Otto von Kotzebue, on promotion to lieutenant in the Russian Navy, is placed in command of an expedition, fitted out at the expense of the imperial chancellor, Count Nikolay Rumyantsev, in the brig Rurik.

In this vessel, with only twenty-seven men, including the naturalists Johann Friedrich von Eschscholtz and Adelbert von Chamisso, and the artist Louis Choris, Kotzebue had set out on July 30, 1815 to find a passage across the Arctic Ocean and explore the less-known parts of Oceania.

Proceeding via Cape Horn, he had discovered the Romanzov Islands, Rurik Islands and Krusenstern Islands (today Tikehau), then made for Kamchatka.

In the middle of July 1816 he proceeds northward, coasting along the north-west coast of North America, and discovering and naming Kotzebue Sound or Gulf and Cape Krusenstern in the remote Chukchi Sea.

Returning by the coast of Asia, he had again sailed to the south, sojourned for three weeks at the Sandwich Islands, and on January 1, 1817, discovers New Year Island.