Hydrographic expedition of the Northern Arctic Sea
The hydrographic expedition Arctic Oceans ( Russian Гидрографическая экспедиция Северного Ледовитого океана ) resulted in 1910 to 1915 the first modern measurement of the Northern Sea Route from the Bering Strait to the mouth of Jenissei through. She discovered the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago in 1913 and made the second journey through the entire Northeast Passage in 1914/15 - the first from east to west.
prehistory
The course of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904/1905 had shown that the Trans-Siberian Railway could not cope with the increased traffic caused by the war. However, the fact that the Second Pacific Squadron, formed from parts of the Baltic Fleet , had to travel more than 12,000 nautical miles to reach the theater of war on an eight-month journey around the Cape of Good Hope was also blamed for the Russian defeat . This sparked interest in the Russian military in a northern shipping route from Arkhangelsk or Murmansk along the Siberian north coast and through the Bering Strait to Vladivostok in the Far East . In addition to these military strategic considerations, there was also an important economic interest in a more economical supply route to northeast Siberia from Vladivostok across the Arctic Ocean to the Kolyma . Until then, the goods were transported on the Lena and then with dog or reindeer sledges to Kolyma.
In the last decades of the 19th century, the Imperial Russian Navy explored the northern sea route to the mouth of the Yenisei. Little was known about its continuation to the east. In modern times, only three ships had passed Cape Tscheljuskin , the northernmost point of the Asian mainland - the Vega Adolf Erik Nordenskiölds , the Fram Fridtjof Nansens and the Sarja Eduard von Tolls . Only Nordenskiöld had crossed the entire Northeast Passage. The available maps of the huge area go back to the Great Nordic Expedition of Vitus Bering from 1733 to 1743 and to the surveying work of Peter Anjous and Ferdinand von Wrangels in the years 1820 to 1824. The Severnaya Zemlya archipelago of 36,600 km² had not yet been discovered.
Preparation and goals
In 1905, under the chairmanship of the experienced hydrographer Andrei Wilkizki , who had headed surveying work in the Barents and Kara Seas for many years , a commission was formed which came to the conclusion that the route could be used provided that extensive surveying was carried out beforehand - and mapping work would be carried out. Furthermore, coal stores would have to be set up, weather stations and navigation aids such as lighthouses built and detailed sea manuals written. In 1906, under the leadership of Admiral Wladimir Verkhovsky (1837-1917), a second commission was set up, which included Wilkizki and Juli Schokalski , Alexei Krylow and Alexander von Bunge . It came to the same results and recommended the construction of two light icebreakers with which - operating from Vladivostok - the entire northern sea route to the mouth of the Yenisei could be explored within several years. This plan was accepted.
The Taimyr and Waigatsch icebreakers were built in Saint Petersburg until 1909 . With a length of 54 m and a displacement of 1200 t, they were relatively small compared to other icebreakers of their time. They were optimized for survey work in open water and should withstand unavoidable collisions with ice floes undamaged. But they were not designed to be able to break up thick pack ice that has lasted for several years . Great emphasis was placed on good maneuverability and a shallow draft of 4.40 m. The ships were powered by triple expansion steam engines with an output of 1220 horsepower and could bunker 500 t of coal, sufficient for a distance of 16,000 km. The crew of each ship consisted of an average of 50 members of the Russian Navy. The ships began their maiden voyage to Vladivostok on November 10, 1909 under the captains Alexander Kolchak on the Waigatsch and Fyodor Matissen (1872-1921) on the Taimyr , both of whom had already participated in the Eduard von Tolls expedition to the New Siberian Islands . The leadership of the expedition was in the hands of Polkownik Ivan Sergeyev (1863-1919). From 1913, however, this was de facto led by Boris Wilkizki , the son of Andrei Wilkizkis.
The main objective of the hydrographic expedition was to survey the Arctic coast of Russia, including the offshore islands, and to create new nautical charts . In particular, bays, estuaries and other safe anchorages should be explored and marked with sea marks. Soundings should be carried out along the entire route and supplemented by depth profiles perpendicular to the coast. Furthermore, hydrological , meteorological , magnetic and biological observations should be made.
course
1910
The season was almost over when the Taimyr and the Waigatsch set out on August 30, accompanied by a coal ship, on an exploration trip to the Chukchi Peninsula . Command of the Taimyr was Boris Davidov transferred (1883-1925). The ships passed the Bering Strait and reached Uelen on September 16 . Here they waited for a week for clear skies to be able to determine their exact position astronomically, then gave up and drove on for about 30 kilometers before a solid ice barrier ended their journey. They were back in Vladivostok on November 2nd.
