Olaf Swenson
The fourth such flight crashed in a Siberian winter storm, killing aviation pioneer Carl Ben Eielson and his mechanic in 1929.
Swenson's memoir Northwest of the World contains observations on commerce, conditions, and native life in northeast Siberia and won critical praise for its direct style and vivid description.
Returning Northeastern Siberian Company prospectors reported promising signs including colors in every stream panned and graphite deposits.
[8] In 1905, Swenson set out on another prospecting expedition for the Northeastern Siberian Company, this time bringing along his wife and their six-month-old son.
Their ship, the gasoline schooner Barbara Hernster, struck a reef near Providence Bay, Siberia, July 28, 1905, and the family reached shore by boat through heavy surf.
Subsequently the group and their cargo were picked up and transported to Anadyr,[n 2] where Swenson set up a trading station selling the salvaged supplies.
[13] In 1908 the steamer Corwin landed freight and miners at the Northeastern Siberian Company's trading station on the north shore of Anadyr Bay; the current from the river was strong at this location.
"[22] According to a Soviet source, Swenson had 16 personal agents and provided financing to an additional 14 independent traders, with a total annual turnover in excess of $1 million.
Trade goods mentioned at other locations in Swenson's narrative include flour, wieners (in barrels), oranges, sugar, tea, tobacco, pilot bread, eggs, calico, dishes, needles, thread, knives, pots, pans, chamber pots, firearms and ammunition, motor launches, gasoline, kerosene, Mackinaws and other waterproof clothing, boots, caps, heavy woolen clothing, and corduroy breeches with lacings on the legs.
[n 3] In June 1920, the New York Times reported that Bolshevik partisans had attacked, seized, and looted the Anadyr post of the Hibbard-Swenson Company the preceding January.
[31] Later that year the Yakut Revolt was suppressed and the last organized White force under Anatoly Pepelyayev was defeated at Ayan (a port village on the Sea of Okhotsk) on June 17, 1923.
[32] With the Bolshevik victory, Swenson found not just two schooners but his entire Siberian business and stock impounded and a warrant out for his arrest.
Pollister (Vice President of Olaf Swenson & Co.) went to China to obtain a Soviet visa and began a long slow process of negotiation to release the furs, trading stock, and books.
The ultimate resolution was a contract entered in 1925 to deliver goods in Siberia to Moscow's specification on a cost-plus basis and export furs.
Swenson reports prices paid to the trappers were reduced in this period and the range of trade goods narrowed to necessities.
The Hibbard-Swenson Company diesel auxiliary schooner Kamchatka (formerly the whaling bark Thrasher) was lost to fire in the Bering Sea April 14, 1921.
They had no water and subsisted on wieners and oranges from the cargo, running the launch's engine on distillate due to a lack of gasoline.
[38][39] Belvedere, with Stephen Cottle as her captain and Olaf Swenson on board, became stuck in the ice off the north coast of Alaska in the fall of 1913 while carrying supplies for Vilhjalmur Stefansson's Canadian Arctic Expedition to the transfer point at Herschel Island.
Swenson and Pedersen (accompanied by Enuk, a north-slope Iñupiaq, and later also by Peter, an Indian from the Chandlar lake area) traveled to Circle City and then Fairbanks by foot and dogsled to carry news and arrange relief supplies.
[n 4] They lost their compass in deep snow during a storm and thereafter navigated by topography alone, adding considerable distance to their planned route.
[40][41] In 1914 Hibbard-Swenson Company chartered the newly built motor schooner King & Winge to carry relief supplies to the Belvedere and complete the normal trading run.
Bear arrived the same day and reported that its attempt to rescue the crew of the Karluk from Wrangel Island off the northeast Siberian coast had been thwarted by bad weather, ice and low fuel.
They stopped at East Cape, Siberia, and picked up an umiak and a party of natives to man it, in case they had to cross ice interspersed with open water.
As they approached the beach in the umiak, the native crew was alarmed to see one of the Karluk survivors vigorously pumping a rifle, but Swenson reassured them in their language.
Impatient to get back to Seattle and hungry for adventure, Swenson decided on an overland trek to Irkutsk, which was served by the Trans-Siberian Railway.
They left Srednekolmysk cutting west overland on an old Government trail through flat, forested country dotted by lakes.
Heading south for Yakutsk, they were asked to carry the mail; this improved their access to reindeer teams but involved traveling day and night.
[49][n 6] The New York Times dispatch also disclosed plans for airplane service between Alaska and the Siberian coast, for which Swenson had just secured permission from the Soviet government.
Swenson contracted with Alaskan Airways, headed by the noted arctic flyer and explorer Carl Ben Eielson, to fly out furs and crew members.
Resuming after the delay, Eielson and his mechanic Frank Borland flew into a fierce storm over the Siberian coast and crashed, flying into terrain with the throttle wide open.
