Their observations led them to project an expedition to try again at that place to penetrate eastward, and effect the Northeast Passage, which had been regarded as hopeless for the past hundred years. The idea of making an Austro-Hungarian expedition of it aroused great enthusiasm in that empire, and Payer and Weyprecht were furnished with the large steamer Tegethoff, equipped as well as possible, with Weyprecht in command, while von Payer was to lead all sledge-parties. She reached the northern end of Nova Zembla in time to get into comfortable winter quarters, but instead of escaping in the spring was kept imprisoned in the ice, drifting steadily northward before the prevailing wind until, in October, land was approached, near which the ship again became a fixture for the winter of 1873-74. In March Payer began to make exploratory journeys, and found that they had discovered a group of mountainous islands, separated by broad and deep channels, which he named Francis Joseph Land, in honor of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary.
A SUMMER SCENE OFF NOVA ZEMBLA
By this time summer was approaching, when it was plain that the Tegethoff must be abandoned, and an attempt made to get home afoot. On the 24th of May three boats were placed on sledges, other sledges were loaded with provisions, and the ship’s company started on another one of those Arctic marches that often end at so sad a goal. Until the 14th of August they were plodding over the ice before they reached the edge of the pack and launched their boats, in which they sailed for three weeks before being picked up by a Russian vessel.
This has always been regarded as one of the greatest achievements in polar work of this century, not only because of the heroism and skill shown, and the new lands discovered, but because it promised so much for the future—a promise that has been largely fulfilled.
The next important expedition was another attack upon the Northeast Passage, the hope of which would not “down”; and it was under the leadership of Professor Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, a Swedish geologist and naturalist of Stockholm, although born in Finland, who had made several previous journeys to Greenland, Spitzbergen, etc., which were fruitful of scientific results. Then he turned his attention to Siberia; and in 1875 and again in 1876 he sailed to the mouth of the Yenisei, as also Captain Wiggins of Sunderland, England, was then doing, in a profitable trade with the Siberians, which has been kept up more or less regularly ever since. These experiences convinced him that it was worth while to try once more to work one’s way through the Siberian ocean to Bering Strait.
He obtained and outfitted the steamer Vega, and arranged that a smaller supply-steamer, the Lena, should accompany him as far as the mouth of the river Lena—a bold proposition in itself, for that was a thousand miles beyond the Yenisei. Nevertheless, this program was carried out; for leaving Gothenberg on July 4, 1878, a month later they were traversing the Kara Sea, and on August 19 passed Cape Chelyuskin, which, up to that time, had defied all attempts and has since closed the gate to all but the daring Nansen. A week later the mouth of the Lena was reached, and the little tender, unloading her coal and other stores into the depleted hold of the Vega, turned west, and actually sailed back to civilization uninjured.
The Vega then hastened on eastward, and came near getting right through to Bering Strait in that one season; but this was more than the indulgent Arctic gods could grant, and at the end of September the men found themselves frozen into the ice off North Cape (where Cook turned back in 1778), only one hundred and twenty miles from Bering Strait. Here they were near shore, the country was inhabited by Tchuktches—a nomadic people, with herds of reindeer, who take the place in Siberia of the Eskimos of Arctic America; and the time was well spent in gathering a knowledge of these people and their country, and in making very valuable collections in zoology and anthropology.
It was not until July 18, 1879, however, that their prison-gates opened, and the Vega steamed on. These waters were familiar enough to navigators; and Nordenskjöld proceeded straight east, passed down through Bering Strait on the next day but one (so near was he), and thus easily accomplished that which had baffled men since first it had been tried by the unfortunate Willoughby three hundred and twenty-six years before.
But though the Northeast Passage had thus been found, it was of no more practical value to commerce than the solving of the Northwest Passage had been, and the value received from the cruise was in the scientific information gained, the more accurate delineation of the coast, and the increased knowledge of winds, currents, magnetic phenomena, and the behavior of the floating ice-fields on that side of the polar area. When at last, however, the Vega had circumnavigated the globe by this extraordinary course, returning home through the Suez Canal, as no Arctic expedition had ever been expected to do, its commander was made a baron, and all his men were loaded with praises and honors, while his book, “The Voyage of the Vega,” printed in four or five languages, spread their fame throughout the world.