NORDENSKIOLD ACCOMPLISHES THE NORTH-EAST PASSAGE
The North-West Passage, for the accomplishment of which so many brave
lives had been laid down, had been discovered. It now remained for
some explorer to sail round the North-East Passage, which was known
to exist, but which, up to this time, no man had done.
Nordenskiold the Swede was to have this honour. Born in 1832 in Finland,
he had taken part in an Arctic expedition in 1861, which attempted
to reach the North Pole by means of dog-sledges from the north coast
of Spitzbergen. Three years later he was appointed to lead an
expedition to Spitzbergen, which succeeded in reaching the highest
northern latitude which any ship had yet attained. In 1870 his famous
journey to Greenland took place, and two years later he left Sweden
on another Polar expedition; but misfortunes beset the expedition,
and finally the ships were wrecked. The following year he commanded
a reconnoitring expedition. He passed Nova Zembla and reached the
mouth of the Yenisei. This was the first time that a ship had
accomplished the voyage from the Atlantic Ocean. Thus Nordenskiold
had gained considerable knowledge of the Northern Seas, and he was
now in a position to lay a plan of his schemes before King Oscar, who
had always interested himself in Arctic discovery. His suggestions
to the King are of singular interest.
"It is my intention," he says, "to leave Sweden in July 1878 in a steamer
specially built for navigation among ice, which will be provisioned
for two years at most. The course will be shaped for Nova Zembla, where
a favourable opportunity will be awaited for the passage of the Kara
Sea. The voyage will be continued to the mouth of the Yenisei, which
I hope to reach in the first half of August. As soon as circumstances
permit, the expedition will continue its voyage along the coast to
Cape Chelyuskin, where the expedition will reach the only part of the
proposed route which has not been traversed by some small vessel, and
is rightly considered as that which it will be most difficult for a
vessel to double during the whole North-East Passage; but our vessel,
equipped with all modern appliances, ought not to find insuperable
difficulties in doubling this point, and if that can be accomplished,
we will probably have pretty open water towards Behring's Straits,
which ought to be reached before the end of September. From Behring
Strait the course will be shaped for some Asiatic port and then onwards
round Asia to Suez."
King Oscar and others offered to pay the expenses of the expedition,
and preparations were urged forward. The _Vega_ of 300 tons, formerly
used in walrus-hunting in northern waters, was purchased, and further
strengthened to withstand ice. On 22nd June all was ready, and with
the Swedish flag with a crowned O in the middle, the little _Vega_,
which was to accomplish such great things, was "peacefully rocking
on the swell of the Baltic as if impatient to begin her struggle against
waves and ice." She carried food for thirty people for two years, which
included over three thousand pounds of bacon, nine thousand pounds
of coffee, nine thousand pounds of biscuits. There were pemmican from
England, potatoes from the Mediterranean, cranberry juice from
Finland. Fresh bread was made during the whole expedition. A few days
later the _Vega_ reached Copenhagen and steamed north in the finest
weather.
"Where are you bound for?" signalled a passing ship.
"To Behring Sea," was the return signal, and the Swedish crew waved
their caps, shouting their joyful news.
At Gothenburg they took on eight sledges, tents, and cooking utensils,
also two Scotch sheep dogs and a little coal-black kitten, which lived
in the captain's berth till it grew accustomed to the sea, when it
slept in the forecastle by day and ran about stealing the food of the
sleeping sailors by night.
On 16th July they crossed the Polar Circle. "All on board feel they
are entering upon a momentous period of their life," says the explorer.
"Were we to be the fortunate ones to reach this goal, which navigators
for centuries had striven to reach?"
The south-west coast of Nova Zembla was reached on 28th July, but the
weather being calm and the sea completely free of ice, Nordenskiold
sailed onwards through the Kara Strait or Iron Gates, which during
the winter was usually one sheet of ice, until they anchored outside
the village of Khabarova. The "village" consisted of a few huts and
tents of Russian and Samoyedes pasturing their reindeer on the Vaygets
Island. On the bleak northern shores stood a little wooden church,
which the explorers visited with much interest. It seemed strange to
find here brass bas-reliefs representing the Christ, St. Nicholas,
Elijah, St. George and the Dragon, and the Resurrection; in front of
each hung a little oil lamp. The people were dressed entirely in
reindeer skin from head to foot, and they had a great collection of
walrus tusks and skins such as Othere had brought centuries before
to King Alfred.
Nordenskiold's account of a short drive in a reindeer sledge is amusing.
