Vitus Bering, an explorer of Danish origin and a naval officer in Russian service, set out in the mid-18th century to explore the easternmost edge of the Tsarist Empire in order to prove that Asia and America were not connected. On his final expedition, he discovered Alaska and became stranded on an uninhabited island while attempting to return to Kamchatka, cut off by storms. There, in his struggle to survive the winter, he died of scurvy along with some of his crew. This is the legend, the biographical substrate of a story from which Konrad Bayer created a linguistic artwork using text montage techniques and drawing from a wide variety of sources. This work is considered one of the most significant contributions of the Austrian avant-garde after 1945. Vitus Bering serves merely as a vehicle and a setting for a literarily adventurous narrative.