The main comparison I have is my service in the British navy submarine service. As early as March 1961, I served as navigator of the HMS Narwhal. I recall very well the remoteness and seclusion of cruising at three hundred feet below the surface under a thick Arctic ice cap. Our task was to track Soviet nuclear submarines and produce a report deciding whether patrolling under the ice was feasible for nuclear submarines. If it were, Soviet submarines could shorten the distance between themselves and the Americas—their missiles could hit Texas. Our (future) Polaris missiles could target eastern Russia.

I was navigator of the Narwhal. My next appointment was to be operations officer of the HMS Resolution, Britain’s first Polaris-missile-firing submarine and at that time, Britain’s sole independent nuclear deterrent. Narwhal’s patrol area was in the Kara Sea between Jan Mayen and West Spitsbergen. Here the ice was a uniform twelve feet thick, broken every hundred miles or so by polynyas—stretches of clear, unfrozen sea surrounded by ice. During the brief hours of daylight one of my assignments was to find a polynya, so we could attempt to surface, charge our batteries, take sun sights, and receive signals from Faslane Naval Base, our port, in Scotland.

One day, we were cruising in ultra-quiet mode, circling at three hundred feet and searching for the sounds of Soviet nuclear subs, with their distinctive five clover-bladed propellers, driven by two shafts. Suddenly there was a bang and the submarine filled with smoke. As we donned our breathing masks, we needed to surface as quickly as possible. As navigator it fell to me to find a polynya. It was by no means easy.

The Arctic ice cap is not stationary. Where we were operating, the ice rotated counterclockwise unless there was a period of low pressure, when it reversed direction. So, on balance, the polynya we visited two days before should have been carried northeast—that is, farther into the ice toward the North Pole. So I advised the captain that was the course we should steer, accordingly.

We had upward-sounding sonar of ten kilocycles per second. This continuously tracked the thickness of the ice and it showed when this thickness was changing as one approached a polynya. So we watched the upward sonar like hawks. After less than two hours’ transit sailing northeast, we suddenly saw the ice change. Shortly afterward the water started to lighten, then suddenly there was clear water 130 feet above us. I immediately called the captain, who came to the control room and took over for me. We were able to surface; we started both generators, charged the submarine batteries, and cleared out the smoke from the submarine.

Now we were safe and earned our entitled “tots” of rum and it seemed appropriate to relax. I had brought a coconut mat and bats, balls, and pads for a cricket match upon the ice. So it was that we placed guards around the pitch to keep polar bears away. I captained the wardroom team and leading stoker Roberts led the ship’s company team. The wardroom team duly won.

The Arctic is a bleak, awesomely beautiful, but unforgiving place. The experience of being a navigator there gave me an innate kinship with navigators of all ages. Imagine finally, then, an attempt by an ancient mariner far from home to circumnavigate this Earth, to seek ports of call where one could replenish stocks of food and water, to survive shoals and storms and accidents with no grounding or support system whatsoever.

My time at sea left me with the knowledge of the imposing navigational challenges for any sailor, but it also gave me an appreciation for the triumph of those who sailed before me on their rough-hewn barks. I was easily hooked and enthralled by stories of early Chinese explorations. I began to look at these stories and, using my knowledge of the seas, was led by my research to a new way of understanding the discovery of America.

I thought it would be fun and instructive for me to find an amphibious vehicle, drive from our home in London, England, through the Channel Tunnel across Europe and Siberia, then across the Bering Strait when it froze over, and finally through Alaska and southeast to Ontario. I would collect Samantha and take her to the church in the amphibious car in time for her wedding.

I planned the operation with great care, more than a year ahead of time. We chose an amphibious Bering Strait–capable vehicle made by Dutton Amphibious Cars of Littlehampton. Tim Dutton, the proprietor, arranged for us to have a trial run in Littlehampton harbor—it performed beautifully. I gathered a list of requirements and gear and began accumulating them.¹

My contact and inspiration for the journey was Commander Tony Brooks, who joined the Royal Navy some ten years after me and became a professional navigator. After he resigned from the Royal Navy, Tony rode a bicycle from London to the Bering Strait across Siberia. We planned to follow the route Tony took, and use his detailed reports to plan each stage. Acting on his advice, we planned to fit our craft, which we dubbed Mariner 2, with an 1800cc Ford diesel engine. George, who owned the local garage in Islington, decided to sell up and come as my co-driver. This brought a wealth of technical expertise to the project. I decided to purchase a second vehicle to accompany us in view of the multitude of spare parts that George considered necessary.

