Mikhail Nikolayevich Vasilyev (; 1770 – June 23, 1847) was a Russian explorer and

vice admiral Vice admiral is a senior naval flag officer rank, usually equivalent to lieutenant general and air marshal. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral. Australia In the Royal Australian Navy, the rank of Vice ...

of the

Imperial Russian Navy The Imperial Russian Navy () operated as the navy of the Russian Tsardom and later the Russian Empire from 1696 to 1917. Formally established in 1696, it lasted until being dissolved in the wake of the February Revolution and the declaration of ...

. He is reputed for having surveyed the then little-known coast of

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

as navigator. Vasiliev was sent by the Russian Imperial Hydrographic Service in 1819 to explore the northern parts of the Pacific Ocean and particularly the area around the

Bering Strait The Bering Strait ( , ; ) is a strait between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, separating the Chukchi Peninsula of the Russian Far East from the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. The present Russia–United States maritime boundary is at 168° 58' ...

. Certain geographic features of the Alaskan coast, like the Lindenberg Peninsula and Sealion Island were named by him in the maps that were subsequently published. In 1820 Mikhail Vasiliev on the ship ''Otkrytie (Discovery)'' entered the

Chukchi Sea The Chukchi Sea (, ), sometimes referred to as the Chuuk Sea, Chukotsk Sea or the Sea of Chukotsk, is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is bounded on the west by the Long Strait, off Wrangel Island, and in the east by Point Barrow, Alaska, ...

and explored the coast of Alaska from

Kotzebue Sound Kotzebue Sound is an arm of the Chukchi Sea in the western region of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is on the north side of the Seward Peninsula and bounded on the east by the Baldwin Peninsula. It is long and wide. Kotzebue Sound is located in ...

to Icy Cape and later from

Norton Sound The Norton Sound ( Inupiaq: ''Imaqpak'') is an inlet of the Bering Sea on the western coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, south of the Seward Peninsula. It is about 240 km (150 mi) long and 200 km (125 mi) wide. The Yukon Riv ...

to Cape Newenham. He was accompanied by Gleb Semenovich Shishmarev (1781-1835), who was in command of the ship ''Blagonamerennyi (Good Intent)''. After these surveys, in which he is credited to be the first European having sighted

Nunivak Island Nunivak Island ( Central Alaskan Yup'ik: ; Nunivak Cup'ig: ''Nuniwar''; ) is a permafrost-covered volcanic island lying about offshore from the delta of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers in the US state of Alaska, at a latitude of about 60°N. The ...

, Vasiliev sailed to Petropavlovsk and returned to

Kronstadt Kronstadt (, ) is a Russian administrative divisions of Saint Petersburg, port city in Kronshtadtsky District of the federal cities of Russia, federal city of Saint Petersburg, located on Kotlin Island, west of Saint Petersburg, near the head ...

, arriving there on August 2, 1822. Vasiliev's name is spelt "Vasilief" in the United States, where Vasilief Bay in Atka and Cape Vasilyev in Nunivak Island were named after him by Captain

Fyodor Petrovich Litke Fyodor, Fedor () or Feodor is the Russian-language form of the originally Greek-language name "Theodore" () meaning "God's gift" or "god-given". Fedora () is the feminine form. "Fyodor" and "Fedor" are two English transliterations of the same Ru ...

; Cape Vasilyev was later renamed "Cape Corwin" by the U.S. Board on Geographic Names in 1909. There are other geographic features in the coast of Alaska and the

Aleutians The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; , "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain of 14 main, larger volcanic island ...

bearing the name "Vasilief", but it is not clear after which Vasiliev they were named.USGS – "Vasilief"
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References

Sealion Island
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vasiliev, Mikhail 1770 births 1847 deaths Chukchi Sea Russian colonization of North America Imperial Russian Navy admirals Explorers of the Arctic Russian polar explorers 19th-century explorers from the Russian Empire