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Curzon
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Curzon

Date

November 17th, 2008

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The Vega Expedition

Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld was a Finnish geologist and explorer who was the first to chart the northeast passage across Eurasia in 1878. See the map here, and more information here and here.

worldtopo.jpg

Thanks to Dr. Russel Alfred Wallace for the background story.

Comments to this entry

Robert
November 17, 2008
1:34 pm
First the northeast passage, then Linux --- what will these Swedish Finns come up with next?
Joe Jones
November 18, 2008
1:00 am
Even though the northern passage looks really long on that map, it's actually the shortest sea route from northern Europe to Japan -- the northern route is about 13,000 km, while the southern route is about 22,000 km. (Calculated here.)
Curzon
November 18, 2008
2:15 am
Very true Joe, the perspective of the flat globe does skew things up.
Aceface
November 18, 2008
2:55 am
There has been a strong obsession to the things East Asian among the Finns in the late 19th century since they were seeking independence from Russia nad the rise of nationalism had led the intellectuals look into their Altaic roots in Asia.
Coincidentally,the first Finnish ambassador to Tokyo was a Swedish Finn,Gustav Lamstead,a renowned Altaic linguist.

http://www.finland.or.jp/doc/ja/taishik/ramstedt.html
sun bin
November 18, 2008
8:02 am
:) the extreme example, that horizontal line on top, is actually one single point, the north pole.

but he couldn't have sailed so far up, it was frozen.
Aceface
November 18, 2008
8:59 am
He didn't "sailed","Vega",the vessel used for the expedition was a steamed boat.

Here's some info on The Vega expedtion on Finnish-Japanese society.
http://www.finland.or.jp/doc/ja/taishik/nordenskiold.html
Alfred Russel Wallace
November 21, 2008
10:21 pm
Aceface - boats like the Vega sailed most of the time, and usually used steam only during inclement weather - they weren't very efficient, and usually tried to conserve fuel.... The Vega was iced in for nine-months!
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/42790/1/10708_2004_Article_BF00221241.pdf