During my time as navigator of the HMS Narwhal I had developed a working relationship with the Scott Polar Research Institute, at the University of Cambridge. We carried out experiments on their behalf underneath the ice and briefed them when we returned. Lawson Brigham and Bob Headland, the archivist, provided us with very detailed information about the Bering Strait and eastern Siberia, not least accounts of their journeys through the strait on a Russian icebreaker.

Tony Brooks introduced me to Richard Casey, who had organized and carried out an expedition from Moscow aiming to cross the Bering Strait that was funded by the Russian army—which had provided trucks, fuel and water, icebreakers, helicopters, and backup logistics. Richard and Tony again helped me by introducing me to the captain of a Russian icebreaker who planned to transit from Asia to America, north to south in the Bering Strait, on August 10 and then return north on August 13.

In modern times, the shortest distance for such a crossing is about fifty-one miles, from Chukchi Peninsula in Russia to Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska. We planned to cross the Bering Strait from Cape Dezhnev to Little Diomede (an island in the middle of the strait) on August 13 and from Little Diomede to Cape Prince of Wales on August 14. We would have emergency help if needed.

The Russian army agreed to provide us with fuel for the journey through Siberia. Everything seemed set. I decided to call on the Scott Institute one last time to obtain a final briefing from Bob Headland, who had just returned from the strait.

I was horrified to learn from him how bad things were in Siberia at the time. Two Russian fuel tankers had managed to get through to Pevek the previous autumn but the fuel they brought had run out. Food supply ships had not gotten through and as a result there was widespread starvation in the villages on the Russian side of the strait. The people of Pevek did not even have sufficient fuel for the outboard-motor craft they used to hunt walruses for food. The population had been reduced from ten thousand to one thousand. In Bob Headland’s view, if we went through with what appeared an expensive vehicle with food and fuel we would be attacked. Bob advised against proceeding without an armed escort and a fuel tanker.

Until that day I had thought crossing the Bering Strait across the ice in winter or by amphibious vehicle in summer was a realistic possibility. I had no idea just how terribly hard life was. Tony Brooks said the “Road of Bones,” which he had used to travel through the Gulag Archipelago, was the most horrible experience he had ever had. Stalin had sent thousands of slaves by ship to build that road. Some mutinied. Hoses were turned on them and they froze solid—hence the bones.

After listening to the horror stories of the past and hearing about the dire situation of the present, I knew that I needed to reevaluate not only my own planned trip but also the issue of the viability of crossing the strait, under any conditions and at any time.

Scientists continue to claim that America was populated by waves of people crossing the Bering Strait from Siberia. Was crossing the Bering strait really possible? For a start there was no food, save for what a traveler could catch. Today’s Inuit or Eskimo people cannot catch enough walruses to feed a population of one thousand. They need motorboats to hunt and catch them. Today, never mind in 10,000 B.C., before the Bering Strait was flooded, it is a thousand-mile trek across Siberia to reach the strait—without fruit or berries or trees for wood to make water from ice. Today there is a three-thousand-mile gap between the Russian and American hard road systems, and that is across an endless expanse of boggy tundra, forest, and rivers. It is virtually impossible to trek through the wilderness of Chukotka in the summer due to these endless bogs, rivers, and lakes. The only realistic time to pass through this region is during frigid winter months when all water becomes solid. How do you melt the ice for drinking water without wood to make a fire?

Next followed an obvious question: Why should people head north to ever colder regions, which they would have to do to reach the Bering Strait? Why not travel by sea with the current to America, where life is warmer and easier? And where there are kelp and animals for food? How could they know what to expect when they reached the Bering Strait on foot? Where did they expect to find food when heading north?

The more I thought about the Bering Strait theory of populating the Americas, the more ridiculous it became. If one cannot manage the journey today, when backed by a mighty Russian military machine, how could people have done it with nothing but their hind legs—having to walk in appalling conditions, without food, for months on end?

I concluded only armchair academics could believe in the Bering Strait theory of migration. In my view it never happened—another fairy story to boost the myth that transatlantic journeys were impossible before Columbus.

Sadly, but wisely I am sure, I abandoned my plan to cross Europe and Asia into Alaska on the amphibious vehicle. I decided to attend Samatha’s wedding by conventional transport.

After the wedding, instead, I switched focus to a matter related thematically to theories about the land bridge. The spotlight now was a thousand miles away, on an equally vexing theory: the history of the Silk Road, the trade route from China to the West.

This had been another object of my interest and study at least since the 1970s. The link was my interest in the successes and fortunes of Chinese trade and world political power.

The Silk Road was also related to my study of Chinese explorations. Just as the Chinese used their maps and their seamanship to discover America, their maritime skills were also required on the trade routes westward from China to Asia Minor and then to Europe. The Silk Road’s land route was supplemented by ships on the high seas.

Just how viable...