"Four reindeer were put side by side to each sledge," he says. "Ivan,
my driver, requested me to hold tight; he held the reins of all four
reindeer in one hand, and away we went over the plain! His request
to keep myself tight to the sledge was not unnecessary; at one moment
the sledge jumped over a big tussock, the next it went down into a
pit. It was anything but a comfortable drive, for the pace at which
we went was very great."
On 1st August the _Vega_ was off again, and soon she had entered the
Kara Sea, known in the days of the Dutch explorers as the "ice-cellar."
Then past White Island and the estuary of the great Obi River, past
the mouth of the Yenisei to Dickson Island, lately discovered, she
sailed. Here in this "best-known haven on the whole north coast of
Asia they anchored and spent time in bear and reindeer hunting." "In
consequence of the successful sport we lived very extravagantly during
these days; our table groaned with joints of venison and bear-hams."
They now sailed north close bound in fog, till on 20th August "we
reached the great goal, which for centuries had been the object of
unsuccessful struggles. For the first time a vessel lay at anchor off
the northernmost cape of the Old World. With colours flying on every
mast and saluting the venerable north point of the Old World with the
Swedish salute of five guns, we came to an anchor!"
[Illustration: NORDENSKIOLD'S SHIP, THE _VEGA_, SALUTING CAPE
CHELYUSKIN, THE MOST NORTHERLY POINT OF THE OLD WORLD. From a drawing
in Hovgaard's _Nordenskiold's Voyage_.]
The fog lifting for a moment, they saw a white Polar bear standing
"regarding the unexpected guests with surprise."
When afterwards a member of the expedition was asked which moment was
the proudest of the whole voyage, he answered, without hesitation:
"Undoubtedly the moment when we anchored off Cape Chelyuskin."
It had been named thus by the "Great Northern Expedition" in 1742 after
Lieutenant Chelyuskin, one of the Russian explorers under Laptieff,
who had reached this northern point by a land journey which had entailed
terrible hardships and suffering.
"Next morning," relates Nordenskiold, "we erected a cairn on the shore,
and in the middle of it laid a tin box with the following document
written in Swedish: 'The Swedish Arctic Expedition arrived here
yesterday, the 19th of August, and proceeds in a few hours eastward.
The sea has been tolerably free from ice. Sufficient supply of coals.
All well on board.
"'A. E. NORDENSKIOLD.'
And below in English and Russian were the words, 'Please forward this
document as soon as possible to His Majesty the King of Sweden.'"
Nordenskiold now attempted to steam eastwards towards the New Siberian
Islands, but the fog was thick, and they fell in with large ice-floes
which soon gave place to ice-fields. Violent snowstorms soon set in
and "aloft everything was covered with a crust of ice, and the position
in the crow's nest was anything but pleasant." They reached Khatanga
Bay, however, and on 27th August the _Vega_ was at the mouth of the
Lena.
"We were now in hopes that we should be in Japan in a couple of months;
we had accomplished two-thirds of our way through the Polar sea, and
the remaining third had been often navigated at different distances."
So the _Vega_ sailed on eastwards with an ice-free sea to the New
Siberian Islands, where lie embedded "enormous masses of the bones
and tusks of the mammoth mixed with the horns and skulls of some kind
of ox and with the horns of rhinoceros."
All was still clear of snow, and the New Siberian Islands lying long
and low in the Polar seas were safely passed. It was not till 1st
September that the first snows fell; the decks of the _Vega_ were white
with snow when the Bear Islands were reached. Fog now hindered the
expedition once more, and ice was sighted.
"Ice right ahead!" suddenly shouted the watch on the forecastle, and
only by a hair's-breadth was the _Vega_ saved. On 3rd September a thick
snowstorm came on, the Bear Islands were covered with newly fallen
snow, and though the ice was growing more closely packed than any yet
encountered they could still make their way along a narrow ice-free
channel near the coast. Snowstorms, fog, and drifting ice compelled
careful navigation, but a pleasant change occurred early in September
by a visit from the natives. We have already heard of the Chukches
from Behring--the Chukches whom no man had yet vanquished, for when
Siberia was conquered by a Kossack chief in 1579, the Chukches in this
outlying north-eastern corner of the Old World, savage, courageous,
resolute, kept the conquerors at bay. For the last six weeks the
explorers had not seen a human being on that wild and desolate stretch
of coast, so they were glad enough to see the little Chukches with
their coal-black hair and eyes, their large mouths and flat noses.
