Who tried to get news on Nordenskiöld?
Jeannette's departure from San Francisco, on July 8, 1879, was a popular spectacle, witnessed by large crowds who came from all quarters of the city. The army at Fort Point provided an eleven-gun salute; in contrast, De Long noted that none of the naval vessels in and around San Francisco made any formal acknowledgement of their sister-ship's departure, "[not even] the blast of a steam whistle". Bennett,  absent in Europe, cabled that he hoped to be present when Jeannette made its triumphant return.The first weeks on the journey northwards were uneventful.  On August 3, Jeannette reached Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands, where De Long sought information on Nordenskiöld from the crew of a revenue cutter, newly returned  from the Bering Strait. The cutter had no news of him. On August 12, Jeannette reached St. Michael, a small port on the Alaskan mainland, and waited for the Francis Hyde to arrive with extra provisions and coal.At St Michael, De Long hired two experienced Inuit dog drivers, and took on board a number of sled dogs.  On August 21, after transferring provisions and fuel, Francis Hyde departed; Jeannette set out for the Chukchi Peninsula on the Siberian coast, to enquire after Nordenskiöld. At Saint Lawrence Bay the Chukchi people reported that an unidentified steamer had recently passed by, going south. De Long then headed through the Bering Strait towards Cape Dezhnev, where he learned from locals that a ship had called at Cape Serdtse-Kamen, further along the coast. Here, a shore party from Jeannette quickly established  from artifacts left behind with villagers that this ship was Vega and that Nordenskiöld's expedition had therefore safely completed the Northeast passage.  De Long left a note of his findings  for transmission to Washington.On August 31, Jeannette  left, in the assumed direction of Wrangel's Land, where De Long hoped to establish his winter quarters.
De Long