MAN BEHIND MODERN VIKINGS

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 10 March 1934, Page 14

MAN BEHIND MODERN VIKINGS

High Cause of Arctic Exploration

A NOBLE, life, full of fine adventure and vicissitudes heroically borne, came to an end a little while ago under the blue southern skies of Nice, says the “Children’s Newspaper.” Alexander Mihailovitch .Sibiriakow -was a Russian who before the war had been one of the richest men of his country; yet he would have been buried in a pauper’s grave had not the Swedish Government seen to it that he found a fitting resting-place in one of the loveliest burial-grounds in Europe. Shadowed by blossoming mimosas, with the smiling Adriatic at his feet, we may think of him as lying and dreaming of the ice-bound Arctic which for so many years had had his passionate allegiance. Eor this millionaire, who might have lived out the greater part of his life in luxury and ease, had in him the hardy, adventurous soul of a Viking; and he knew of no better use for his vast fortune or his own personal services than to further with them the high cause of Arctic exploration. It was largely owing to his munificence that the Swedish, navigator Nils Nordenskiold. could undertake his famous expedition in the Yerga in 1878, to discover the long-sought North-East Passage. The year after, when fears began to be entertained concerning the fate of the expedition, it was again he who fitted out a ship and sent it to the rescue of the Vega.

his own, to try to find the mouth of the River Yenissei, but lost his way and got caught in the .ice It took him and his crew seventy days to make their way, in sledges drawn by Samoyedes, to Obdorsk and safety Ma'ny other expeditions did Sibiriakow make or finance, until the Russian revolution drove him into exile and penury in Nice There he lived year in and year out, in a little bare attic room, this man who had lavished thousands on scientific explorations which had enriched mankind, nobly indifferent that the honour and glory which they brought went to a country not his own. It is good to know that this disinterestedness brought its own reward in the end; for the Swedish Government, hearing of the plight of the man to whom Sweden owed so much, awarded him a modest pension whicn enabled him to spend the last years of his life, if not in affluence, at least in modest comfort.

■Solitary but not lonely (for had he not his memories?) he came and went among the gay Riviera crowds, speaking to none, unknown to most. Not even his many fellow-countrymen living, like himself, in exile were aware that. • the quiet, unassuming, dignified old man was one whose name half a century ago had been on everyone’s lips. And when his plain deal coffin was carried up the hill to its last rest-ing-place there were only four who followed it—three .Swedes and the French lady who managed the hotel in which he had lived.

This vessel foundered, but the Vega fortunately proved to be safe, and Nordenskiold returned to reap the praises his feat had earned for him In 1880 Sibiriakow himself set out, in a ship of