Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-s2hrs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T21:38:56.026Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Thames meets the Enisei: Captain Joseph Wiggins’s expedition to the Kara Sea and Enisei, 1876–1877

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2020

Alexander E. Goncharov Open the ORCID record for Alexander E. Goncharov [Opens in a new window]  and
Irina V. Orel
Alexander E. Goncharov*
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities, Reshetnev Siberian State University of Science and Technology (Reshetnev University), 31 prospekt imeni gazety “Krasnoyarskii rabochii”, Krasnoyarsk 660037, Russia
Irina V. Orel
Affiliation:
Department of Humanities, Reshetnev Siberian State University of Science and Technology (Reshetnev University), 31 prospekt imeni gazety “Krasnoyarskii rabochii”, Krasnoyarsk 660037, Russia
*
Author for correspondence: Alexander E. Goncharov, Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In 1876, Captain Joseph Wiggins reached the mouth of the Enisei River aboard his screw schooner Thames. This was the second expedition that approached this river from the sea in almost 150 years. The voyage paved a path for British commercial shipping in the Kara Sea, which saw its greatest intensity in the concluding decade of the 19th century. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Wiggins stubbornly continued staging expeditions even after repeated failures. His devotedness to the idea of establishing a sea highway to Siberia inspired others. This circumstance makes him a key figure in polar history. Regardless of the commercial nature of his expeditions, Wiggins was not an entrepreneur. Neither was he an accomplished polar explorer. In fact, we find in him the last of the merchant adventurers, the heir to Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor. This article focuses on Wiggins’s expedition of 1876–1877 to the Enisei River, which has not yet become an object of special attention in literature, and discusses the development and exploitation of the Kara Sea Route in connection with it.

Keywords

Joseph WigginsKara SeaNorthern Sea RouteEniseiCommerce
Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 55 , Issue 6 , November 2019 , pp. 425 - 440
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

AGE (Arkhiv goroda Eniseiska) [Archive of the City of Eniseisk]. File: 6/1/35. Krasnoiarsk: Russian Federation.Google Scholar
Armstrong, T. (1952). The Northern Sea Route: Soviet Exploitation of the North East Passage. Cambridge: University Press.Google Scholar
Balkashin, N. N. (1879). O parokhodstve v Obskoi gube i o morskoi torgovle Zapadnoi Sibiri s Evropoiu v 1877–1878 g. [On Steam Shipping in the Ob’ Gulf and Maritime Trade between Western Siberia and Europe in 1877–78], Zapiski Zapadno-Sibirskago otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva. Vol. 1. Omsk: Tipografiia Okruzhnogo shtaba, 7–12.Google Scholar
Barr, W., Krause, R., & Pawlik, P.-M. (2004). Chukchi Sea, Southern Ocean, Kara Sea: the polar voyages of Captain Eduard Dallmann, whaler, trader, explorer 1830–96. Polar Record, 40(212), 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beer, D. (2013). The exile, the patron, and the pardon: the voyage of the Dawn (1877) and the politics of punishment in the age of nationalism and empire. Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 14(1), 5–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belov, M. I. (1959). Sovetskoe arkticheskoe moreplavanie 1917–1932 [Soviet Arctic Navigation, 1917–32]. Leningrad: Morskoi transport.Google Scholar
Blizniak, E. V. (1914). O Enisee [About the Enisei]. Petrograd: M.M. Gutzats.Google Scholar
