Russian Explorers Believed Lost

1916

OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada — Two small Russian expeditions which have been missing in polar regions have been given up as apparently lost by the Russian government. Canada has been asked by Russia to make public the fact that these two exploration parties, sent out by the Archangel Society in 1912 for the study of conditions in the Russian far north, have not been heard from in four years. The expeditions were headed by K. A. Russanoff and Lieutenant Brusiloff.

The Russanoff party left Spitzbergen in the motor boat Hercules for Nova Zembla in August, 1912. That headed by Brusiloff started north one month later. The latter expedition was not considered adequately equipped.

Hearing nothing from either explorer, the Russian government in March, 1914, dispatched the Norwegian ship Eclipse to the rescue. Eighteen months later the Eclipse returned to Christiania after having been icebound in the Arctic for many months and having learned nothing of the missing men.

Available records do not state the number of men who accompanied the Russanoff and Brusiloff expeditions. It is known Russanoff's party included the oceanographer Kutchin.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 5.