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...