Get your Bering World of wonders unfolds during cruise on sea that separates North America, Asia

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Bear!” someone yelled, causing everyone in the dining room to scurry for the exits. A grizzly had been spotted swimming across the bow of the ship, so like everyone else, my wife and I raced to the railing, where we watched a huge bear doing the breast stroke, occasionally turning its head around and giving us what I presumed to be a dirty look.

I think it was in plane geometry class when I first started dreaming about the Bering Sea. I was always thinking about places at the other end of the world in that class. So last year when my wife hinted that we take a cruise of the Bering Sea, visiting such remote places as the Bering Strait, Russia’s Far East, Yupik Eskimo villages, and those storm-hammered Aleutian Islands, I wasn’t hard to convince. Her idea was to take a cruise on the Spirit of Oceanus exploration ship, starting at Nome winding our way through the Bering Sea, stopping at a few Siberian ports and Eskimo villages, heading south to the Aleutians and then up the Alaskan Peninsula through Kodiak and Homer, eventually reaching Anchorage. All this would take two weeks.

First Day: Nome.

After flying to Nome from Seattle via Anchorage, we decided to do a little gold panning along the western Alaskan town’s famed Gold Coast before boarding the ship.

“You’ve got about two cents

worth in there, mister,” an old timer muttered as he ran his fingers through what appeared to be gravel at the bottom of my pan. At the time of the Nome Gold Rush of 1898 the area bustled with boom-town activity, but nowadays the main doings are more apt to be the Iditarod Dog Sled Race or one of the bars along Front Street.

First day at sea

First day out, the Spirit of Oceanus headed north to the Bering Strait, those 55 miles of open sea which separate Asia and North America, where smack in the middle sit the two tiny islands of Big and Little Diomede, 2 miles apart. Little Diomede is part of the United States, and Big D to the west lies on the other side of the International Date Line and is part of Russia.

From the ship’s deck through an overcast sky we make out Little D, a miniscule outcropping of granite lined with specks of snow. It was not as cold as we expected, the temperature hovering around 60 degrees F. The sea ice had just gone out here and the water temperature was 35 F. We were 30 miles south of the Arctic Circle and in this part of the world, in the summer, the sun hits the horizon and bounces right back up. As the ship drew closer, we could make out a settlement of tiny wooden structures directly beneath a large rookery of murres.

“This is home to 125 Inupiat [In-U-piat] Eskimos,” my wife read from our guidebook. She read further that the Inupiats are a nation of people with similar languages that occupy the circumpolar region of the Earth all the way from Siberia, through Alaska, Canada and Greenland. Experiencing Eskimo culture was one of the highlights of the trip. In more hospitable regions of Earth, anyone can secure food and shelter, but in the Arctic every moment of life is earned with human ingenuity

By now zillions of sea birds such as murres, auklets, puffins, fulmars, and cormorants were screaming overhead, diving into the sea feeding on sea life brought to the surface by turbulence from the ship. Capt. Scanlon finally cast anchor and passengers boarded Zodiacs for the ride ashore, whereupon we were warmly greeted by the locals, who get precious few visitors.

“Walrus is good,” a boy of about 10 told us, pointing to strips of walrus hanging from a drying rack. Once killed, seal, walrus, polar bear, birds and other meats are hung out to dry and later kept in a community freezer. Exploring the settlement, we saw drying racks of meat, walrus-skin boats, harpoons, and a cooler labeled, “Polar Bear Samples.”

Later we attended a dance performance at the school gym, which consisted of traditional Inupiat dances accompanied by beating on walrus-skin drums. After the performance, we got a chance to mingle and chat. A lady named Frances complained of the hot weather they were having, and when I commented it was 60 F., she laughed and said she couldn’t stand it over 60.

We also learned that in Alaska it is OK to refer to Eskimos as Eskimos, and not by their nation name, such as Yupik or Inupiat Eskimos. Of course you are showing some ignorance of Eskimo culture, but it is PC to use the more generic word. In Canada and Greenland, however, the Inuit Eskimos consider the word Eskimo degrading and prefer to be called Inuits.

“This is the only place in the U.S. where you can see the future,” Frances laughed, pointing to Big Diomede on the other side of the International Date Line and a day in the future.

Provideniya and New Chaplino, Siberia

The port of Provideniya on the northeast edge of Siberia is 200 miles west of its sister city of Nome across the Bering Sea. Russians back in Moscow call this the Russian Far East, which is understandable since it is closer to Washington D.C. than Moscow. During Soviet times, Provideniya was a military outpost of 10,000 people, but now its population has shrunk to 2,000.

