Alaskan History
GAVRIIL ANDREEVICH SARICHEV Author of the Atlas of the Northern Part of the Pacific Ocean, 1826
Gavriil Andreevich Sarychev, a Russian naval officer, hydrographer and explorer, enjoyed a long and illustrious career, during which he made explorations in the Arctic, sailed through the Aleutian Islands, and wrote one of the first atlases of the North Pacific Ocean. In the National Geographic magazine, Volume 13, No. 3, March, 1902, naturalist and explorer Marcus Baker wrote, “In the year 1826 the Russian Hydrographic Office, then under the direction of Vice-Admiral Gavrila Andreevich Sarichef, published a large folio atlas of northwestern America, northeastern Asia, and the waters between.� (Online, see Resources, page 48) Sarychev (also spelled Sarichef and other variations) was born in 1763, enrolled in the naval cadet corps at the tender age of eight, and began his service in the Russian Imperial Navy at age 18 as a midshipman, becoming by all accounts an excellent sailor and geographer. From 1785 to 1794, Sarychev took part in an expedition sponsored by Empress Catherine II of Russia, led by Royal Navy officer Joseph Billings. Sarychev, on ship Slava Rossii (Glory of Russia), described and mapped the coastline of the Sea of Okhotsk from Okhotsk to Aldoma, including many of the Aleutian Islands (especially Unalaska). He also described the islands of Pribylov, St. Matthew Island, St. Lawrence Island, Gvozdev, and King Island.
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