Aleksey Ilyich Chirikov (1703โ1748) was a Russian naval officer and explorer. He served as Vitus Bering's assistant on two major Kamchatka expeditions and was among the first Europeans to sight the coast of Alaska in 1741.
He joined the Russian navy at a young age and graduated from the Naval Academy in Saint Petersburg. While teaching at the academy, in 1725, he was chosen as one of Bering's two assistants on an expedition to investigate whether Asia and America were connected. In this first expedition between 1725 and 1730, the team advanced north through the strait separating Asia and America.
Second Kamchatka expedition
He was Bering's assistant again in the second expedition, also known as the Great Northern Expedition, which started in 1733 and Sv. He took command of the ship Pavel (St. Pavel). In June 1741 the two ships sailed together from Kamchatka, but soon lost each other during a storm; They never met again.
On July 15, 1741, Chirikov sighted land near Prince of Wales Island, southeast of present-day Alaska. None of the two lifeboats he sent to find a suitable place to land returned; Unable to search because he had no small boat left, he turned west on 27 July and reached Petropavlovsk in October 1741. In 1742 he set sail again in search of Bering's ship, sailing through the Aleutian Islands as far as Attu; but he returned without finding any trace of him.
For his contributions to the expedition, he was promoted to captain-commodore in 1745 and took part in the preparation of maps of Russian exploration in the Pacific. He died in Moscow in 1748. Chirikof Island, off the coast of Alaska, is named after him.