The place is an ugly bi-product of Soviet bureaucracy. It reeks of coal tar and oil, the skyline dominated by grimy smokestacks and empty box-type apartment buildings with smashed windows. It was like walking into a Mad Max movie. On the dock we saw rusting cranes, idle so long they’d become nesting grounds for eagles. Most Russians have returned to their homes in warmer climes, but as the Russians leave, Yupik Eskimos and Chukchis (local reindeer hunters) move in, seeking relief from even bleaker conditions in their villages.

“Is that irony or not?” my wife asks rhetorically as we explore the empty streets, referring to a rusting statue of Lenin.

“He’s part of our heritage,” Olga, our Provideniya guide, told us later, referring to the statue. “We don’t necessarily agree with his philosophy.”

While in Provideniya, we were treated to traditional Russian dance at the Provideniya Cultural Center. From outside, the place didn’t look like much, but inside it had beautiful decorations and draperies. We didn’t expect anything from the young dancers, living in such bleak surroundings, but once the show began, their Russian heritage came through and they, like they say, blew us away.

There is only one road out of Provideniya and that is across the tundra to the Yupik settlement of New Chaplino and there is only one word to describe that road. Washboard. I didn’t know what to expect when we finally arrived at New Chaplino, but it certainly wasn’t an old Soviet tank giving rides to screaming children and soon our cruise shipmates.

“The government left it here after the Cold War,” someone said. On the beach, we saw the remains of a grey whale which looked like it was melting in the sun, oil dripping from the carcass into puddles and running into streams.

Watch where you walk,” a local man said. “That stuff won’t come off.”

“We use almost every part of the whale,” a village elder told us as we looked at the part they didn’t. He told us after the whale was pulled ashore (Remember the tank?), they carved the skin and blubber into blocks, sliced off filets of steaks, sawed off meaty bones such as giant spareribs, then cut off the tongue, longer than a man’s body, and set it aside as a delicacy. A single grey whale will feed 400 villagers for two weeks.

Under the old Soviet rule, local Yupik Eskimos and Chukchis were forced into collective farms, where they raised foxes fed on whale and walrus meat. The fur was sold in the West, ending up in upscale fur salons. This harebrained idea of Soviet bureaucracy caused the native people to lose subsistence-survival skills obtained over thousands of years, and when the Soviet Union collapsed and the fox farms abandoned, it forced the natives back in time. They had the choice of either starving or returning to the traditions of their ancestors.

Later at a native dance presentation, a Yupik lady offered us some local cuisine: fermented walrus. “Eat it,” my wife said. “That’s the best part of the walrus.” Ignoring her flippancy, I took a whiff and came to the conclusion it was an acquired taste. I thought eating some might brand me as a bona fide Arctic explorer, but throwing bravery to the wind, I told the lady I just ate. She laughed and said, “OK.”

In one of the most heroic sea adventures of all time, Danish sea captain Vitus Bering was the first European to discover the coast of Alaska while on an imperial mission from Russian Czar Peter the Great. In two voyages in 1728 and 1741, Bering led expeditions from the Kamchatka Peninsula in Siberia in search of Gamaland, a legendary landmass which 18th century Russians believed connected Asia and North America. In the first voyage, Bering reached a stormy sea strait, 55 miles of rough waters separating the continents, which now bears his name, the Bering Strait.

St. Lawrence and Nunivak Islands

The next day found us in Gambell, a small Yupik village on St. Lawrence Island and U.S. soil, 50 miles off the Siberian coast.

“Some whales sink when we harpoon them. We put floats on the harpoons,” a village elder in Gambell told us. “We have lost many whales by their sinking,” he went on.

“Talk about your fish that got away,” I muttered.

“Mammal,” my wife corrected me.

“A pod of grey whales has been spotted on the starboard side of the ship,” an announcement came over the ship speakers as my wife and I were having our noonday brunch on the hind deck. Luckily, we were on the starboard side so we just kicked back and watched. When it comes to wildlife watching while everyone is ohhing and ahhing, I’m the guy who’s saying, “I don’t see it. Where are they?” I’m the Mr. Magoo of nature watching.

But it didn’t take a trained eye to see these guys. They were spouting all around us. It was a tidal wave of whales. They swam alongside the ship, their giant hulks rising slowly out of the water to a chorus of ohs from the passengers, then, as graceful as ballerinas, settling back into the sea.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll see some musk oxen,” naturalist Rich Kirchner told us the next day as we hit the beach on Nunivak Island, 40 miles off the southwest coast of Alaska. I whispered to my wife that I thought they were extinct, and she whispered back I’m thinking of the wooly mammoth.

