The Sarya was fitted out for this expedition, and the winter of 1900-1901 was passed in 76° 08´ north latitude, 95° east longitude.
“On April 18, 1901,” writes Baron Toll, “immediately after the Feast of Easter, Lieutenant Kolomiezoff and the zoölogist, A. Birulja, set out with two sleighs each with a team of eight dogs, the object of the first being to reach the Yenisei and establish coaling stations, while the second was directed to accompany it as far as Cape Sterlegof, some 200 wersts distant. Two days later began my excursion with Lieutenant Koltschak to the Chelyuskin Peninsula, accompanied by a sleigh with a team of twelve dogs and laden as lightly as possible.
“On May 1, we reached that point on the bay where we had established a depot the previous year (1900). The provisions and fish here buried were to complete our supplies, which barely sufficed for just one month. But we were unable to dig out the deposit from the deep snow. On May 7, we started from this place in an east-northeasterly direction, with the intention of pushing on to St. Thaddeus Bay on the east coast of the Chelyuskin Peninsula, and returning thence along the coast. After traversing the tundra for forty wersts in this direction, we again came unexpectedly on an inlet, which grew narrower towards the west-southwest, where it assumed the form of a narrow sound or river mouth.
“The position as determined by Lieutenant Koltschak on the off side of the bay was 76° 17´ N. and 99° 29´ E.”
On May 12, the tired dogs were given a day’s rest; then Toll made a day’s march, half a degree eastward, on Canadian snow-shoes. There were no prospects for adding to their limited food supply by hunting, so it became necessary to retrace their steps.
“Hitherto,” writes Toll, “we had to contend with almost constant difficulties caused by fog, and deep snow already softened by the sun. But henceforth we had to struggle with contrary snow-storms, which lasted almost without a break for fourteen days. The consequence was the loss of five dogs, which broke down one after another through exhaustion. On May 30, we reached the Sarya, the excursion having lasted forty-one days. Of these we had to pass nine in the sleeping-sack during the fiercest snow-storms; four were uselessly wasted at the depot; and during the remaining twenty-eight days we covered 500 wersts.”
Other excursions were made by members of the party, with most gratifying results.
The release of the Sarya was confidently hoped for early in August. “But in the interim,” writes Baron Toll, “there was still to be solved a geographical question, namely, to discover the mouth of the Taimyr River. According to the maps hitherto published, the Taimyr was supposed to discharge in the first or second of the larger bights lying to the east of the Taimyr Sound. Both of these were twice explored by Lieutenant Kolomeizoff, and in the first was, in fact, found the mouth of a considerable stream; but its configuration was not at all in accordance with the contour lines given by the topographer Wagenoff on Middendorff’s chart. In the second no indication could be detected of any river mouth. As these researches had been undertaken in winter amid fogs and snowdrifts, there still remained a doubt, which could only be removed by fresh investigations carried out in clear summer weather. Should these also lead to negative results, the only remaining assumption would be that the Taimyr discharged into that bight which during our journey to the interior of the Chelyuskin Peninsula, Lieutenant Koltschak and I had crossed, since no considerable stream assuredly entered that other inlet where the depot lay.”
The survey of the first two bays was undertaken by Birulja and Dr. Walter, their excursion lasting from July 20 to August 15, 1901. “Respecting the question of the Taimyr, the two savants came to negative results. Still they confirmed Kolomeizoff’s discovery of a large estuary in the first of the two bays.”
On the 25th of August, the fissures in the ice had expanded; the whole of the ice-pack round the Sarya was set in motion, and she drifted in the direction of the cliffs of Station Island. Slowly she was carried through the Fram Strait to the open sea. Withdrawing behind a cape at Nansen Island, the Sarya awaited the drifting away of the ice-pack. On August 30, the water-way was free, and she began her voyage to Koletnoi Island; doubling Cape Chelyuskin on September 1, she sighted, three days later, the east coast of the Taimyr Peninsula, without meeting any ice.