60 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



for game in the mountains back of the village. Several 

 of the Russian officers on the ice-breakers came aboard 

 after dinner, among them Baron von Hoininghen-Huehne, 

 after whom I had inquired on the "Vaigach." He 

 was a tall young midshipman with a budding beard. 

 Lieutenant Helchert stayed imtil after midnight and 

 partook of our cold supper, and we had a long conver- 

 sation. He said that the revenue cutter usually patrol- 

 ling the coast was detailed near Kamchatka and that 

 no Cossacks were on duty south of Kolyma River, which 

 runs into the Arctic Ocean about nine hundred miles 

 west of East Cape. 



These two ice-breakers, the "Vaigach" and the 

 ''Taimyr," had proceeded from Vladivostok to the 

 point where we met them under orders to sail through 

 Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean, and attempt to 

 reach St. Petersburg by the Arctic, a feat which had 

 never yet been successfully accompUshed, although 

 Nordenskjold in 1878 had made the passage eastward 

 from Europe to Bering Strait. After we returned from 

 the Arctic to Alaska we learned that our Russian friends 

 had not succeeded in reaching St. Petersbiug but had 

 discovered a new group of islands far north in the Arctic, 

 and had returned to St. Michael with this important 

 news. 



These two Russian ships rounded Cape Deshnef 

 August 6th, and the ''Taimyr" proceeded westward 

 along the coast, while the "Vaigach" was sent north 

 to ascertain the condition of the ice. Through many 

 loose floes she succeeded, on August 12th, in reaching a 

 point within ten miles of Wrangell Island, where the 

 heavy ice prevented closer approach. Thus while we 

 were at Herald Island the "Vaigach" was about one 



