Aleksei Ilyich Chirikov (; 1703 – November 14, 1748) was a Russian

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's prim ...

and

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

who, along with

Vitus Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering ( , , ; baptised 5 August 1681 – 19 December 1741),All dates are here given in the Julian calendar, which was in use throughout Russia at the time. also known as Ivan Ivanovich Bering (), was a Danish-born Russia ...

, was the first Russian to reach the northwest coast of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. He discovered and charted some of the

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; , "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before Alaska Purchase, 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain ...

while he was deputy to

during the Great Northern Expedition.

Biography

Early life

Little is known about Chirikov's early life other than that the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

was born in 1703. There is a claim, which originated in 1941, that he was the son of one of Peter the Great's master

carpenter Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenter ...

s. It is known that Chirikov began his service in the Russian Imperial Navy in 1716, and later in 1721 he graduated from the

Naval Academy A naval academy provides education for prospective naval officers. List of naval academies See also

* Military academy {{Authority control Naval academies, Naval lists ...

with the rank of Sub-lieutenant.

Exploration

In 1725–1730 and 1733–1743, he was Vitus Bering's deputy during the First and the

Second Kamchatka expedition The Great Northern Expedition () or Second Kamchatka Expedition () was a major Russian Arctic expedition between roughly 1733 and 1743, which mapped most of the Arctic coast of Siberia and much of the Arctic coast of North America, greatly red ...

s, having been made a

in 1733. In June 1741 Chirikov in the ''St Paul'' and

in the ''St Peter'', who he was serving under, left Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and headed east. Some time after 20 June they were separated by a storm and never saw each other again. On 15 July 1741 Chirikov saw land at

Baker Island Baker Island, once known as New Nantucket in the early 19th century, is a small, uninhabited atoll located just north of the Equator in the central Pacific Ocean, approximately southwest of Honolulu. Positioned almost halfway between Hawaii a ...

off Prince of Wales Island at the south end of the

Alaska Panhandle Southeast Alaska, often abbreviated to southeast or southeastern, and sometimes called the Alaska(n) panhandle, is the southeastern portion of the U.S. state of Alaska, bordered to the east and north by the northern half of the Canadian provi ...

. This was about 450 miles southeast of Bering's landfall near Mount St. Elias at the north end of the panhandle. Unable to find a harbor he sailed north along Baranov Island past the later Russian base at Sitka. He sent out a longboat to find an anchorage. When it did not return after a week he sent out his second longboat which also failed to return. Now without any small boats Chirikov had no way of searching for the two longboats or landing on the coast to explore or replenish his supply of fresh water. After waiting as long as possible, he abandoned the longboats to their fate and on 27 July sailed west. He sighted the Kenai Peninsula,

Kodiak Island Kodiak Island (, ) is a large island on the south coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, separated from the Alaska mainland by the Shelikof Strait. The largest island in the Kodiak Archipelago, Kodiak Island is the second largest island in the Un ...

and Adak Island near the western end of the Aleutians. With water critically low he reached Petropavlovsk on 12 October 1741. In 1742, Chirikov was in charge of a search party for Bering's ship ''St. Peter''. During this trip, he located

Attu Island Attu (, ) is an island in the Near Islands (part of the Aleutian Islands chain). It is one of the westernmost points of the U.S. state of Alaska. The island became uninhabited in 2010, making it the largest uninhabited island that is part of th ...

. Chirikov took part in creating the final map of the Russian discoveries in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

(1746). In 1746 was assigned the Director of Academy of the Naval Guard, St. Petersburg. Chirikov's name is given to Capes of the

Kyūshū is the third-largest island of Japan's four main islands and the most southerly of the four largest islands (i.e. excluding Okinawa and the other Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands). In the past, it has been known as , and . The historical regio ...

Island,

, Anadyr Bay, Tauyskaya Bay, an underwater mountain in the Pacific Ocean, Chirikof Island and Cape Chirikof at the westernmost point of

. Chirikov died on November 14, 1748, in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

due to

scurvy Scurvy is a deficiency disease (state of malnutrition) resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, fatigue, and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, anemia, decreased red blood cells, gum d ...

References

External links

chirikov.org
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chirikov, Aleksei 18th-century explorers from the Russian Empire 1703 births 1748 deaths Maritime navigators from the Russian Empire Explorers of Alaska Great Northern Expedition Imperial Russian Navy personnel