Mapping a round the world trip

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Astoria: 1811-2011

It has been the hope of the Farnham Project team to somehow co-ordinate this round the world recreation of Russel Farnham's travels with the 200 year Bicentennial of Astoria in 2011. There is a committee organizing these celebrations and we plan to be in touch with them soon about co-ordination with our project. They are using the theme:

Astoria: 1811-2011. An Adventure in History. Come Celebrate With Us.

We plan to do just that. We are hoping to arrive in Astoria during this celebration in 2011 after having completed our one year trip round the world trip. Perhaps we could even leave one year before the Bicentennial. Leaving in 2010 and arriving home in March or April 2011.

Planning a round the world trip

Last week I watched the DVD Long Way Round which documents the 2004 journey of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman from London to New York on motorcycles, including driving over 18,000 miles through 12 countries and a seriously difficult stretch of road in Siberia called the Road of Bones. The documentary itself is very good, but also of interest to me were the logistics involved in planning a round the world adventure. For several months before the actual trip they had an office setup, lined up donations and sponsors, and worked out the final plans with a staff of at least a dozen people. I'm not sure of the production costs of the actual movie, but most information I could find about it says that it was a "low budget" production. Besides Ewan and Charley they had an additional camera man on motorcycle and two support vehicles carrying an additional camera man and the two producers. For much or the Russian portion of the trip they also had a Russian "fixer" to take care of problems and assist with translation and also a Russian doctor.

It's going to be a long road from this idea to re-create Russel Farnham's round the world journey to actual planning and implementing it. But what a wonderful challenge this will be.

Oil Painting

I've added a scan of the only image known to exist of Russel Farnham to the blog. It's an oil painting done by Chester Harding and owned by the Missouri Historical Society. It's reposited in the Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, but it was for a long time displayed in the museum of the Missouri Historical Society with this inscription: "Walked from Oregon to St Petersburg, 1813-1814." That is something of a Tall Tale, but it shows that for years people have been fascinated by the story of Russel Farnham's remarkable journey from Oregon to St Petersburg Russia.

Russian Travel Routes

Starting and ending his round the world journey in New York, Russel Farnham set foot in the following places: Falkland Islands, Hawaii, Astoria Oregon, Sitka Alaska, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, St Petersburg Russia, and Copenhagen Denmark. The exact path he traveled between Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and St Petersburg is unknown at this time, but most likely followed parts of the Russian mail and supply route from Moscow to Irkutsk that existed at that time called the Sibirsky Trakt - Сибирский тракт in Russian. This route generally follows the route of the Trans-Siberian railway. At other times he most likely follow the Lena river from Irkutsk to Yakutsk. From Yakutsk to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is anyones guess as few routes exist even to this day, but his route may have followed what is today the Kolyma Highway which is also know as the Road of Bones because the bones of inmates from the gulag camps that built it were incorporated into the road.

Our team hopes to research the Russian State Historical Archives (RSHA), Kiev Region State Archives (in Ukraine) and the Kazan Region State Archives to find documents mentioning Farnham's journey.

Where was Farnham?

Where was Russel Farnham? Putting together the pieces of this historical puzzle is not complete, but rather a work in progress. The historical record is incomplete in places, but we have this basic outline to start with, each step to later be completed with incredible detail and stories of adventures in each location:

He left New York after joining the Pacific Fur Company as a clerk. With the crew of the Tonquin he traveled around South America stopping briefly at the Falkland Islands then onward to Hawaii. From Hawaii the ship traveled to the mouth of the Columbia River. He literally help build Fort Astoria from the ground up. He was a fur trader for several years in Oregon, Washignton and even into Idaho and Montana. After the war of 1812 and the sale of Astoria to the British he left for the Russian settlement in Alaska. There he transferred ships and was taken to St Peter and St Paul Kamchatka which is now named Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. This is where the historical record ends, but we know from existing documents that he traveled across Siberia ending in St Petersburg where he was to deliver documents. He traveled from St Petersburg to Copenhagen Denmark where the historical record starts again and from there back to America on an unknown ship completing his circumnavigation.

More to come. Thanks for reading.

Welcome

We welcome you to the Farnham Project blog. My name is James Kelly and I am the Farnham Project team leader and I am joined by team member Carl Burdick in writing this blog. We decide after about a year of talking about this idea that the best way approach this trip was to co-ordinate things with a blog. The basic idea is this - we want to recreate the remarkable journey of Russel Farnham starting in Astoria Oregon and following his path as far as St Petersburg Russia. It's our hope to incorporate this adventure into the celebrations of the 200 year anniversary of the founding of Astoria in several years.