Russia: Expedition proves possibility of river travel between Pacific and Arctic Oceans

Participants of the 'Pole of Cold Connects the Oceans' project organised by the Russian Geographical Society arrived in Russkoye Ustye on August 5, as shown by footage released on Thursday. Their epic river expedition empirically proved the existence of an internal waterway between the Pacific and Arctic Oceans.
The expedition, headed by Nikolai Nakhodkin, started from Okhotsk in the Khabarovsk Territory in July. It comprised 16 members who rafted on inflatable boats along waterways that run between the Pacific Ocean and the Arctic. In total, the scientists and crew members covered about 2,800 kilometres (1,739 miles), finishing the route in the little village of Ustye, near the Arctic coast. Nakhodkin said “we have reached the Arctic Ocean coast. We were first to discover a river way from the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic.”
Before that only local people used such routes and there was no scientific proof of the possibility of travelling by water between the two oceans.
During the expedition, different scientific tests were conducted including archaeological research on the site of Zashiversk, an abandoned 19th century city. Scientists also installed a special device at the point of bifurcation of the Delkyu River to measure the temperature at one metre below zero depth to help record events related to climate change in Yakutia.