David Igler

All Species of Knowledge

In 1815, the Russian vessel Rurik set off on a three-year voyage through the Pacific and Arctic oceans in a quest to find the world's most elusive geographic feature, the Northwest Passage. Financed by a wealthy Russian count and commanded by a fame-seeking captain, the vessel carried four extraordinary observers of the natural world, including an Indigenous navigator from the Caroline Islands named Kadu. The Rurik failed in its mission, yet, as award-winning Pacific historian David Igler masterfully demonstrates, the crew's pursuit of "natural history" throughout the voyage and during its decades-long afterlife embodied a search for knowledge through science, artistic representation, and oral tradition. Failure to achieve a great discovery was common in the great age of scientific voyaging, but explorers, natural philosophers, and traveling artists grew adept at turning their explorations into documented achievements by claiming, publishing, and promoting a range of significant findings. No expedition did this more successfully than the crew of the Rurik. Much of their produced knowledge derived directly from the Indigenous communities they encountered in the Pacific. The men aboard the ship conveyed their discoveries through various mediums. Artist Ludwig Choris documented the experience in the first lithographic compendium of a Pacific expedition. Navigator Kadu informed his Marshall Islander elders and peers of the wonders and dangers he encountered. Naturalists Adelbert von Chamisso and Johann Eschscholtz produced an astonishing range of scientific studies for both scholarly and public audiences. Meanwhile, Captain Otto von Kotzebue defended his failure to locate the Northern Passage by claiming other geographic findings. Featuring rare color images created during the voyage, All Species of Knowledge reveals the intimate and daily practice of shipboard natural history, the role expeditions played in enlightening societies around the world, and the multiple meanings of failure and discovery in the pursuit of knowledge.