Ciaran’s Peculier [sic] Blog

 Apart from those members of Captain Cook’s crew who were unambiguously Irish, there were also many with strong links to Ireland. One of them was Lieutenant (later Captain) James King. Although he was a native of Clitheroe in Lancashire, his father, who was a curate in Lancashire, was subsequently named Dean of the diocese of Raphoe in Donegal.

 King had served with Cook as assistant astronomer and second lieutenant during the latter’s fateful third voyage. On Captain Cook’s death he was named first lieutenant on board HMS Resolution under the ailing Captain Charles Clerke and accompanied him northwards towards the Kamchatka peninsular. When the voyage landed at Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy he travelled to meet the commanding officer on the peninsular, the Baltic German Major Behm who resided at Bol’sheretsk on the Okhotsk Sea. Both ships were then furnished with adequate provisions, and both the Resolution and her sister ship HMS Discovery left Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy in June, just after they had witnessed an eruption of the nearby volcano Avachinskiy. This showered the ships with an inch-thick covering of volcanic ash. He sailed towards the Bering straits in a vain attempt at finding a north-western passage leading to Baffin Island and Hudson’s Bay, but they were frustrated in their travels by thick pack ice, which forced the ships back to Petropavlovsk. It was while lying off the harbour that Captain Clerke died and King became the commander of the Discovery.

 King continued Captain Cook’s journal of the voyage. He has left behind some amazing and interesting descriptions of life on the Kamchatka peninsular at the time. The area had been opened up to Russian settlers in the preceding decades. Many of these were fur trappers, as well as Cossacks who pursued an unspoken policy of genocide against the native Itelmens or Kamchadals, similar to what would happen on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in the next century. Their numbers had been further thinned by a serious outbreak of smallpox in the 1760s.King describes a surprising level of co-existence between native and settler. The natives were governed by officially appointed toions or magistrates, many of them the result of intermarriage between the Russians and Kamchadal. They had tax collecting powers, as well as what amounted to complete criminal and civil jurisdiction over the Kamchadal living in their area. The only person above them was the provincial commander. Major Behm’s departure to return to European Russia to another appointment coincided with the expedition’s leaving, and King noted genuine sorrow on the part of the Kamchadal to see him going. King described their dress and domestic arrangements, as well as the particularly close relationship they enjoyed with the bear. Their dance was characterised as a series of movements of ursine imitation – sounds just like Strictly – while the Kamchadal observed the habits of bears closely, using berries and plants that the animal used for dealing with cuts and abrasions.

 Nowadays there aren’t many Kamchadal left. Most had given up their language in favour of Russian, and because there were so few of them they didn’t qualify for any of the largesse of Stalin’s Nationalities’ Policy, such as their own National Area.