Stephen Burrough at ‘Cola River’: a reconsideration

Abstract

Stephen Burrough's voyage on board Serchethrift to northern Russia and Novaya Zemlya in 1556 is a standard reference point in general surveys of polar exploration. Unfortunately, for centuries its route in Russian waters has been garbled, due to a too literal reading of the term ‘Cola River,’ used by Burrough as the name of the first harbour he sought in Russia. Where was Burrough's Cola River? Determining its location is not at all as simple as it seems. More than a hundred years ago a Russian historian maintained most emphatically that this was not the Kola River (Reka Kola), which empties at Kola town, not far from present-day Murmansk, but Kuloy River (Reka Kuloy) in the Bay of Mezen, on the eastern coast of the White Sea. This article examines this question, which is significant because where Cola River is placed on the map clearly has repercussions for how the information contained in Burrough's travel account should be interpreted.