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Updated: June 18, 2025
The Russian governor ordered six of his Cossacks to transport Dodd and me on dog-sledges as far as the Korak village of Shestakóva, and sent word to Penzhina by the returning Anadyrsk people to have three or four men and dog-teams at the former place by December 20th, ready to carry us on to Penzhina and Anadyrsk. That evening the Major delivered to us our instructions.
On the fourteenth day after leaving Gizhiga we reached the native settlement of Penzhina, two hundred versts from Anadyrsk. Ours was the first arrival at that place since the previous May, and the whole population of the village men, women, children, and dogs turned out en masse to meet us, with the most joyful demonstrations.
I also sent two natives back to Gizhiga on dog-sledges, with a letter to the Russian governor, apprising him of the famine, and another to Dodd, directing him to load all the dog-sledges he could get with provisions and send them at once to Penzhina, where I would make arrangements for their transportation to the famine-stricken settlement.
I may as well mention here, that when I returned from Anadyrsk in March I went to look at the poles, 500 in number, which the Penzhina men had cut. I found, to my great astonishment, that there was hardly one of them less than twelve inches in diameter at the top, and that the majority were so heavy and unwieldy that a dozen men could not move them.
According to native accounts, there were only two settlements between the Okhotsk Sea and Bering Strait, and the nearest of these Penzhina was four hundred versts distant.
Yagór however was right; he had heard dogs on the Penzhina road, and in less than ten minutes the long-expected sledges drew up, amid general shouting and barking, before our yurt.
Their southern limit is the settlement of Tigil, on the west coast, where they come annually to trade, and they are rarely found north of the village of Penzhina, two hundred miles from the head of the Okhotsk Sea.
Owing to warm springs in its bed, it never entirely freezes over at this point, and in a temperature of 40° below zero gives off dense clouds of steam which hide the village from sight as effectually as a London fog. We remained at Penzhina three days, gathering information about the surrounding country and engaging men to cut poles for our line.
On the morning of December 23d, as soon as it was light enough to see, we loaded our tobacco, provisions, tea, sugar, and trading-goods upon the Penzhina sledges, and started up the shallow bushy valley of the Shestakóva River toward a mountainous ridge, a spur of the great Stanavoi range, in which the stream had its source.
I accordingly started from Anadyrsk with five dog-sledges on March 4th, to try to find a better route between the Anadyr and the head-waters of the Penzhina River. Three days after our departure we met, on the road to Penzhina, a special messenger from Gizhiga, bringing a letter from the Major dated Okhotsk, January 19th.
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