Lieutenant Zagoskin's Travels in Russian America 1842–1844: The First Ethnographic and Geographic Investigations in the Yukon and Kuskokwim Valleys of Alaska

The expedition of Naval Lieutenant Lavrentiy Alekseyevich Zagoskin constitutes one of the most remarkable pages in the history of Russian exploration during the first half of the nineteenth century. It was the possibilities for the fur trade which gave the real impetus to this exploration of the interior of Alaska and to it we own a great deal for its encouragement of investigation which has benefited since the study of geography and anthropology. Lieutenant Zagoskin travelled into the depths of the Alaskan territory, and his reports were the earliest detailed accounts of the natural conditions of the country, and the distribution and life of the Indians and Eskimos.

First published in Russia in 1847 and 1848, the account of Zagoskin's expedition still represents a substantial and important contribution to science, and has special importance today when western Alaska is receiving a great deal of attention from anthropologists. Made from a Russian edition of 1956, this translation will allow a new reading public to follow Lieutenant Zagoskin on his travels and see the peoples of the area drained by the Yukon and Kuskokwim Rivers at a time when their way of life was virtually unchanged by contact with Europeans.

This translation makes available an outstanding source in the history of early scientific investigations in the North, and an absorbing personal document of a man's experiences in a hostile environment. An account of Zagoskin's life and works is also included.

A very complete appendix containing a bibliography, a vocabulary of special, local and obsolete terms, and index of proper names, and a gazetteer concludes this volume.

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