The first government-sponsored expedition to the Aleutians was led by Peter Krentizin in 1768. Leaving the mouth of the Kamchatka River with two ships, Krentizin surveyed the islands of Umnak, Unalaska, Unimak, and the western shores of the Alaska Peninsula. He returned to Kamchatka in 1769 and drowned in the Kamchatka River shortly thereafter. His journals and charts, however, eventually reached St. Petersburg, and they formed the basis for the first reliable map of the Aleutians.
