Bering Island
Encyclopedia
Bering Island is located off the Kamchatka Peninsula
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
in the Bering Sea
Bering Sea
The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....
. At 90 kilometres (55.9 mi) long by 24 kilometres (14.9 mi) wide, it is the largest of the Commander Islands with the area of 1660 square kilometres (640.9 sq mi).
This island is desolate and experiences severe weather. As such, it was uninhabited until 1826. Now, the village of Nikolskoye is home to 800 people, roughly three hundred of them Aleuts. Bering Island is a treeless island with hills. The island is foggy and is prone to earthquakes. The scant population on the island is involved mostly in fishing
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch wild fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping....
.
In 1741 Vitus Bering
Vitus Bering
Vitus Jonassen Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering Vitus Jonassen Bering (also, less correNavy]], a captain-komandor known among the Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich. He is noted for being the first European to discover Alaska and its Aleutian Islands...
, sailing in Svyatoy Pyotr (St. Peter), was shipwrecked and died of scurvy
Scurvy
Scurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
(actually, according to "Bering" by Orcutt Frost p7, Bering died of heart failure) on Bering Island, along with 28 of his men. In 1743 Emilian Basov landed to hunt sea otter. Thus began the island-hopping that led the Russians to Alaska.
This island is also less commonly known as the "Floating Island" simply because it "floats" on the International Date Line
International Date Line
The International Date Line is a generally north-south imaginary line on the surface of the Earth, passing through the middle of the Pacific Ocean, that designates the place where each calendar day begins...
.
The shores of Bering Island form a natural habitat for sea otter
Sea Otter
The sea otter is a marine mammal native to the coasts of the northern and eastern North Pacific Ocean. Adult sea otters typically weigh between 14 and 45 kg , making them the heaviest members of the weasel family, but among the smallest marine mammals...
s. This island is also famous for its seal rookeries.
4 km off Bering Island's NW shore lies small Toporkov Island (Ostrov Toporkov) 55°12′9"N 165°55′59"E. It is a round island with a diameter of 800 m.