Through Siberia, the Land of the Future
Cambridge Library Collection - Polar Exploration Series

In August 1913, the explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen (1861?1930), who later received the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, set off from Norway to find a sea route across the north of the Eurasian continent. This 'north-east passage' had been the goal of explorers since the sixteenth century, but Nansen's object, as he puts it, was 'to open up a regular trade connexion with the interior of Siberia, via the Kara Sea and the mouth of the Yenisei'. By the time the book was published in English translation in 1914, the First World War had begun, and the need for ways to keep supplies and troops moving between Russia and her western allies made it even more timely. Nansen's delightfully written account of 'the land of the future' remains of value to anyone seeking to find out more about the geography, resources, and native peoples of Siberia.

Publisher's note; 1. From Norway to the Kara Sea; 2. Visits from Samoyedes; 3. Through the ice northward along Yamal; 4. Open sea, eastward to the Yenisei; 5. Nosonovski Pesok and the Samoyedes; 6. Waiting to go on; 7. Up the Yenisei; 8. Dudinka to the Kureika; 9. Troitskiy Monastir, and on to the south; 10. Verkhne-Imbatskoye to Sumarokova; 11. From Sumarokova to Yeniseisk; 12. Yeniseisk to Krasnoyarsk and beyond; 13. The colonisation and development of Siberia; 14. Irkutsk to Vladivostok; 15. The Ussuri region, Vladivostok and Khabarovsk; 16. Russia in the east; 17. The Amur district and the Amur railway; 18. From the Bureya to Transbaikalia; 19. Homeward through Siberia; Appendix; Index.