Fridtjof Nansen was the very first Arctic explorer, scientist, Nobel Prize winner and celebrity who engineered the peaceful secession of Norway from Sweden. The daring adventure story in Farthest North was the spark of inspiration for the world-famous Arctic explorers who came after him - Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen among them.
Description
The Route of the Fram and Nansen and Johansen's Sledge JourneyPreliminary-Sketch Map of Franz Joseph LandIntroduction by Fergus FlemingThe FramI. IntroductionII. Preparations and EquipmentIII. The StartIV. Farewell to NorwayV. Voyage Through the Kara SeaVI. The Winter NightVII. The Spring and Summer of 1894VIII. Second Autumn in the IceThe Sledge JourneyIX. We Prepare for the Sledge ExpeditionX. The New Year, 1895XI. We Make a StartXII. We Say Good-bye to the FramXIII. A Hard StruggleXIV. By Sledge and KayakXV. Land at LastXVI. The New Year, 1896XVII. The Journey SouthwardConclusion by Fridtjof NansenEndnotesList of Equipment Used for the Sledge Journey
Reviews
'Nansen was the last of the Nordic gods... Tall, blond, and ridiculously handsome... The First Crossing Of Greenland is a... thrilling account of his earliest adventure... It was a hideous journey... Hair froze fast to headgear, beards solidified so that the lips could not be opened to speak... Polar exploration tends to attract more testosterone than talent... One man towers over the other ice-encrusted sledgers: Fridtjof Nansen, colossus of the glaciers... Of all the frozen beards... only Nansen communicated a sense of the true subjugation of the ego that endeavour can bring. Failure, he acknowledged, would mean "only disappointed human hopes, nothing more".' Sara Wheeler, Guardian; 'Seminal... demythologised the polar environment and revolutionised modern polar travel with the introduction of skis.' Roland Huntford, The Times; 'Nansen defied that conventional wisdom, which dictated explorers proceed from the known to the unknown to maintain a line of retreat, by sailing first to the largely uncharted eastern coast of Greenland.' Times Higher Education; 'The visionary Norse explorer.' Jon Krakauer