Farthest North

"Yes. Nansen wanted to reach the North Pole but there had been many attempts ending in disaster, so instead of fighting nature he figured he’d work with her. Because of some driftwood and relics found in Greenland, he worked out that there must be a current running from Siberia to Greenland. It looked as if that current passed over, or close to, the North Pole. So he had a special ship built called Fram – which means “forward” – which was specially designed to be frozen into ice without being nicked, and he was going to exploit this current. He sailed along the coast of Siberia, deliberately froze her into the ice and let the drift carry her along. He was right – there was a current – but it soon became clear that she was not going to reach the Pole. So taking one companion, dogs and sledges, he tried to reach the North Pole over the ice. He didn’t get very far, only within about 250 miles of the Pole before he turned back and made his way across the drift ice. He landed on Franz Josef Land and spent the whole winter in a hut like a northern Robinson Crusoe. His life was saved because an English explorer called Frederick George Jackson just happened to be there at the same time, and Nansen returned home in Jackson’s expedition ship. “When I first looked into Amundsen I immediately connected. If you’re a Nordic skier, you understand what he’s all about.” Fram left in 1893 and returned in 1896 when Nansen also returned. By making that attempt on the Pole he hardly got any further than he would have had he remained on the ship. His record was 86 degrees and 14 minutes [latitude]. The reason I chose this book is because Nansen was an intellectual explorer, and he brought all his men home safe and sound. This is a bit of a record given the history of disaster in polar exploration. It’s also interesting how people from a certain background were able to survive the isolation of three years in the ice, seeing the same faces day after day. They were all Norwegians. Scandinavians have an ability to live in their thoughts. If they don’t like their surroundings they retreat into themselves and live in a make-believe world. In this expedition there was a doctor, a couple of naval officers, sealers, sailors and drifters. They come from a society that is meritocratic – where you don’t have class in our sense – and they would all approximate to our middle classes, but their roots are in the soil or on the seas. Most of the people on Fram were seamen from the age of sail, and there they had to learn to survive in cramped and difficult conditions. It’s the art of surviving in a small group. Unlike our [British] explorers nobody there was looking for adventure, they were looking for accomplishment. It’s part of the Norwegian character going back to the sagas – great admiration for conspicuous achievement. Nansen took skis and dogs with him, and he made a momentous discovery on the Fram expedition. He discovered that the natural speed of a team of dogs in front of a loaded sledge is the same as that of Nordic or cross-country idling, not racing. This was momentous because it was the origination of the Norwegian – ie the modern – form of polar travel, before the advent of motorised transport."