Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XIV. Among the Natives on the Lower Lena
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the case of any discovery relating to the Expedition. This
long journey over tundras, marshes, lakes, and rivers could
not be commenced before the autumn, when the cold had
set in and made it possible to travel in sleighs. I intended
to start in August in a lodka, or open boat, go through the
Lena delta and over the sea to the mouth of the Olenek,
and there wait until the rivers and lakes became frozen.
The interval until August was to be spent on the
lower Lena and in the delta. This programme was
afterwards carried out, except that the boat-journey could
not be commenced before the middle of September. After
an adventurous and dangerous passage of 300 miles
through the labyrinths of the delta, we were thus, as the
reader will learn, unfortunately cut off by the ice on a
small uninhabited island in the Arctic sea, 120 miles from
the mouth of the Olenek.
One great drawback in travelling on the lower Lena
and in the delta was the impossibility of obtaining really
strong and good boats. The splendid lifeboats of the
Lena—the first steamer that ever entered the river from
the sea—have all been destroyed and replaced by a couple
of miserable “boxes.” The common lodkas on the river
are very clumsy boats, made from coarse planks sawn by
hand, and fastened together by means of wooden pegs.
The vetkas or dug-outs of the natives, formed of the trunk
of a species of alder, are very well made and are excellent
for their purpose, but they do not carry more than one
man, and are, of course, only suitable for river work.
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