Vega Expedition

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Map showing the route of the Vega expedition.
Return of Swedish Finnish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld with the SS Vega to Stockholm on 24 April 1880.
Swedish steamship SS Vega, used during the expedition of the Finnish-Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld.
SS Vega at anchor in the Penkigney Bay of the Bering Sea.
SS Vega frozen into packed ice outside Piltekai, Siberia. Photo by Louis Palander

The Vega Expedition (

Arctic expedition to navigate through the Northeast Passage, the sea route between Europe and Asia through the Arctic Ocean, and the first voyage to circumnavigate Eurasia.[1]
Initially a troubled enterprise, the successful expedition is considered to be among the highest achievements in the history of Swedish science. [2]

Preparations

Nordenskiöld had already conducted a series of expeditions in the Arctic, including to

Yenisei River
.

In 1877, Nordenskiöld began planning the expedition to find the Northeast Passage, and in July he presented a detailed plan to

Royal Society of Sciences and Letters in Gothenburg, and private individuals, notably Swedish industrialist and philanthropist Oscar Dickson (1823-1897) and Russian industrialist Alexander Sibiryakov
(1849–1933). [3] [4]

The steamship

Lena River in Siberia
.

Expedition members

Louis Palander (1842–1920) was appointed captain of the expedition. Palander was a Swedish naval officer and an experienced sailor who had already made several trips in the Arctic and had previously participated in other Nordenskiöld expeditions. It also included scientists, officers and a crew of 21 men. [5] Noted members of the international team included:

  • lichenologist
  • xylographer
    and painter
  • ship's position
  • Andreas Peter Hovgaard, Danish naval officer, explorer and meteorologist, responsible for the meteorological and magnetic observations
  • Frans Reinhold Kjellman, Swedish botanist
  • hydrographer
    and zoologist, acted as the Russian interpreter
  • Anton Stuxberg, Swedish zoologist

The expedition

Vega left Karlskrona on June 22, 1878, made a stop in Tromsø from July 17 until July 21. In Tromsø, Vega was joined by the cargo ship Lena, commanded by Edvard Holm Johanssen. The ships reached Cape Chelyuskin, the northernmost tip of the Eurasian continent, on August 19, 1878. Lena navigated up the Lena river towards Yakutsk on August 27, with Vega continuing east along the coast, which had only a narrow ice-free strip a couple of miles wide.

Vega's progress stopped in pack ice on September 28, 1878, about 1.5 kilometers from the coast at the Chukchi Peninsula at Neshkan, only days from the Bering Strait. The expedition spent the winter there. Vega could be freed from the ice only the next summer, on August 18, 1879, and it reached Bering Strait on August 20. Vega stopped in Japan for repairs for almost two months, and returned to Sweden through the

Suez canal. It returned to Stockholm
on April 24, 1880.

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9781153782234
    .
  2. ^ "Vega-expeditionen genom Nordostpassagen 1878-1880". University of Gothenburg. Retrieved April 1, 2019.
  3. ^ W. Carlgren. "Oscar Dickson". Svenskt biografiskt lexikon. Retrieved April 1, 2019.
  4. ^ "Aleksander Michajlovitj Sibiriakov". Nordisk familjebok. Retrieved April 1, 2019.
  5. ^ Wilhelm Odelberg. "A A Louis Palander af Vega". Svenskt biografiskt lexikon. Retrieved April 1, 2019.
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