Walking across the spongy tundra was like walking on a Posturepedic Mattress. I could have lain down and gone to sleep right there. We knew we were hot on the trail of some musk ox since occasionally we found clumps of their soft under-hair. Suddenly, we came over a rise and before us was a small herd, grazing on tundra vegetation. They were a quarter mile away and must have caught our scent since some looked in our direction. There were 24 of us, and I counted 24 of them. We stood motionless looking at them, and they were doing exactly the same. I don’t know what they were thinking, but I was thinking I hope they aren’t in a bad mood.

Alaska musk oxen became extinct in the late 1800s due to overhunting. When approached by an enemy, musk oxen herd themselves together in the form of a circle or semicircle with the calves inside. Such a formation is effective against wolves, but not against men with high-powered rifles. In 1930, a herd of 34 musk oxen was brought to Nunivak Island from Greenland where they have since thrived. Since then, some musk oxen from Nunivak have been relocated to other parts of Alaska, and today the musk oxen population in Alaska is estimated at 2,500.

On the second Bering voyage of 1741, Bering’s ship reached what is now southeast Alaska, but returning to Russia they faced heavy seas, eventually crashing on a reef on a remote island in the Commodore Islands and having to winter there. Of the 177 seamen who started the voyage, almost half, including Bering, died from starvation, scurvy and cold. The island where they stayed and where Bering died is now called Bering Island.

The Aleutians and the Alaskan Peninsula

The Aleutian Islands consist of 1,100 miles of volcanic specks that curl like a giant smiley face between Asia and North America. They stretch so far to the west that the westernmost point of the U.S., Attu Island, is farther west than half of New Zealand.

“Dutch Harbor has had several boom times in the past,” our guide told us after we arrived at Dutch Harbor, a town on Amaknak Island in the Aleutians. First, there was the fur boom, started right after Bering explored these waters, then the gold boom of 1898 when it was a transshipment point for Nome gold, then World War II, and now the fishing boom. “During WWII, the Japanese bombed Dutch Harbor and captured the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kista,” the guide said.

“This is the No. 1 fishing port in the U.S.,” our guide’s voice came through the speakers while on a motor coach tour of Dutch Harbor. “More pounds of fish are caught here than anywhere in the U.S.,” the voice continued. It also told us that Dutch Harbor was the home of the King Crab, and a lot of money can be made on crabbing boats.

If there is one thing that’s true of all Alaskans, it’s how proud they are of how long they’ve been there. Apart from Native Eskimos and American Indians, we met few people who were actually born there, but every conversation would eventually come to a point where they would volunteer their “Alaskan Age”.

“I’m just a beginner,” a young lady working in a grocery in Dutch Harbor and formerly from Washington state told us almost apologetically. “I’ve only been here three years – but I’m staying,” she insisted. A young man running a sports store in Kodiak and formerly from Maine said he’d been there 27 years. “I love it,” he said. “In three more years I’ll make the Pioneer Club,” referring to an honor given to 30-year residents.

“What is it you’re supposed to do when you meet a grizzly?” I asked my wife as we boarded our Zodiac in search of bears in Katmai National Park on the Alaskan Peninsula. “Do you look into their eyes or away?” Bear expert, Rupert Pilkington, told us proper bear etiquette the night before, but I had forgotten. From our Zodiac, we didn’t actually have to meet one, but watched offshore from 100 yards as they foraged along the beach.

“Do they swim?” someone asked.

The next day found us in Homer, the self-proclaimed Halibut Capital of the World, where we started to feel we were back in civilization with all the gift shops, art galleries, and the unquestioned seal of civilization, McDonalds. The people of Homer say they have it all: adventure tours, world-class halibut and salmon fishing, grizzly bear viewing, glaciers, whales, art galleries, hiking, big-game hunting and more. We spent the day exploring the town and famed Homer Spit, that 4.5-mile stretch of sand lined with charter boats eager to help you land that 300-pound halibut and ship it back to the Lower 48.

The next day we arrived in Anchorage and flew back to Seattle. As the Alaskan Airlines 737 headed south, I looked down on Prince William Sound and later on the glaciers of the Inside Passage. This was a different Alaska from what we had seen in the Bering Sea. It was almost tropical. We just might have to come back I was thinking.

Jerry Farlow is a professor of mathematics at the University of Maine in Orono. He can be reached at farlow@math.umaine.edu.