The North-West Passage, for the accomplishment of which so many brave lives had been laid down, had been discovered. It now remained for some explorer to sail round the North-East Passage, which was known to exist, but which, up to this time, no man had done.
Nordenskiöld the Swede was to have this honour. Born in 1832 in Finland, he had taken part in an Arctic expedition in 1861, which attempted to reach the North Pole by means of dog-sledges from the north coast of Spitzbergen. Three years later he was appointed to lead an expedition to Spitzbergen, which succeeded in reaching the highest northern latitude which any ship had yet attained. In 1870 his famous journey to Greenland took place, and two years later he left Sweden on another Polar expedition; but misfortunes beset the expedition, and finally the ships were wrecked. The following year he commanded a reconnoitring expedition. He passed Nova Zembla and reached the mouth of the Yenisei. This was the first time that a ship had accomplished the voyage from the Atlantic Ocean. Thus Nordenskiöld had gained considerable knowledge of the Northern Seas, and he was now in a position to lay a plan of his schemes before King Oscar, who had always interested himself in Arctic discovery. His suggestions to the King are of singular interest.
"It is my intention," he says, "to leave Sweden in July 1878 in a steamer specially built for navigation among ice, which will be provisioned for two years at most. The course will be shaped for Nova Zembla, where a favourable opportunity will be awaited for the passage of the Kara Sea. The voyage will be continued to the mouth of the Yenisei, which I hope to reach in the first half of August. As soon as circumstances permit, the expedition will continue its voyage along the coast to Cape Chelyuskin, where the expedition will reach the only part of the proposed route which has not been traversed by some small vessel, and is rightly considered as that which it will be most difficult for a vessel to double during the whole North-East Passage; but our vessel, equipped with all modern appliances, ought not to find insuperable difficulties in doubling this point, and if that can be accomplished, we will probably have pretty open water towards Behring's Straits, which ought to be reached before the end of September. From Behring Strait the course will be shaped for some Asiatic port and then onwards round Asia to Suez."
King Oscar and others offered to pay the expenses of the expedition, and preparations were urged forward. The Vega of 300 tons, formerly used in walrus-hunting in northern waters, was purchased, and further strengthened to withstand ice. On 22nd June all was ready, and with the Swedish flag with a crowned O in the middle, the little Vega, which was to accomplish such great things, was "peacefully rocking on the swell of the Baltic as if impatient to begin her struggle against waves and ice." She carried food for thirty people for two years, which included over three thousand pounds of bacon, nine thousand pounds of coffee, nine thousand pounds of biscuits. There were pemmican from England, potatoes from the Mediterranean, cranberry juice from Finland. Fresh bread was made during the whole expedition. A few days later the Vega reached Copenhagen and steamed north in the finest weather.
"Where are you bound for?" signalled a passing ship.
"To Behring Sea," was the return signal, and the Swedish crew waved their caps, shouting their joyful news.
At Gothenburg they took on eight sledges, tents, and cooking utensils, also two Scotch sheep dogs and a little coal-black kitten, which lived in the captain's berth till it grew accustomed to the sea, when it slept in the forecastle by day and ran about stealing the food of the sleeping sailors by night.
On 16th July they crossed the Polar Circle. "All on board feel they are entering upon a momentous period of their life," says the explorer. "Were we to be the fortunate ones to reach this goal, which navigators for centuries had striven to reach?"
The south-west coast of Nova Zembla was reached on 28th July, but the weather being calm and the sea completely free of ice, Nordenskiöld sailed onwards through the Kara Strait or Iron Gates, which during the winter was usually one sheet of ice, until they anchored outside the village of Khabarova. The "village" consisted of a few huts and tents of Russian and Samoyedes pasturing their reindeer on the Vaygets Island. On the bleak northern shores stood a little wooden church, which the explorers visited with much interest. It seemed strange to find here brass bas-reliefs representing the Christ, St. Nicholas, Elijah, St. George and the Dragon, and the Resurrection; in front of each hung a little oil lamp. The people were dressed entirely in reindeer skin from head to foot, and they had a great collection of walrus tusks and skins such as Othere had brought centuries before to King Alfred.