Northeast Passage (Vega expedition)
Paso del Noreste (expedición del Vega)
- Date
- 1878-1879 · confidence high
- Place
- Kolyuchin Bay (Pitlekaj), Chukotka, Russia
- Credited to
- Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and the crew of the Vega
- Field
- Movement
What was discovered
The steam-and-sail Vega left Sweden in 1878, wintered trapped in the ice on the Chukotka coast and in July 1879 emerged into the Bering Strait, completing the Northeast Passage for the first time. It reached Yokohama in September 1879.
Nordenskiöld, born in Finland (then part of the Russian Empire), worked in Sweden. The wintering place, Pitlekaj, is approximate. The Vega left Karlskrona on 22 June 1878.
What it led to
- the Soviet Northern Sea Route, with icebreakers from 1932
- knowledge of the geography and fauna of the Siberian Arctic
- biological and geological data from the expedition (Nordenskiöld, Stuxberg, Kjellman)