From PolishSite, a history of Poles in Alaska from 1741 to the present day in: Polish Tracks in Alaska by Martin S. Nowak

Foreign crewmen have been common on the ships of most nations down through the centuries. Russia was no exception. Men of varied backgrounds manned her ships, including Poles.

Poles were among the crews of Vitus Bering, himself a Dane, and Alexei Chirikov, that discovered Alaska for the Russians in 1741. Research has identified the names of Poles in the ships’ logs. Translated from the Latinized Russian are surnames such as Wielkopolski (Velikopolski), Buczowski (Butzovski), and Kozmian (Kozmin). And Jan Kozyrewski was a consultant to the Bering expeditions. Before Bering, ships under the command of Dmitry Pawlecki, a Polish Russian, in 1732 sailed the strait between Siberia and America and supposedly saw the shores of Alaska…