore of Lapak Island, and they were astounded when a voice from the aft deck called out in good Russian: 'Ho there! We need water and stores.'

'Who are you?' Innokenti called, establishing that he was in charge.

'Whaler Evening Star, Boston, Noah Pym commanding.'

Innokenti, surprised that a ship from that far distance should have found Lapak Island, shouted back: 'Good harbor on the north shore south of the volcano!' and with Zagoskin paddling strongly from the rear seat, he led the way.

When the ship anchored between the shore and the volcano, Innokenti and Zagoskin climbed aboard and satisfied themselves in two minutes that whereas the Evening Star did carry one gun fore, it was not a warship. Neither man had ever seen a whaler before, but under the tutelage of the sailor who had called to them in Russian, they quickly learned what the procedures were, and just as quickly saw that Captain Noah Pym out of Boston was, though small, a leathery individual with whom it would not be profitable to quarrel accidentally.

They learned that this amazing little brig which had traveled so far Cape Horn, China, a try at Japan, Hawaii had in its crew sailors who could speak most of the languages of the Pacific, so that wherever the ship anchored, someone could conduct business with the natives. Only one man spoke Russian, Seaman Atkins, but he loved to talk, and for two rewarding days he, Innokenti and Captain Pym traded information on the Pacific.