North Polar Regions.
We must turn aside for a moment from these efforts to get farther and farther north, to mention the exploits of that distinguished Swedish explorer, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. As early as 1873 Nordenskiöld began to think that the North-East Passage by the Siberian coast might, when found, prove to be of great commercial value, and after some preliminary expeditions he, in 1878, set out in the Vega on his great voyage, and in August the ship passed Cape Chelyuskin, the most northerly point of the Old World. By September, however, the Vega, when very near to the completion of her task, was so surrounded by ice that she could proceed no farther, and for ten months she was held a prisoner. Not until the following July was the Vega free to resume her voyage, and shortly afterwards she rounded East Cape, and saluted "the easternmost coast of Asia in honour of the completing of the North-East Passage." Nordenskiöld, both as an explorer and as a man of science, has left the world greatly in his debt, and it has been well said that "when he died, a vast amount of knowledge died with him."
Nordenskiöld's name, like Fridtjof Nansen's, is intimately connected with exploratory work in Greenland. Nansen was born in 1861, and he was only twenty-seven years of age when his devotion to discovery led him to make an expedition on lines that were as courageous as they were original. Up to this date, 1888, the recognized method employed in Polar exploratory work had been to establish a base where stores were placed, and from this base to march as far as possible in various directions. But when Nansen determined to cross Greenland from east to west, he paid no attention to recognized methods. With five companions he, in June, 1888, was taken in the Jason to the ice's edge on the east coast of Greenland, and there the explorers, hoping shortly to reach land, took to their boats. Some time, however, passed before they could make a landing, but eventually a suitable place was found, and then they began their great march. With no base to which they could return, the party had literally taken their lives into their hands, for failure almost certainly meant death.
Starting on 22nd August, the party, four days later, had mounted to a height of 6,000 feet, and by the middle of September had reached the summit (8,250 feet). Eventually the explorers managed to reach the Danish settlement at Godthaab, and in the following year returned to Norway. It was a fine effort, fruitful alike in geographical discovery and in meteorological results; and, famous as Nansen's name subsequently and deservedly became, by no means his least claim to honour is derived from this great march across Greenland.
Between 1892 and 1895 the American Lieutenant Peary, using dogs for purposes of traction, made two successful marches across Greenland, and so prepared himself for the attacks on the North Pole itself—attacks which he was ultimately to bring to a successful conclusion. The date 1893 will always be renowned in the history of Arctic exploration, for during that year Nansen embarked upon his remarkable voyage in his no less remarkable ship, the Fram.
From careful observations and investigations Nansen was convinced that there was a continuous drift of ice from the north-east shore of Siberia across the Arctic Ocean. Hitherto, Arctic explorers had struggled hard to avoid being beset by ice. Far from following in their wake, it was Nansen's plan to get his vessel frozen in the pack, and then to drift towards the Pole.
It would be untruthful to say that his plan was encouraged by the majority of Arctic experts, but Nansen was not the man to be dissuaded from any project which, after consideration, he had taken in hand. For such a voyage an especially constructed ship was necessary, and so Mr. Colin Archer was instructed to build a vessel specially designed to resist ice-pressure. The main object of Nansen and Archer was that "she should slip like an eel out of the embraces of the ice."
Nansen calculated that the drift would take about three years, and he provisioned the Fram for five years. On this historic voyage Nansen was accompanied by twelve other adventurous men. Sailing from Norway in July, 1893, the Kara Sea was crossed, and early in September Cape Chelyuskin was rounded. About a fortnight later the ship was frozen in, and the great drift began. During the next months the Fram was given ample opportunity to prove her worth, and she seized it nobly. In October great pressure from the ice was experienced, but both then and later the ship resisted, and rose to, the pressure. During her first year in the ice the Fram drifted a distance of 189 miles.