BERING SEA PATROL

Photos: National Archives

Photo: Wikipedia

Photo: University of Alaska Farbanks

Native Alaskans dancing for the crew and the camera aboard the U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear, assigned to the Bering Sea Patrol.


By Vinny Del Giudice

The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service loosely governed much of Alaska after the 1867 purchase from Russia - its cutters deterring poachers, its officers acting as a judiciary, its shipboard surgeons caring for the infirm in scattered settlements.

This commitment to humanitarianism was called the Bering Sea Patrol.

Alaska was considered a federal district until the 20th Century. A far-flung work in progress. Official territorial status was finally conferred in 1912. The U.S. Treasury Department, which operated the cutter service, was tapped to collect revenue in the interim and its ships performed varied duties in the wilderness along the way - from the mundane to the dramatic. The federal capital was at Sitka, today home to a Coast Guard station.

In 1897, in one of the most remarkable feats in Alaska's history, members of the crew of the Revenue Cutter Bear embarked on a 1,500-mile, three-month trek by land to deliver provisions to whaling ships trapped by ice at Point Barrow. In another sterling performance, cutter Captain "Hell Raising" Mike Healy went to aid of natives facing starvation, importing reindeer from Siberia at the urging of a local missionary.

Day-t0-day, the cutter and crews of the Bering Sea Patrol chased down seal poachers crossing over from Russia, protected fisheries, operated as dockside courthouses, offered food and opened sickbays to native Alaskans and mariners. They policed villages, stopped smugglers, confiscated bootlegger liquor, conducted scientific research, collected navigational data, mapped the coastline and scouted potential sites for lighthouses and coaling stations.

The parent Treasury Department's commitment to the vast land mass continued when the Revenue Cutter Service was merged into the Coast Guard with the U.S. Life-Saving Service in 1915. Heroic Coast Guardsmen went to the aid of Alaskan families devastated by the flu pandemic of 1918-1919, buried the dead and established an orphanage. Life-saving stations protected shipping. Early wireless enhanced communications.

Alaska achieved statehood in 1959 and today the Coast Guard's 17th District encompasses the state - maintaining a major air installation at Kodiak Island as well as other outposts, and protecting more than 3.8 million square miles and a tidal shoreline of 47,000 miles. Yes 47,000 miles - more than all the lower 48 states. The mission remains wide-ranging.

Image: U.S. Coast Guard


CUTTER TAHOMA

Photo: NOAA

While on Bering Sea patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Tahoma ran aground on an uncharted rock off the Aleutian Islands on Sept. 20, 1914, according to the Coast Guard Historian's Office. "The crew took to her boats and were later rescued by the steamer Cordova and the Coast and Geodetic Survey steamer Patterson," the historian's office said. There were no serious injuries.


REVENUE CUTTER PERRY

The U.S. Revenue Cutter Perry ran ground in Alaska's Pribilof Islands on July 27, 1910, and all hands were saved.


PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

Photo: U.S. Public Health Service

Circa 1915: "Public Health Service officers aboard the Coast Guard Cutter Bear. Since 1879 medical officers of the Service have been assigned to Coast Guard vessels. Many of the early assignments were on expeditions to Alaska, the Arctic, and on training cruises from the Coast Guard Academy. The Bear was built in Scotland in 1873 and was especially designed for navigating through ocean ice. After being acquired by the Federal Government in 1884, the Bear served in the Arctic for nearly 40 years on various rescue, assistance, investigation, and patrol missions" - U.S. Public Health Service