"Although it was only five o'clock in the morning, we all jumped out
of our berths and hurried on deck to see these people of whom so little
was known. The boats were of skin, fully laden with laughing and
chattering natives, men, women, and children, who indicated by cries
and gesticulations that they wished to come on board. The engine was
stopped, the boats lay to, and a large number of skin-clad, bare-headed
beings climbed up over the gunwale and a lively talk began. Great
gladness prevailed when tobacco and Dutch clay pipes were distributed
among them. None of them could speak a word of Russian; they had come
in closer contact with American whalers than with Russian traders."
The Chukches were all very short and dressed in reindeer skins with
tight-fitting trousers of seal-skin, shoes of reindeer-skin with
seal-skin boots and walrus-skin soles. In very cold weather they wore
hoods of wolf fur with the head of the wolf at the back.
[Illustration: MENKA, CHIEF OF THE CHUKCHES.]
But Nordenskiold could not wait long. Amid snow and ice and fog he
pushed on, hoping against hope to get through to the Pacific before
the sea was completely frozen over. But the ice was beginning to close.
Large blocks were constantly hurled against the ship with great
violence, and she had many a narrow escape of destruction.
At last, it was 28th September, the little _Vega_ was finally and
hopelessly frozen into the ice, and they made her fast to a large
ice-block. Sadly we find the entry: "Only one hundred and twenty miles
distant from our goal, which we had been approaching during the last
two months, and after having accomplished two thousand four hundred
miles. It took some time before we could accustom ourselves to the
thought that we were so near and yet so far from our destination."
Fortunately they were near the shore and the little settlement of
Pitlekai, where in eight tents dwelt a party of Chukches. These little
people helped them to pass the long monotonous winter, and many an
expedition inland was made in Chukche sledges drawn by eight or ten
wolf-like dogs. Snowstorms soon burst upon the little party of Swedish
explorers who had made the _Vega_ their winter home. "During November
we have scarcely had any daylight," writes Nordenskiold; "the storm
was generally howling in our rigging, which was now enshrouded in a
thick coat of snow, the deck was full of large snowdrifts, and snow
penetrated into every corner of the ship where it was possible for
the wind to find an opening. If we put our heads outside the door we
were blinded by the drifting snow."
Christmas came and was celebrated by a Christmas tree made of willows
tied to a flagstaff, and the traditional rice porridge.
By April large flocks of geese, eider-ducks, gulls, and little
song-birds began to arrive, the latter perching on the rigging of the
_Vega_, but May and June found her still icebound in her winter
quarters.
[Illustration: THE _VEGA_ FROZEN IN FOR THE WINTER. From a drawing
in Hovgaard's _Nordenskiold's Voyage_.]
It was not till 18th July 1879 that "the hour of deliverance came at
last, and we cast loose from our faithful ice-block, which for two
hundred and ninety-four days had protected us so well against the
pressure of the ice and stood westwards in the open channel, now about
a mile wide. On the shore stood our old friends, probably on the point
of crying, which they had often told us they would do when the ship
left them."
For long the Chukches stood on the shore--men, women, and
children--watching till the "fire-dog," as they called the _Vega_,
was out of sight, carrying their white friends for ever away from their
bleak, inhospitable shores.
"Passing through closely packed ice, the _Vega_ now rounded the East
Cape, of which we now and then caught a glimpse through the fog. As
soon as we came out of the ice south of the East Cape, we noticed the
heavy swell of the Pacific Ocean. The completion of the North-East
Passage was celebrated the same day with a grand dinner, and the _Vega_
greeted the Old and New Worlds by a display of flags and the firing
of a Swedish salute. Now for the first time after the lapse of three
hundred and thirty-six years was the North-East Passage at last
achieved."
Sailing through the Behring Strait, they anchored near Behring Island
on 14th August. As they came to anchor, a boat shot alongside and a
voice cried out in Swedish, "Is it Nordenskiold?" A Finland carpenter
soon stood in their midst, and they eagerly questioned him about the
news from the civilised world!
There is no time to tell how the _Vega_ sailed on to Japan, where
Nordenskiold was presented to the Mikado, and an Imperial medal was
struck commemorating the voyage of the _Vega_, how she sailed right
round Asia, through the Suez Canal, and reached Sweden in safety. It
was on 24th April 1880 that the little weather-beaten _Vega_,
accompanied by flag-decked steamers literally laden with friends,
sailed into the Stockholm harbour while the hiss of fireworks and the
roar of cannon mingled with the shouts of thousands. The Royal Palace
was ablaze with light when King Oscar received and honoured the
successful explorer Nordenskiold.