1911
The ships left Vladivostok on August 4th and took in coal and water again in Prowidenija . Kolchak was recalled as captain of the Waigatsch and replaced by Konstantin Loman (? –1917). On August 23rd, Cape Deshnev was reached. The ships followed the coast to the west in mostly ice-free water, but ran aground in the East Siberian Sea for the first time - an event that was repeated several times during the expedition. At the entrance to Tschaunbucht they met the Kolyma , a ship of the volunteer fleet and the first steamer to ever reach the Kolyma. On September 5, the expedition ships anchored off the Kolyma estuary, and three days later they started their return voyage. The Waigatsch now separated from the Taimyr and went to Wrangel Island . During a shore leave - Russians set foot on the island for the first time - a sea mark was set up on the southwest coast. The Waigatsch followed the west and north coast of Wrangel Island and met the Taimyr again at Cape Deschnjow . The expedition had measured 4000 km of coastline and carried out 2900 depth soundings.
1912
This year the coast between the mouth of the Kolyma and Cape Chelyuskin was to be included. The ships left their port on June 13, surveyed the east coast of Kamchatka and passed the Bering Strait on July 22. Although they were stopped by the ice on Long Strait , they were back at the Kolyma Estuary on July 29, where they had turned back the year before. From August 1st to 3rd, they mapped the Bear Islands . Four of the six islands were previously nameless and were named after geodesists who visited them in the 18th century. Further to the west the problem arose that the East Siberian Sea was so shallow that the ships could only approach the coast up to 22 km, which made an exact land survey impossible. Then there was fog and heavy ice. The expedition had to be limited to sounding and found depths of only 10 to 15 m even 30 km off the coast. When the Great Lyakhov Island came into view on August 11, the ships separated. The Taimyr drove south of the island by the Dmitry Laptev Strait , the Waigatsch north by the Sannikov Strait to the islands Stolbovoy Island , Semenovsky and Vasilevsky were entered, all three. The ships arrived in the Tiksibucht back together, drove around the Lena Delta and held course on Cape Chelyuskin. A strong ice barrier forced them to turn around at 76 ° North. The Waigatsch's hull was damaged and the expedition returned directly to its winter port.
1913
In 1913 the leadership of the expedition was renewed. On the Taimyr , Pyotr Novopaschenny took command, on the Waigatsch Boris Wilkizki. When Sergeyev suffered a stroke before reaching the Bering Strait , Wilkizki took over the leadership of the expedition. While the Waigatsch made an unsuccessful attempt due to the difficult ice conditions to map the south coast of Wrangel Island, the Taimyr carried out depth soundings along the mainland coast and measured the Tschaunbucht. After a meeting at the Bear Islands, the Waigatsch followed the mainland coast, but the Taimyr soon took a north-westerly course towards the New Siberian Islands. On August 20, the previously unknown Wilkizki Island , one of the De Long Islands , was discovered. Past Bennett Island , the Taimyr drove north of the New Siberian Islands to the coast of the Taimyr Peninsula and then south to the agreed meeting point, the Preobraschenije Island . Wilkizki had meanwhile measured Great Begichev . Both ships now followed the coast of the Taimyr Peninsula north, but found an ice barrier at Cape Chelyuskin. While trying to bypass it north, the expedition came across a flat island on September 2, which was named Zessarewitsch Alexei (since 1926 Small Taimyr Island ). On September 3, the expedition made their greatest geographical discovery when they came across the coast of Saint Olga Island ( Bolshevik Island since 1926 ), one of the three main islands of Severnaya Zemlya. Since the ice conditions did not allow them to follow their further course to the south-west, the icebreakers drove to the north-west on the edge of the fixed ice until the expedition members hoisted the Russian flag after 80 km on Cape Mountain on St. Alexandra Island (since 1926 October Revolution Island ) and took possession of the archipelago as Tsar Nicholas II land for Russia. The ships were able to continue their voyage to the northern tip of the archipelago ( Cape Arktitscheski ), where they encountered ice lasting several years and had to turn back. During a landing on Little Taimyr Island, the ship's doctor of the Taimyr Leonid Starokadomski (1875–1962) sighted another island, which was named Starokadomski Island in his honor . As Wilkizki Street was still blocked, the expedition returned to Vladivostok. Wilkizki chose the route north of the New Siberian Islands again to look for the hypothetical Sannikowland . Geological samples that Eduard von Toll had left there in 1902 were collected from Bennett Island. In the Bering Strait, the ships got caught in a severe storm and had to call at the port of St. Michael in Alaska to replenish their coal reserves. The trip ended on November 25th.
1914/1915
The order of the expedition was to drive through the Northeast Passage to Arkhangelsk this time and to continue exploring Tsar Nicholas II Land . At short notice, she received an assignment to help the shipwrecked Karluk , a ship from Vilhjálmur Stefánsson's Canadian Arctic Expedition , some of whom had escaped to Wrangel Island. Wilkizki steamed the Taimyr to Nome for more detailed information, and there learned of the outbreak of the First World War . While the Waigatsch drove to Wrangel Island, Wilkizki went with the Taimyr to Novo-Mariinsk (today Anadyr ) in order to establish contact with the high command of the Russian Navy. He was ordered to continue the mission as planned. On August 19, the Taimyr met again in the Koljutschinbai on the Waigatsch , which had sustained damage to the hull and lost a propeller blade in the unsuccessful attempt to reach Wrangel Island . The shipwrecked Karluk were only rescued on September 7th by the American schooner King and Winge .
