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[NATIVES OF RUSSIAN PACIFIC SHORES] Ocherk inorodtsev russkogo poberezhiya Tikhogo okeana [i.e. Sketch of the Natives of the Russian Coast of the Pacific]

Resin, A.A.

St. Petersburg: Typ. of A.S. Suvorin, 1888. Item #202

[2], 78 pp. Octavo. Contemporary green quarter cloth with marbled boards. Upper corner of the last free endpaper cut off and repaired with paper, otherwise a very good copy.

First and only edition. Very rare Russian imprint as no copies were found in Worldcat.
Interesting eye-witness account of a Russian merchant voyage to the North Pacific and the Arctic Ocean around the Chukotka Peninsula, published as an offprint from the Proceedings of the Russian Geographical Society (vol. XXIV). Resin, an associate of the Governor General of the new Priamyrskoe [i.e. Near the Amur River] Governorate (formed in 1884) was assigned to observe and describe its northern regions. In May-September 1885 he joined whaling schooner ‘‘Sibir’’ from Vladivostok which travelled along the Kamchatka coast, reaching as far north as Serdtse Kamen Cape (a headland on the northeastern coast of Chukotka, about 140 km west of Cape Dezhnev in the Chukchi Sea). The captain planned to reach the Wrangel Island, but was forced to turn back by the pack ice. During the return voyage the schooner called at the Ratmanov Island (the Diomedes, Bering Strait) and traded there with the Chukchi. On the way to the Providence Bay the ship visited the Tkachen Bay (Chukotka) where the crew picked up a skull of a deceased Chukchi man which was later sent to the Academy of Sciences.

The book describes the voyage from Vladivostok to the Karaga River (Northern Kamchatka) and further north around the Chukotka Peninsula; geography, climate, flora & fauna of Kamchatka, native population of the Petropavlovsk district, and the Gizhiginsky district (‘chukmari’ or Kereks, sedentary Koriaks, Reindeer Koriaks and Chukchi, sedentary Chukchi). A special part is dedicated to the activities of the Americans near Russian Pacific shores (about 30-35 whaling and trading ships call every year, they hunt whales and walruses, bring rum, Winchester guns, tobacco, gunpowder, knives, axes, animal traps, pottery, fabrics etc.), the author concludes that their influence on the natives is negative and proposes to establish a permanent coast guard at the Kamchatka and Chukotka shores.

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