Nansen's Fram expedition

Uncommon card · No. 131233

Nansen's Fram expedition of 1893–1896 was an attempt by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen to reach the geographical North Pole by harnessing the natural east–west current of the Arctic Ocean. In the face of much discouragement from other polar explorers, Nansen took his ship Fram to the New Siberian Islands in the eastern Arctic Ocean, froze her into the pack ice, and waited for the drift to carry her towards the pole. Impatient with the slow speed and erratic character of the drift, after 18 months Nansen and a chosen companion, Hjalmar Johansen, left the ship with a team of Samoyed dogs and sledges and made for the pole. They did not reach it, but they achieved a record Farthest North latitude of 86°13.6′N before a long retreat over ice and water to reach safety in Franz Josef Land. Meanwhile, Fram continued to drift westward, finally emerging in the North Atlantic Ocean. The idea for the expedition had arisen after items from the American vessel Jeannette, which had sunk off the...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Appears in Fridtjof Nansen's 1893 book, so is PD in the US (published before 1923) and since Nansen died in 1930, it is PD in the UK (life of author plus 70 years), Public domain