Fridtjof Nansen: A Book for the Young

by Jacob B. Bull

On one occasion he very nearly caused the drowning of his younger brother in the icy river. His mother appeared on the scene as he was in the act of dragging him up out of the water. She scolded him severely; but the lad tried to comfort her by saying, that “once he himself had nearly been drowned in the same river when he was quite alone.”

Once or twice on his early fishing-excursions he managed to get the fishhook caught in his lip, and his mother had to cut it out with a razor, causing the lad a great deal of pain, but he bore it all without a murmur.

The pleasures of the chase, too, were a great source of enjoyment to him in his childish years. At first he would go out after sparrows and squirrels with a bow and arrow like the Indian hunters. Naturally he did not meet with much success. It then occurred to him that a cannon would be an excellent weapon for shooting sparrows. Accordingly he procured one, and after loading it up to the muzzle with gunpowder, fired it off, with the result that the cannon burst into a hundred pieces, and a large part of the charge was lodged in his face, involving the interesting operation of having the grains of powder picked out with a needle.

The system on which the Nansen boys were brought up at Store Fröen was to inure them in both mind and body. Little weight was attached to trivial matters. The mistakes they made they must correct for themselves as far as possible; and if they brought suffering on themselves they were taught to endure it. The principles of self-help were thus inculcated at an early age—principles which they never forgot in later days.

As Fridtjof grew up from the child into the boy, the two opposite sides of his character became apparent,—inflexible determination, and a dreamy love of adventure; and the older he grew, the more marked did these become. He was, as the saying is, “a strange boy.” Strong as a young bear, he was ever foremost in fight with street boys, whom he daily met between his home and school. When the humor took him, especially if his younger brother was molested, he would fight fiercely, though the odds were three or four to one against him. But in general, he was of a quiet, thoughtful disposition.

Sometimes indeed he would sit buried in deep thought half an hour at a time, and when dressing would every now and then remain sitting with one stocking on and the other in his hand so long that his brother had to call out to him to make haste. At table, too, he would every now and then forget to eat his food, or else would devour anything and everything that came in his way.

The craving to follow out his own thoughts and his own way thus displayed itself in his early childhood, and he had not attained a great age before his longing to achieve exploits and to test his powers of endurance became apparent.

It began with a pair of ski[4] made by himself for use on the Frogner hills, developed in the hazardous leaps on the Huseby[5] slopes, and culminated in his becoming one of Norway’s cleverest and most enduring runners on ski. It began with fishing for troutlets in the river, and ended with catching seals in the Arctic seas. It began with shooting sparrows with cannons, and ended with shooting the polar bear and walrus with tiny Krag-Jörgensen conical bullets. It began with splashing about in the cold pools of the Frogner river, and ended in having to swim for dear life amid the ice floes of the frozen ocean. Persevering and precise, enduring and yet defiant, step by step he progressed.

Nothing was ever skipped over—everything was thoroughly learned and put into practice. Thus the boy produced the man!

There was a certain amount of pride in Fridtjof’s nature that under different circumstances might have proved injurious to him. He was proud of his descent, and of his faith in his own powers. But the strict and wise guidance of his parents directed this feeling into one of loyalty—loyalty toward his friends, his work, his plans. His innate pride thus became a conscientious feeling of honor in small things as well as great—a mighty lever, forsooth, to be employed in future exploits.