Island of the Blue Foxes
Nonfiction Tragedy, privation and death ISLAND OF THE BLUE FOXES: Disaster and Triumph on the World’s Greatest Scientific Expedition By Stephen R. Bown 346 pp. Da Capo Reviewed by David E. Hoekenga, M. D. Russian Tsar Peter the Great conceived the Great Northern Expedition that place from 1733 to 1743 and consumed amazing 18 percent of the total income of the entire Russian state. Bown writes that the decade-long expedition spanned three continents, (and) in its geographic, cartographic and natural history accomplishments are on a par with (the combination of) James Cook’s famous voyages, the circumnavigations of Malaspina and Bougainville and Lewis and Clark’s cross-continental trek. Expedition leader and renowned Danish mariner Vitus Bering had offered a modest proposal that Empress Anna’s final instructions raised it to “grandiose proportions.” Bering would lead “a huge troop of nearly three thousand scientists, secretaries, students, interpreters, artists, surveyors, n...