Tent Life in Siberia (Illustrated)

This book is the fascinating travel journal of George Kennan(1845-1924) who was employed by the Russo-American Telegraph company to explore Eastern Siberia in 1865. Leaving from San Francisco in July 1865 Mr. Kennan and three other men set out for Petropavlovski in Kamchatka. From there they began a march to the northwest, meeting the Sea of Okhotsk and then detouring West for a while until heading north, exploring Eastern Siberia as far as the Berings strait, to Anadyrsk. They navigated rivers, saw the Aurua Borealis in February 1867. In the end the exploration did not lead to the laying of telegraph cable, but nevertheless this account should rank with Twain's `Innocents Abroad' as one of the great pieces of American travel literature of the 19th century.Kennan has a dry sarcastic wit, like Twain, and he writes on many things, from wildlife to flora, to the people and the country. Most amazing is to consider the great distances covered by such few people. There are many interesting stories and insights into the hard life of Russians in the far east. There are also descriptions of the many native peoples, including Koraks, Kamchatdals, Chukchis, Yookaghirs, Chooances, Yakoots and Gakouts, to the depth of describing rituals, marriages and the languages.The greatest, almost unforgivable, oversight in this book, one that is almost crippling, is lack of even one map in an account that begs to have many maps given that it is both a travel narrative and one that mentions many obscure places and tribes that no longer exist in the same form today. The reader is left to imagine the position of the Samanka or Penzhina rivers, the villages of Genul, Okoota or Anadyrsk, or the most obscure villages in north Siberia, such as Geezhega or Shestakova.A great piece of history. Read more