In Search of a Sea Route to Siberia, 1553-1619

Abstract

... The cumulative effect of these voyages was to make western Europeans aware that it was possible, but difficult, to sail eastward to the straits which separate what we now call the Barents and the Kara seas. But none of the recorded voyages was able to conquer the ice and to proceed farther eastward than that, and it was not until the eighteenth century that we read of specific voyages, this time Russian, deep into the Kara Sea. ... The western European activity in these waters may have been more extensive than Hakluyt and Purchas allow, and more important, the locals, whether Norse, Finno-Ugrians, or Slavs, may have known a great deal more than their inability to write has permitted us to take account of. My object in this paper is to see whether recent research can help us to raise the veil a little on some of these possibilities.