Brodneva, A. V. (2013). Vasilii Dmitrievich Kas’ianov i ego letopis’ nravov sibirskogo obshchestva (1870–1897). Zhit’ ne po lzhi [Vasilii Dmitrievich Kas’ianov and his manuscript on the customs of Siberian society (1870–97): living without lie]. Iazyk i sotsial’naia dinamika: materialy Vserossiiskoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii s mezhdunarodnym uchastiem (24–25 maia 2013 g.) (Vol. 1). Krasnoiarsk: SibSAU, 167–186.Google Scholar
Butler, G. G. & Fletcher-Vane, F. P. (1890). The Sea Route to Siberia, Followed by a Brief Account of the Natural Resources of the Country. London; Morris & Porteous.Google Scholar
De Jonge, J. K. J. (1877). Nova Zembla (1596–1597). The Barents Relics: Rediscovered in the Summer of 1876 by Charles L. W. Gardiner, Esq. and Presented to the Dutch Government (S. R. Van Campen, Trans.). London: Trübner & Co. (Original work published 1877). Google Scholar
Eden, C. H. (1879). Frozen Asia: a Sketch of Modern Siberia, Together with and Account of the Native Tribes Inhabiting that Region. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, New York, NY: Putt, Young & Co.Google Scholar
Emelina, M., Savinov, M., Filin, P. (2019). Karskie operatsii 1920–1930-kh gg. Sbornik dokumentov iz arkhiva kompanii “Sovfrakh” [The Kara Sea Operations, 1920–30’s. A Collection of Documents from the Sovfrakht Company Archive]. Moscow: Paulsen.Google Scholar
Erman, A. (1848). Travels in Siberia: Including Excursions Northwards, down the Obi, to the Polar Circle, and Southwards, to the Chinese Frontier (Vol. 2) (W. D. Cooley, Trans.). London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans.Google Scholar
Gaidin, S. T. & Burmakina, G. A. (2016). The influence of shipping on the development of fishing and hunting in the Yenisei Province (1863–1917). Vestnik of Northern (Arctic) Federal University. Series “Humanitarian and Social Sciences”, 3, 14–23.Google Scholar
GAKK (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Krasnoiarskogo kraia) [State Archive of the Krasnoiarskii Krai]. Files 595/19/265 and 595/19/6144. Krasnoiarsk: Russian Federation.Google Scholar
Gutmeyr, D. (2017). Borderlands Orientalism or How the Savage Lost His Nobility: the Russian Perception of the Caucuses between 1817 and 1878. Münster: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar
Hämäläinen, M. (2015). The first collectors of Somatochlora sahlbergi: a story of an arduous expedition to Siberia in 1876. Agrion, 20(2), 22–31.Google Scholar
Johnson, H. (1907). The Life and Voyages of Joseph Wiggins, F.R.G.S., Modern Discoverer of the Kara Sea Route to Siberia, Based on his Journals and Letters. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Josephson, P. R. (2014). The Conquest of the Russian Arctic. Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kleopov, I. L. (1964). I. A. Lopatin. Ocherki zhizni i nauchnoi deiatel’nosti. Neopublikovannye dnevniki, pis’ma [I.A. Lopatin, Episodes from his life and research; his unpublished diaries and letters]. Irkutsk: Vostochno-sibirskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo.Google Scholar
Krypton, C. (1953). The Northern Sea Route. Its Place in Russian Economic History before 1917. New York, NY: Research Program on the USSR.Google Scholar
Kytmanov, A. I. (no date). Kratkaia letopis’ Eniseiskogo uezda i Turukhanskogo kraia Eniseiskoi guberniii 1594–1893 gg. [A Short Chronicle of the Eniseiskii Uezd and the Turukhanskii Krai of the Eniseiskaia Guberniia, 1594–1893]. Krasnoiarskii kraevoi muzei [Krasnoiarsk Museum of Local Lore]. File o/f 7889/229. Krasnoiarsk: Russian Federation.Google Scholar
Lamont, J. (1876). Yachting in the Arctic Seas, or the Notes of Five Voyages of Sport and Discovery in the Neighbourhood of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. London: Chatto and Windus.Google Scholar
Lied, J. (2009). Sibir’ – strannaia nostal’giia [Siberia, a strange nostalgia] (S. A. Mashkova, Trans.). Moscow: Ves’ Mir. (Original work published 1946).Google Scholar
Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping. (1848). London.Google Scholar
Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping. (1874). London.Google Scholar
Lotsiia Eniseiskogo zaliva i reki Enisei do Ust’-Eniseiskogo porta [A Pilot of the Enisei Gulf and the Enisei River to the Port of Ust’-Eniseisk]. (1924). Leningrad.Google Scholar
Maak, R. K. (1864). Eniseiskaia guberniia. Spisok naselennykh mest po svedeniiam 1859 goda [The Eniseisk Province. A List of Settlements Based on the 1859 Census]. St Petersburg: Tsentral’nyi Statisticheskii Komitet Ministerstva Vnutrennikh Del.Google Scholar
Makarov, S.O. (1898). Otchet ob osmotre letom 1897 goda, po porucheniiu Ministra Finansov S.Iu. Vitte, morskogo puti na reki Ob’ i Enisei [An Account of the Inspection of the Sea Route to the Rivers Ob´ and Enisei in the Summer of 1897, Commissioned by Minister of Finance S. Iu. Vitte]. St Petersburg: V. Kirshbaum. Google Scholar
Middendorff, A. von. 1871. Der Golfstrom ostwärts vom Nordkap, Mittheilungen aus Justus Perthes’ Geographischer Anstalt über wichtige neue Erforschungen auf dem Gesamtgebiete der Geographie von Dr. A. Petermann, 17, 25–34.Google Scholar
Nielsen, J. P. (1996). Historical and Current Uses of the Northern Sea Route. Part 3: The Period 1855–1917 (INSROP working paper, 61(4.1.1)). Oslo: International Northern Sea Route Programme.Google Scholar
Nordenshel’d, A. E. & Tel’, G. (1880). Ekspeditsiia k ust’iam Eniseia v 1875 i 1876 gg. so stat’ei ad”iunkt professora zoologii Upsal’skogo universiteta G. Telia o plavanii ego po Eniseiu v 1876 g. [The Expedition to the Mouth of the Enisei in 1875 and 1876 with an Article by Adjunct Professor of Zoology of the University of Uppsala H. Theel on his Voyage down the Enisei in 1876]. St. Petersburg: A Trenshel’.Google Scholar
Nordenskiöld, A. E. (1885). The Voyage of the Vega Round Asia and Europe, with a Historical Review of Previous Journeys along the North Coast of the Old World (A. Leslie, Trans.). London: Macmillan & Co.Google Scholar
Pasetskii, V. M. (1979). Nils Adolf Erik Nordenshel’d, 1832–1901 [Nils Adolf Eric Nordeskiöld, 1832–1901]. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Pasetskii, V. M. (1984). Russkie otkrytiia i issledovaniia v Arktike. Pervaia polovina XIX v. [Russian Discoveries and Exploration in the Arctic, first half of the 19th century]. Leningrad: Gidrometeoizdat.Google Scholar
Petermann, A. (1853). Sir John Franklin, the Sea of Spitzbergen, and whale-fisheries in the Arctic regions. Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 23, 129–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinkhenson, D. M. (1962). Problema Severnogo morskogo puti v epokhu kapitalizma [The Problem of the Northern Sea Route during the Epoch of Capitalism]. Leningrad: Morskoi transport.Google Scholar
Popov, S. V. (1990). Avtografy na kartakh [Autographs on Maps]. Arkhangel’sk: Severo-Zapadnoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo.Google Scholar
Popov, S. V. & Troitskii, V. A. (1972). Toponimika morei Sovetskoi Arktiki [The Toponymy of the Soviet Arctic Seas]. Leningrad.Google Scholar
RGAVMF (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Voenno-morskogo flota) [Russian State Naval Archive]. Files 913/1/30 and 913/1/31. St Petersburg: Russian Federation.Google Scholar
Saunders, D. (2017). Captain Wiggins and Admiral Makarov: commerce and politics in the Russian Arctic (1874–1904). Polar Record, 53(271), 427–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seebohm, H. (1882). Siberia in Asia: a Visit to the Valley of the Yenesay in East Siberia, with Description of the Natural History, Migration of Birds, etc. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Semenov, V. I. (1894). Zabytyi iz Evropy v Sibir’. Eniseiskaia ekspeditsii 1893 g. [The Forgotten Route from Europe to Siberia: the Enisei Expedition of 1893]. St Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol’za.Google Scholar
