4 stars for Farthest North: Vol I by Fridtjof Nansen.
This book is Volume I of the record of a voyage of exploration of the ship FRAM 1893-96 and the fifteen months of sleigh expedition by Dr Nansen and Lieut. Johansen with an appendix by Otto Sverdrup, Captain of the FRAM.
Nansen noticed that wreckage from a sunken ship off Siberia had drifted all the way across the Arctic Ocean to Greenland. This proved his theory that a natural transpolar ocean current existed. His plan was simple - build a ship, intentionally freeze it into the Arctic ice pack, and let the moving ice carry the ship directly over the North Pole.
Most experts thought this was a suicide mission, believing the ice would crush any ship to splinters. However, Nansen commissioned a special vessel named the Fram ("Forward"), designed with a highly rounded hull. Instead of being crushed, the ice would squeeze the ship upward, safely cradling it on top of the frozen pack.
In 1893, with the objective to investigate the great unknown region that surrounds the North Pole, Nansen and his crew of twelve set off in this small but strongly built ship that was stocked up with supplies of coal and provisions to last them for as many as five years.
Volume I is Nansen's first person account of how they designed the Fram to survive the ice pressure and details of their equipment instruments for taking observations - scientific, meteorological, astronomical, magnetic, hydrographic.
His notes from day to day gives readers a good idea of their lives on the Fram, in all its monotony. They may not be great events recorded but in their very bareness, they present a down-to-earth picture. There were well recorded encounters with reindeers, polar foxes, polar bears, seals and walruses. There were detailed notes on the endless ice that stretched on every side into the silent night, the severe pressure of the packing ice that thundered and rumbled and roared with a ferocity, the crashing and breaking of big ice floes against each other and how they were flung and pressed up into high walls, the cracking and shifting of the ice hammock that led to violent heaving and trembling of the ship. Amongst it all, Nansen shared how the aurora borealis burns in wonderful colours and bands of light over the entire sky and how the stars sparkle in the blue firmament among the northern lights.
True to its built, the FRAM is a safe harbour for Nansen and his crew in the frozen wilderness of the Arctic ocean. There was good shelther, good ventilation, warm clothing, great food, and great comfort in passing time on reading, writing, smoking, cards, chess, music and story-telling. Regardless of the comfort and safety, Nansen's first person account wavered between eager energy, idle longing, self-doubt, brooding and despondency, shifting with the winds as the ship FRAM drifted forwards to their goal or backwards from it.
Indeed, Fridtjof Nansen’s 1893 Fram Expedition is one of the most brilliant and daring adventures in polar history. The expedition paved the way for mankind by revolutionizing polar exploration, launching the modern science of oceanography, and modelling a philosophy of preparation that transformed how humans interact with Earth's extreme environments. Rather than viewing the Northern Arctic as a lethal adversary to be beaten through brute force, Nansen was the first to work with the forces of nature, a paradigm shift that echoes through science and exploration today.
Having read two books consecutively on the Arctic North, I have enough of the frozen wilderness of the Arctic Ocean, endless Polar nights and the wonders of the Aurora Borealis to last me for quite some time. I am going to take a break for now - not sure how long it will be though - before I return to continue with reading Farthest North: Vol II.
Publisher: Independently published
Publication date: 28 May 2026
*** Favourite Quote 1 ***
It was a strange feeling to be sailing away north in the dark night to unknown lands, over an open, rolling sea, where no ship, no boat had been before.
*** Favourite Quote 2 ***
Tuesday, September 19th. I have never had such a splendid sail. On to the north, steadily north, with a good wind, as fast as steam and sail can take us, and open sea mile after mile, watch after watch, through these unknown regions, always clearer and clearer of ice one might almost say! How long will this last? The eye always turn to the northward as one paces the bridge. It is gazing into the future. But there is always the same dark sky ahead, which means open sea.
*** Favourite Quote 3 ***
Earlier Arctic explorers have considered it a necessity to keep near some coast. But this was exactly what I wanted to avoid. It was the drift of the ice that I wished to get into, and what I most feared was being blocked by land. It seemed as if we might do much worse than give ourselves up to the ice where we were, especially as our excursion to the east has proved that following the ice-edge in that direction would soon force us south again.
So in the meantime we made fast to a great ice-block, and prepared to clean the boiler and shift coals. We are lying in open water, with only a few large floes here and there; but I have a presentiment that this is our winter harbour.
*** Favourite Quote 4 ***
Yes, I am happy too. It is an easy life; nothing that weighs heavy on one, no letters, no newspapers, nothing disturbing; just that monastic, out-of-the-world existence that was my dream when I was younger and yearned for quietness in which to give myself up to my studies. Longing, even when it is strong and sad, is not unhappiness. A man has truly no right to be anything but happy when fate permits him to follow up his ideals, exempting him from the wearing strain of every-day cares, that he may with clearer vision strive towards a lofty goal.
*** Favourite Quote 5 ***
Our aim, as I have so often tried to make clear, is not so much to reach the point 'in which the earth's axis terminates,' as to traverse and explore the unknown Polar Sea; and yet I should like to get to the Pole, too, and hope that it will be possible to do so, if only we can reach 84º or 85º by March — and why should we not?
~ Farthest North Vol I
Fridtjof Nansen
@}--->>--->>-----
Originally published in 1897, this two-volume work chronicles the polar expedition of Norwegian scientist Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930), who came closer than any previous explorer to the North Pole. Beginning on board his boat, the Fram, which was deliberately driven into pack-ice off Siberia in order to drift north, Nansen and his companions later resorted to sleds and kayaks. Volume 2 describes the journey over the ice – setting out with 28 dogs, 3 sledges and 2 kayaks – and ends with an account of the return journey. (It also includes Captain Otto Sverdrup's report of the expedition.) The Fram served as a laboratory during its time in the Arctic, and Nansen eventually published six volumes of scientific observations. He later became Norwegian delegate to the League of Nations, directing humanitarian projects, and is famous for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 as well as for his polar achievements.
*Blurb from Goodreads*
Add to:
Links to purchase:
No comments:
Post a Comment