All Species of Knowledge

Abstract All Species of Knowledge examines the discoveries and failures of the Russian exploratory vessel Rurik as it searched for the world’s most elusive geographic feature, the Northwest Passage. The Rurik departed in 1815 on a three-year voyage around the Pacific and Arctic Oceans. 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 failure to achieve a great discovery was common in the great age of scientific voyaging. Explorers, natural philosophers, and traveling artists grew adept at turning apparent failure into documented achievements. No expedition did this more successfully than the Rurik. Throughout the voyage and during its decades-long afterlife, the crew’s practice of “natural history” embodied a holistic search for knowledge. Much of their produced knowledge derived directly or indirectly from the Indigenous communities they encountered. The Rurik’s personnel conveyed their discoveries through various mediums. The artist Ludwig Choris documented the experience in the first lithographic compendium of a Pacific expedition. The navigator Kadu informed his Marshall Islander elders and peers of the wonders and dangers he encountered. The naturalists Adelbert von Chamisso and Johann Eschscholtz produced an astonishing range of scientific studies. Captain Otto von Kotzebue defended his failure to locate the Northern Passage by claiming other geographic findings. Failure and discovery carried multiple meanings for not only this group of individuals, but also for the pursuit of knowledge as a whole.