but he was determined to visit Greenland again and become the 

 first man to cross it. With five companions, including two Lapps, 

 he sailed from Iceland on June 4, 1888 in the sealer /aj-oa. On 

 July 28, after many days of fatiguing, grim battle with the pack ice 

 off the coast, they reached the mainland, and on August 10 they set 

 out on their main journey across the icecap. As they had worked 

 their way north along the coast to Umivik, from where they were 

 to start their overland journey, they had seen icebergs that were 

 strikingly beautiful. Nansen describes one with ". . . hollowed 

 grottoes so large that a small ship could readily have ridden within 

 their shelter . . . [with] marvelous effects and tints of blue, . . . the 

 whole formed a floating fairy palace, built of sapphires, about the 

 sides of which brooks ran and cascades fell." 



After preliminary reconnaissance they fought their way past 

 huge crevasses and onto the main ice sheet, hauling sledges as they 

 went. It was a testing journey. Each night, as the temperature 

 plunged into the minus 40s, frostbite threatened them. Even when 

 the sun shone, frozen mist seemed to form a halo around it. Storms 

 of wind and snow plagued them, and as they penetrated deeper into 

 the heart of Greenland, Nansen began to worry about completing 

 the journey so late in the season. At last, on September 19, they saw 

 land ahead— a towering range of mountains. With the wind behind 

 them they drove rapidly on, literally sailing their sledges over the 

 ice. On reaching Godthaab, Nansen became the first to cross the 

 Greenland icecap. Unfortunately, the expedition was too late to 

 catch the ship back to Europe, so they were forced to spend the 

 winter in western Greenland until the following May when Nansen 

 sailed home and was given a tremendous welcome. 



In 1884, Nansen read of the disaster of the American ship 

 Jeannette, which sank in 1 8 8 1 off the coast of Siberia. Her captain 

 was Lieutenant Commander George Washington De Long. Three 

 years after his ship sank and De Long had lost his life, a few pieces 

 of equipment and a pair of oilskin breeches were found frozen in 

 the ice on the southwest coast of Greenland. A Norwegian scholar, 

 Professor Mohn, "conjectured that they must have drifted on a 

 floe right across the Polar Sea." When Nansert heard of this he 

 could see only one explanation — they must have drifted in the pack 

 right across the Arctic, emerging in the ice belt on the east coast of 

 Greenland, having traveled south around Cape Farewell (as the ice 

 in fact moves), and landing up at Julianehaab. Driftwood used by 

 the Greenland Eskimos gave Nansen still more evidence. It could 

 come only from the Siberian rivers that emptied into the Arctic 

 Ocean. All this led him to conclude "that a current flows at some 

 point between the Pole and Franz Josef Land from the Siberian 

 Arctic sea to the east coast of Greenland." 



Nansen now hit on the remarkable plan of freezing a ship into 

 the ice and letting it be carried all the way across the sea. Unlike 

 other explorers, he reckoned that, properly designed, such a ship 

 could take him in comfort and safety, and might even carry him to 

 the North Pole itself. But true scientist that he was, his intention 

 was not just to reach the North Pole, but to investigate the whole 

 unknown region. 



Many of the experts were against him, especially the pundits of 

 the British Royal Geographical Society, but Nansen managed to 

 get the support he needed from the Norwegian government and 



Nansen, in expedition dress, p/iotographed 

 outside Fredenct< Jacl^son's hut, June 17, 1896. 



57 



