2.3.1 Nansen and the voyage of the Fram

Wood on the shores of Svalbard and East Greenland caused confusion to the first explorers. But when wreckage from a ship called the Jeanette was found on the coast of East Greenland in the late 19th century, the best environmental scientist of the age, the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen (Figure 7(a)), had a eureka moment. Nansen knew that the Jeanette had sunk off Alaska on the other side of the Arctic Ocean and deduced that the wreckage must have been carried across the frozen sea by the sea ice. He decided to try to use the ice drift to reach the North Pole and study the Arctic environment on the journey. He had the ship Fram (Norwegian for ‘forward’) built (Figure 7(b)). The ship had a round hull so that it would not get crushed like the Jeanette, and Nansen left Norway in 1893 for the Arctic and the North Pole. It was over three years before he and his colleagues returned.

Figure 7 (a) Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930); (b) his ship the Fram frozen into the Arctic Ocean and being carried along with the moving ice in the Transpolar Drift Stream

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Figure 7(a) shows a black and white photograph of the polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen wearing wolf skins. The image is cropped to just the face and upper shoulders. Nansen is in his early thirties with close-cropped blonde hair, and a heavily styled blonde moustache. He looks very lean and is giving a serious look, straight at the camera. Figure 7(b) shows a black and white photograph of Nansen’s ship Fram, frozen in the Arctic Ice and drifting in the Transpolar Drift Stream.

Figure 7 (a) Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930); (b) his ship the Fram frozen into the Arctic Ocean and being carried along with the moving ice ...

Nansen and his crew followed the Russian coast (i.e. against the ocean currents), and the Fram froze into the sea ice off Siberia. As they drifted northwards, Nansen realised that the Fram was going to miss the pole so he and Hjalmar Johansen left the ship to make for the pole on foot. This was incredible. They knew the ship was drifting and they must have been certain that they would never find her again. The Fram survived the Arctic drift and reached Svalbard in the summer of 1896. Nansen and Johansen turned back just north of 86° N, having reached the highest latitude then attained. After an epic journey across the sea ice they endured the winter of 1895 on the island of Franz Josef Land and then caught a ship back to Norway, arriving only a few days before the Fram in August 1896 (see Figure 8).

The sea channel between the Svalbard archipelago and Greenland was named the Fram Strait in honour of the famous polar research ship.

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Figure 8 The voyage of the Fram (solid line) and route of Nansen and Johansen (dashed line) during their expedition of 1893–6

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An old map of the Arctic regions showing the route taken by the Fram as it drifted through the Arctic. The map is a cropped stereographic projection of the Arctic with the North Pole in the upper left quadrant. The Arctic Ocean is coloured white which represents the sea ice. On the right of the map is the coast of Norway and Russia. From the coast of Norway there is a solid red line showing the route of the Fram on its voyage through the Arctic. From Norway, dated 21 July 1893, the ship sailed close to the coast of Russia to about 135° E where Fram was frozen into the ice on 22 September 1893 and started its drift across the Arctic Basin and towards the North Pole. On 14 March 1895 there is a dashed line which leaves the ship and represents the path of Nansen and Johansen. Fram continues across the Arctic in the Transpolar Drift Stream until it reaches Svalbard on 13 August 1896, and finally returns to Norway on 20 August 1896. Nansen and Johansen attempted to reach the pole before turning back from their pole attempt on 9 April 1895 and then headed south to spend the winter of 1895-96 at Franz Joseph Land, before returning to Norway on 13 August 1896.

Figure 8 The voyage of the Fram (solid line) and route of Nansen and Johansen (dashed line) during their expedition of 1893–6