Reindeer, Dogs, and Snow-Shoes
A Journal of Siberian Travel and Explorations Made in the Years 1865, 1866 and 1867

A journal of exploration and travels in the Kamchatka Peninsula undertaken as part of the 1865–7 Russo-American Telegraph Expedition.

Richard James Bush (Author)

9781108049740, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 26 April 2012

536 pages, 47 b/w illus. 1 map
21.6 x 14 x 3 cm, 0.67 kg

The Russo-American Telegraph Project of 1865–7 was truly monumental. Although plans to lay cable from San Francisco to Moscow via Alaska and Siberia were superseded by the laying of the sub-Atlantic cable, one of the benefits of the enterprise was the knowledge of the area gained by those engineers and explorers sent out to assess the task. Publication of their experiences and travels followed and one such work was this journal by Richard James Bush, first published in 1871 by Harper & Brothers, describing his adventures in Siberia between 1865 and 1867. Bush makes it clear that this is not a scientific account, but a travel narrative containing observations of his time in the Kamchatka Peninsula and the area of Siberia by the Sea of Okhotsk, of herding deer and life in the tundra. The engagingly written book is illustrated with fine drawings of the region by Bush himself.

Preface
1. Object of the expedition
2. Major Abasa's plan
3. Good-by
4. At Tedervosk
5. Kada
6. Nikolayefsk
7. Departure from Nikolayefsk
8. Packing up
9. En route
10.Approaching Tugur
11. Approaching Solavaoff's
12. Swartz's blunder
13. Russian steam bath
14. A Russian parting
15. Indications of a poorga
16. Remarkable endurance of natives
17. Our good fortune
18. Anxiety to start
19. Alarming considerations
20. Herding deer
21. Another journey
22. Tausk
23. Departure from Toumane
24. Departure from Ghijigha
25. More tundra
26. Crepast
27. Proposed voyage
28. From Oochostika
29. Life at Camp Macrae
30. Anxiety
31. Telegraph-building under difficulties
32. Zeal of the men
33. Down the Myan in a carbass
Meteorological tables.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]