Sergeevskii, B. A. (1936). Gidrograficheskie issledovaniia iugovostochnoi chasti Karskogo moria: Ob’-Eniseiskii raion [Hydrographic Surveys of the Southeast Part of the Kara Sea: the Region of the Ob’ and Enisei]. Leningrad: Glavsevmorputi.Google Scholar
Shvanenberg, D. I. (1877a). Soobshchenie D. I. Shvanenberga o plavanie ego k Eniseiskomu zalivu v 1876 godu na klippere “Severnoe Siianie” [A report by D. I. Shvanenberg about his voyage to the Gulf of the Enisei aboard the clipper Severnoe Siianie in 1876]. Trudy Sankt-Peterburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo obshchestva dlia sodeistviia russkomu torgovomu morekhodstvu za 1876 god (s 15 marta 1876 po 8 fevralia 1877 g.). St Petersburg, 252–262.Google Scholar
Shvanenberg, D. I. (1877b). O plavanie iakhty “Utreniaia Zaria” iz Eniseia cherez Karskoe more i Severnii okean do Varde [The voyage of the yacht Utreniaia Zaria from the Enisei across the Kara Sea and the Northern Ocean to Vardø]. Trudy Sankt-Peterburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo obshchestva dlia sodeistviia russkomu torgovomu morekhodstvu (s 8 fevralia 1877 po 1 ianvaria 1878 g.). St Petersburg, 244–254.Google Scholar
Sibirtsev, N. & Itin, V. 1936. Severnyi morskoi put’ i Karskie ekspeditsii [The Northern Sea Route and the Kara Sea Expeditions]. Novosibirsk.Google Scholar
Sidorov, M. K. (1877a). Po povodu ekspeditsii Vigginsa i Shvanenberga [About the expeditions of Wiggins and Shvanenberg]. Trudy Sankt-Peterburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo obshchestva dlia sodeistviia russkomu torgovomu morekhodstvu za 1876 god (s 1 marta 1876 po 8 fevralia 1877 g.). St Petersburg, 262–271.Google Scholar
Sidorov, M. K. (1877b). Ob ekspeditsii Vigginsa [About Wiggins’s expedition]. Trudy Sankt-Peterburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo obshchestva dlia sodeistviia russkomu torgovomu morekhodstvu za 1876 god (s 15 marta 1876 po 8 fevralia 1877 g.). St Petersburg, 162–164.Google Scholar
Sidorov, M. K. (1877c). Ob angliiskom parokhode “Temza” i russkom klipere “Severnoe Siianie”, zimovavshikh v nizov’iakh Eniseia na 1877 god, i o vnov’ posproennoi v 1877 g. v g. Eniseiske iakhte “Zaria” [About the English steamer Thames and Russian clipper Severnoe Siianie that wintered on the lower Enisei until 1877, and about the newly built yacht Zaria in Eniseisk in 1877]. Trudy Sankt-Peterburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo obshchestva dlia sodeistviia russkomu torgovomu morekhodstvu za 1877 god (s 8 fevralia 1877 po 1 ianvaria 1878 g.). St Petersburg, 189–193.Google Scholar
Sidorov, M. K. (1877d). Issledovaniia chlena-sorevnovatelia M. K. Sidorova na severe Sibiri (otryvok iz chatnogo pis’ma M. K. Sidorova) [M. K. Sidorov’s exploration in the north of Siberia (from Sidorov’s private letter)]. Izvestiia Imperatorskogo Russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva, 4(13), 260.Google Scholar
SPF ARAN (Sankt-Peterburgskii filial Arkhiva Rossiiskoi akademii nauk [St Petersburg Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Archive]). File 270/5/303. St Petersburg: Russian Federation.Google Scholar
Stone, I. R. (1994). Joseph Wiggins (1832–1905). Arctic, 47(4), 405–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Studitskii, F. D. (1877a). O 12-ti ekspeditsiiakh na severo-vostok Rossii. Otchego probudilos’ takoe stremlenie k issledovaniiu nashego severa? [About the 12 expeditions to the northeast of Russia. What is the reason for such interest in the exploration of our North?]. Trudy Sankt-Peterburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo obshchestva dlia sodeistviia russkomu torgovomu morekhodstvu za 1876 god (15-go marta 1876 po 8-e fevralia 1877 g.). St Petersburg, 68–123.Google Scholar
