Cape Shelagsky

Cape Shelagsky – is the northernmost cape at the exit to the Chaun Bay of the continental Chukotka on the East Siberian Sea coast. The Chukchi name is Erri. The name Cape Shelagsky is derived from the ethnonym of Shelagi people (extruded by the Chukchi of the Yukagir ethnos group), the Chuvantsi tribe who used to live in this area. The member of Wrangel’s expedition Doctor Kiber claims that the Shelagi went to the east from Cape Shelagsky. The interpretation of the Shelagi as a separate ethnos is considered erroneous as well as the fact that the Shelagi are the Chukchi, inhabiting the banks of the Chaun River. Cape Shelagsky is rocky and protrudes 9 km to the sea.

The cape was discovered by Semen Dezhnev in 1648 when one of the Kochi boats crushed at its shores. Dezhnev called the cape “Pervyy Svyatoy Nos.” The Cossack foreman Mikhail Stadukhin obviously reached Cape Shelagsky in 1649 and his namesake Taras Stadukhin in 1660. In the 1760s the merchant Nikita Shalaurof died at Cape...