Mikhail Gvozdev

Map of the New Discoveries in the Eastern Ocean WDL126

Mikhail Spiridonovich Gvozdev (Russian: Михаил Спиридонович Гвоздев) (1700-04 — after 1759) was a Russian military geodesist and a commander of the expedition to northern Alaska in 1732, when the Alaskan shore was for the first time sighted by Russians.^[1][2]

In 1732,^[3] together with the participants of the first Kamchatka expedition navigators Ivan Fedorov and K. Moshkov, Gvozdev in Sviatoi Gavriil (St. Gabriel) sailed to Dezhnev Cape, the easternmost point of Asia. From there, after having replenished the water supply on 5 August, 'Sviatoi Gavriil' sailed east and soon came near the American mainland at Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska. They charted the north-western coast of Alaska and mapped their route. By doing this, Fyodorov and Gvozdev completed the discovery of the Bering Strait, once started by Dezhnyov and Fedot Popov and continued by Bering.

Subsequently in 1741-42 Gvozdev participated in an expedition led by Alexey Shelting, and mapped most of the western and southern shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, as well as the eastern shore of Sakhalin island.

A cape on Sakhalin island is named after Gvozdev.

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