Studitskii, F. D. (1877b) Po povodu zapiski g. Rakinta: “Ob uchrezhdenii i razvitii vneshnei morskoi torgovli v Zapadnoi Sibiri” [About M. Rakint’s note titled “On the Development of Foreign Maritime Trade with Western Siberia”, Trudy Sankt-Peterburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo obshchestva dlia sodeistvia russkomu torgovomu morekhodstvu za 1876 god (15-go marta 1876 po 8-e fevralia 1877). St Petersburg, 286–289.Google Scholar
Studitskii, F. D. (1883). Istoriia otkrytiia morskogo puti iz Evropy v sibirskie reki i do Beringova proliva [The History of Opening the Sea route from Europe to the Siberian Rivers and Further to the Bering Strait] (Vol. 2). St Petersburg.Google Scholar
Stuxberg, A. (1877). Erinringar från Svenska Expeditionerna till Novaja Semlja och Jenissej 1875 och 1876. Stockholm: A.L. Normans Boktryckeri-Antiebolag. Google Scholar
Tammiksaar, E. & Stone, I. R. (1997). Karl Ernst von Baer and the Kara Sea ‘Eiskeller’. Polar Record, 33(186), 239–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tammiksaar, E. & Stone, I. R. (2007). Alexander von Middendorff and his expedition to Siberia (1842–1845), Polar Record, 43(226), 193–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tammiksaar, E. & Sukhova, N. G. (2015). Avgust Peterman i Rossiia [August Petermann and Russia]. Vostory istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki, 1, 46–75.Google Scholar
Tammiksaar, E., Sukhova, N. G. & Stone, I. R. (1999). Hypothesis versus fact: August Petermann and Polar Research. Arctic, 53(3), 237–244.Google Scholar
Troitskii, V. A. (1975). Razvitie geograficheskikh predstavlenii o poluostrove Taimyr (do nachala sistematicheskikh s”emok v 20-e gg. XX v.) [The development of geographical knowledge on the Taimyr (until the beginning of systematic surveys in the 1920’s)] (Unpublished doctoral dissertation synopsis). Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Leningrad.Google Scholar
Us, L. B. (2005). Mezhdunarodnye nauchnye svyazi Sibiri: konets XIX – nachalo XX v. [Siberia’s International Scientific Connections, late 19th century – early 20th century]. Novosibirsk: Sova.Google Scholar
Vladimirov, E. I. (1940). Geroicheskii reis shkhuny “Utreniaia Zaria”: Eniseisk – Severnyi Ledovityi okean – Peterburg [The Heroic Voyage of the schooner Utreniia Zaria: from Eniseisk to St Petersburg via the Arctic Ocean]. Moscow and Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Glavsevmorputi.Google Scholar
Viggins, D. (1877). Soobshchchenie kapitana Vigginsa o plavanie na parovoi iakhte “Temza” [A report by captain Wiggins about his voyage on the steam yacht Thames]. Trudy Sankt-Peterburgskogo otdela Imperatorskogo obshchestva dlia sodeistviia russkomu torgovomu morekhodstvu za 1876 god (15-go marta 1876 po 8-e fevralia 1877 g.). St Petersburg, 241–251.Google Scholar
Viggins, Dzh. (1895). Morskoi put v Sibir Karskim morem 1874–1894: Doklad, chitannyi 14 ianvaria 1895 g. [The Sea Route to Siberia via the Kara Sea 1874–1894: a report read on 14 January 1895]. St Petersburg: M. M. Stasiulevich.Google Scholar
Vize, V. I. (1936). Moria Sovetskoi Arktiki: ocherki po istorii issledovaniia [Seas of the Soviet Arctic: a Study of the History of Exploration]. Moscow and Leningrad: Izdatel’stvo Glavsevmorputi.Google Scholar
Wiggins, J. (1877). Communication with Siberia by Sea. The Geographical Magazine, 4, 55–59.Google Scholar
Wiggins, J. (1876). Letter to B. Leigh Smith, 11 June 1876. The Thomas H. Manning Polar Archives, Cambridge: Scott Polar Research Institute, MS 301/31.Google Scholar
Wrangell, F. (1840). Narrative of an Expedition to the Polar Sea, in the years 1820, 1821, 1822 & 1823. Sabine, E. (Ed.). London: James Madden.Google Scholar