On
this date—December 17—in 1897, Norwegian Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen thrilled Carnegie
Hall audiences with tales of his “Voyage to the North Pole,” complete with
dozens of stereopticon slides, which detailed his legendary Fram expedition of 1893–1896—an epic journey
that has gone down in history as one of the most thrilling stories of
adventure, discovery, and survival ever.
Nansen
was already a university-trained zoologist and experienced explorer (his
crossing of Greenland’s icecap on skis in 1888–1889 is an incredible story in
itself) by the time he conceived the idea of a North Pole expedition in 1890.
He had read about artifacts from the Jeannette,
an American Arctic exploration ship lost in 1881 off the coast of Siberia,
which had later turned up near Greenland. The theory was that strong ocean
currents had carried the items westward across the top of the earth; Nansen surmised
that a ship frozen into the sea ice could do the same, possibly drifting over
the North Pole itself. He commissioned Norwegian naval architect Colin Archer
to design a ship strong enough to withstand the tremendous pressures of the
shifting Arctic ice pack. Archer created the Fram (“Forward”), an extremely strong, reinforced wood-hulled ship
with rounded sides that would allow it to ride above the encroaching sea ice,
rather than be crushed by it. In the end, Fram
stood the test beautifully, serving as the ice-bound home for its crew of 13
explorers and scientists—and nearly three dozen sled dogs—for close to three
years.
Fridtjof Nansen aboard the Fram, February 15,
1895. | Nansen
at Cape Flora, Franz Joseph Land, near the end of his epic journey, June 1896. Courtesy of the National Library of
Norway
Fram never made it
to the North Pole. She began her northward journey after being frozen into the
ice off the coast of Siberia in September 1893. By November 1894, it became
clear that the ship’s northward drift was too slow, and Nansen decided his only
shot at reaching the Pole would be with skis and dog sleds. Knowing that speed
and agility would be the keys to survival in the hazardous polar conditions, he
settled on a two-man team: himself and Hjalmar Johansen, the most experienced
dogsled driver among the crew. They set out from the Fram on March 14, 1895, and by April 7 had reached 86º 13.6’N—farther north
than any human beings had ever traveled—but Nansen realized that the ice was
now drifting south, meaning he could never reach the Pole and still have enough
provisions to return to safety. Nansen and Johansen’s retreat, and the winter
they spent in a crude handmade hut in Franz Josef Land—a barren, remote
archipelago more than 800 miles north of Norway—remains one of the most
remarkable tales of self-sufficiency and survival ever told. They reunited
triumphantly with their Fram
crewmates in Tromsø, Norway, on August 21, 1896. Contrary to the typical tales
of 19th-century polar exploration, not a single member of their expedition
perished. Yet Nansen and his crew were not merely lucky. Where earlier (and
some later) polar explorers blundered and attempted to impose their own ideas
of survival on the planet’s frozen outer limits, Nansen prepared meticulously
and learned techniques of adaptation and survival from Greenland Inuit natives.
That he was also a champion skier and ice skater didn’t hurt either.
Fram and some of her
canine crew icebound in the Arctic Ocean, September 1894. Courtesy of the National Library of Norway
In these days of GPS and tourist
cruises to the South
Pole, it’s hard to imagine the intense fascination polar exploration held for
the general public at the turn of the 20th century. The Earth’s poles—together
with a few of the highest mountain peaks—were the final frontiers and still
seemed impossibly remote and treacherous to most people. The arrival in any
city of a great explorer, with his tales of adventure and box of lantern slides
to illustrate them, created great excitement; lecturers like Nansen could count
on big turnouts and rapt audiences.
Advertisement in The New York Sun for Nansen’s lectures at Carnegie Hall on December 17 and 18, 1897. Courtesy of the Library of Congress’s Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/)
Nansen was feted by several New
York scientific organizations and lectured at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and
the Metropolitan Opera House before taking the stage at Carnegie Hall on
December 17, 18, and 23, 1897, for which advertisements billed him as “The
Polar Prince” and “The Greatest Explorer.” Before leaving America, he returned
to Carnegie Hall for a fourth and final lecture on January 28, 1898. His
published account of the Fram
expedition, Farthest North, remains a
classic of exploration literature. The Norwegian Government designated 2011 the
“Nansen–Amundsen Year,” in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Nansen’s
birth (October 10, 1861) and the centennial of Roald Amundsen’s arrival at the
South Pole (December 14, 1911). The two men and their achievements are linked
by more than a coincidence of date: the ship that carried Amundsen and his crew
to Antarctica for their South Pole expedition was none other than Nansen’s Fram. Check back for a future post about
Amundsen’s 1913 visit to Carnegie Hall, when he lectured on “The Discovery of
the South Pole.”
Suggested Reading:
Nansen,
Fridtjof. Farthest North. Edited by
Roland Huntford. New York: Modern Library, 1999.