RUSSIA LOOKS NORTH

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1078, 16 September 1930, Page 14

RUSSIA LOOKS NORTH

RADIO STATIONS IN ARCTIC A NEW EXPEDITION The Soviet ice-breaker Sedov, with an important exploring party on board, has reached Franz Josef Land after ploughing through polar seas. The expedition includes such prominent Arctic experts as Professor O. Schmidt, Government Commissar for Franz Josef Land and Northern Land; Professor R. L. Samoilovitch, director of the Krassin expedition which rescued General Nobile and some of the members of his party in 1925; Professor V. U. Vize, and Mr. G. A. Ushakov, who spent three years on Wrangel Island, north of Eastern Siberia, as commandant of a small colony of settlers there. The purpose of the present expedition is twofold: to relieve a small group of Russians who have been living on Franz Josef Land, where they established the northernmost radio station in the world, and to proceed thence in a south-easterly direction to uninhabited Northern Land (formerly Nicholas 11. Land), where Ushakov, with three companions, a geologist, a hunter and a radio expert, will remain. These bold volunteers, who will be supplied with rifles, bullets and building materials, will construct living quarters aud a hut for the installation of a short-wave radio station. They will also carry out a detailed exploration of the region, which is almost unknown, having been discovered in 1911, when two Russian ice-cutters made the <' flcult journey from Vladivostock to Archangel. Ushakov and his companions will take with them 40 Siberian dogs, and if climatic conditions do not make it possible to relieve them by ship next summer they will cross the ice to the neighbouring Taimir peninsula, in Northern Siberia, and thence make their way to the mouth of the Yenisei, the course of which will serve as a guide to the settled regions of Siberia. With its long northern coastline Russia has always been directly interested in Arctic problems. During recent years the Soviet Government has fortified its title to the polar territories which are more or less adjacent to Russian shores by placing small colonies on Fran# Josef Land and Wrangel Island. The present expedition will promote the Soviet policy of girdling the Russian polar territories with radio stations, which, by reporting Arctic conditions, are believed to contribute materially to the accuracy of weather prognostications. If the idea, cherished by the late Dr. Nansen, among others, of establishing aerial connection between Europe, Japan and America through the short polar route should be realised, these Soviet stations will be valuable bases. It is expected that the hunting of fur-bearing animals will be developed in these far northern regions and that mineral wealth may be disectffered.