The expedition now drove quickly to the west. At the end of August she discovered another island in the De Long Group. It was named Nowopaschenny Island , which was later changed to Shokhov Island . On September 2, both ships were anchored off Cape Chelyuskin. Wilkizkistraße was filled with ice again, but it was possible to get further west on the south coast of Sankt Olga Island . The next stops were the Heiberg and Fearnley Islands . The ships got into ice pressures here, which particularly damaged the Taimyr . The ships eventually sought refuge on the west coast of the Taimyr Peninsula, where the crews had to winter 25 km apart. The expedition was ill-prepared for this. During the winter, many participants suffered from scurvy , Lieutenant Alexei Schochow and the stoker Ivan Ladonitschew died in the spring of 1915. However, a link to the Eclipse had been established via radio , which was under the command of Otto Sverdrup , who was on behalf of Russia for traces of the Georgi Brusiliov and Vladimir Russanov were looking for two missing Arctic expeditions . Radio contact to Jugorstrasse and on to Petrograd, as St. Petersburg was now officially called, could also be established via the eclipse , which wintered at a distance of 275 km to the southwest . Fearing the necessity of a second wintering, the evacuation of some of the expedition members was started. Sverdrup went with three men and three dog sleds to the Taimyr and escorted 26 men from the Taimyr and 13 from the Waigatsch to the Eclipse , where they were picked up by the experienced polar explorer Nikifor Begitschew (1874-1927) with reindeer sled and brought to Goltschikha on the Yenisei. In August the icebreakers were released and went to Dikson to pick up new coal. The Waigatsch picked up the rest of the team from Goltschicha and continued on its way with the Taimyr through the almost ice-free Kara Sea and the Jugor Strait. On September 16 the expedition ended in Arkhangelsk.
Results
The expedition undoubtedly had visible successes. With Severnaya Zemlya, the last great hitherto unknown land mass on earth had been discovered. In addition, the second journey through the entire Northeast Passage was successful - the first from east to west. The expedition was unable to establish the commercial and military use of the northern shipping route. In particular, the narrow Wilkizkistraße was seen as an obstacle that could hardly be overcome. How little trust was in the northern route became apparent when German submarines threatened the shipping routes through the White Sea and the Barents Sea during World War I. When the Russian fleets in the Baltic and Black Seas were unable to leave to protect the freighters due to enemy blockades , the Pacific fleet, hurrying to help, chose the route through the Suez Canal .
The World War and the Russian Civil War meant that an expedition was not sent to Severnaya Zemlya again until 1930. Until 1932, Georgi Uschakow and Nikolai Urwanzew explored all the larger islands by dog sledding and created the first map of the archipelago. While the Kara Sea to the Yenisei and the Chukchi and East Siberian Sea to the Kolyma were regularly navigated in the 1920s, the development of the central part of the route through the Soviet Union did not begin until 1932, when the icebreaker Sibiryakov crossed the Northeast Passage for the first time in one season. From the mid-1930s onwards, freighters escorted by icebreakers ran regularly on the northern shipping route during the short summer season.
The extensive scientific observations of the Hydrographic Expedition were no longer published during the First World War. Most of the records were unfortunately lost in a fire in 1918. However, the maps and nautical manuals were retained. An improved map of the Chukchi Peninsula and the Siberian north coast to the mouth of the Kolyma had already appeared in 1912. From 1914 maps from the Bering Strait to Cape Chelyuskin were available. In 1922 a three-part sea manual was published for the Siberian waters east of Cape Chelyuskin.
literature
- Nikolai Alexander von Transehe : The Siberian Sea Road. The Work of the Russian Hydrographical Expedition to the Arctic 1910-1915 . In: Geographical Review . tape 15 , no. 3 , 1925, p. 367–398 (English, digital version [PDF; 10.0 MB ]).
- William Barr: A Tsarist Attempt at Opening the Northern Sea Route: The Arctic Ocean Hydrographic Expedition, 1910–1915 . In: Polar Research . tape 45 , no. 1 , 1975, p. 51-64 (English). hdl : 10013 / epic.29422
- William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia . tape 2 . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , pp. 678–680 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).
- Fedor Romanenko: Arctic Ocean Hydrographical Expedition, 1909–1915 . In: Mark Nuttall (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Arctic . tape 1 . Routledge, New York and London 2003, ISBN 1-57958-436-5 , pp. 139–141 (English, limited preview in Google Book Search).