The winter was a long and weary one. Though Christmas, 1895, found them rather low-spirited, they made up their minds to observe the day. Their celebration consisted of reversing their shirts, and treating themselves to bread and chocolate. They broke up their camp in the spring (May, 1896), and started southward by water.
During this trip Nansen nearly lost his life. The men left their kayaks one day fastened to the edge of the ice, while they went to the top of a hummock to look around. Presently Johansen shouted, “The kayaks are adrift.” Both men rushed for the water, and Nansen, reaching it first, jumped in and swam for the boats. The water was terribly cold and the boats had drifted a long distance, but Nansen knew that the loss of the boats meant death to him and his companion. He swam as long as he could, and then lay on his back and floated, to rest. Again he tried to swim, but his limbs became stiff and numb so that he could scarcely move them. Feebly he pushed on until he succeeded in grasping a ski which was lying across the bow, and so drawing the kayak to him. It was almost more than his chilled and weary body could accomplish to pull himself into one of the boats and paddle back. Johansen, who was anxiously watching, expected every moment to see his companion sink down unconscious. But Nansen’s iron will and strength conquered. Johansen gave Nansen a warm drink, and put him to bed in his sleeping bag.
Two days later Nansen went walrus hunting, and had another narrow escape. One of the walruses stuck his tusks through the side of the kayak and nearly upset it, but Nansen struck the walrus with the paddle until he loosed his hold and swam away.
Shortly after this adventure, Nansen was one day standing on a hummock, looking round over the vast desert of snow, ice, and rock. Suddenly he heard a sound like the bark of a dog, and then something very like the report of a gun. He shouted to Johansen, who called back that he heard nothing. Nevertheless, Nansen resolved to go in the direction of the sound, and find out what it was. Off he started over the hummocks. After traveling some distance he came upon the footprints of an animal. It might have been the track of a fox or a wolf, but it looked strangely like the track of a dog. Then Nansen distinctly heard a dog barking in the distance. Very soon he heard a human voice also. Wild with excitement and joy, he mounted a hummock and shouted at the top of his lungs.
An answering shout started him off at full speed in the direction from which it came. Amid a sea of hummocks, Nansen soon saw the figure of a man, followed by a dog. The two men walked toward each other, waving their hats. When they met they shook hands, and after they had exchanged a few words the stranger looked sharply at Nansen, and said, “Are you not Nansen?”
“Yes, I am.”
“By Jove! I am glad to meet you.”
The two shook hands again and again. The stranger was Jackson, the English Arctic explorer, and his ship, the Windward, was expected every day. Jackson told Nansen that the land on which he stood was Franz Josef land.
Jackson then sent a man to bring Johansen to his camp, and soon both he and Nansen were enjoying the comforts of civilized life. After fifteen months of blubber and bear meat, it was a welcome change to eat the food of white men, to sleep in beds, to read newspapers and books, and to have a change of clothing.
It was arranged that Nansen and Johansen should sail with Jackson on the Windward for Norway. The ship arrived July 26, and August 7, under a favorable wind, the whole party embarked.