Discovery of the Northeast Passage: the voyage of the VEGA, 1878–1879

On the evening of September 2, 1879, a small, black vessel, flying the Swedish flag, anchored in the harbor of Yokohama, Japan. Two men were taken ashore by the small barkass of the vessel, they went straight to the telegraph station, anxious to send a telegram to Europe. The clerk told them that, because of floods in Siberia, the telegram would have to be sent via India, and the two men did not have enough cash to pay the high cost of the message. A European standing in the telegraph office then introduced himself as the Russian consul in Yokohama, and the two men in turn introduced themselves: Adolf Erik Nordenskiold was the leader of the Swedish expedition aboard the vessel, Vega, Louis Palander, a Swedish naval officer, was the vessel's skipper. The Russian diplomat, delighted to meet these two distinguished travellers, offered to advance the cost of the wire, and the message was sent to Oscar II, King of Sweden and Norway, in Stockholm: "The Swedish expedition sends greetings to their high patron. Program fulfilled. Northeast Passage executed. An ocean opened to navigation without loss of a single man, without illness, and without damage to the vessel". One of the last great sea voyages of all time thus came to a successful conclusion. A small, steam-driven vessel, manned by thirty men, accomplished a feat that Europeans have attempted many times during the previous three centuries, a sea voyage from Europe past the shores of Siberia to Bering Strait and the Pacific. Few people outside Sweden paid much attention to the departure of Vega for its epochal voyage, in July, 1878. Its return from Japan, sailing around much of the Old World through the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic was reported by the world's press in detail. Vega's arrival in Stockholm, on April 24, 1880, is still celebrated by a formal lecture and dinner, and by the day being called "Vega Day" in the Swedish calendar. The practical results of the voyage at the time were few, occasional sailings from Europe to the Arctic harbors and river mouths of Siberia. But its long-range implications are very much evident to-day, when the Northern Seaway of the Soviet Union, from Europe via Siberia to the Pacific, isa going c ncern. Reading the report on the voyage one is struck by the lack of high adventure, by the comfort the men aboard enjoyed during a long Siberian winter when the ship was frozen in, by the perfectly routine occupations of scientists, officers, and crew pursued during extreme climatic conditions. The Vega expedition remains one of the most successful Arctic voyages of all time, and one of the first voyages when scientific concerns had a higher priority than the excitement of "being first". The credit for this must go to the organizer, Adolf Nordenskiold, who summed it up in this way, some years after his return: "I am not a hero. I was not interested in reaching the North Pole. I was merely concerned with finding the way to the Orient, getting my men and myself over there and back home. I am only a practical geographer". Adolf Nordenskiold, the man who organized and commanded the remarkable expedition to the Northeast Pa sage, was a native of Finland. When he was born, in 1832, Finland was part of the Russian Empire, though it retained many of the traditions of Swedish rule that ended in 1809. The Nordenskiolds, like the majority of the intellectual, commercial and political leaders of Finland came originally from Sweden, and though they had lived in Finland for well over a century, they had retained ties with the country of their forebears. The family was distinguished by members who made their name in the arts and sciences: Adolf Nordenskiold's father