who was later to make his own reputation as a Polar explorer. The 

 Fram slipped out of the harbor in Oslo and they set a course across 

 the Barents Sea. Four days later they sighted Novaya Zemlya, 

 north of the Urals, and in two more days they found themselves in 

 the grips of ice. Here was the Fram's first chance to show her mettle. 

 "She twists and turns like a ball on a platter," Nansen wrote, 

 "... the ship swings round, and wriggles her way forward among 

 the floes without touching if there is an opening only just wide 

 enough to slip through, and where there is none she drives full 

 tilt at the ice . . . runs sloping bows up on it, treads it under and 

 bursts the floes asunder . . . even when she goes full speed at a floe, 

 not a creak, not a sound, is to be heard in her." 



Steadily the Fram pushed eastward. From time to time the crew 

 ventured ashore to hunt reindeer or polar bear. Nansen wrote: 

 "There was that strange Arctic hush and misty light over every- 

 thing, that greenish-white light caused by the reflection from the 

 ice being cast high into the air . . . against masses of vapor the dark 

 land offering a wonderful contrast." 



In one place they encountered that extraordinary phenomenon 

 of dead water. This occurs when the ship makes a large undersea 

 wave in the boundary layer between a layer of fresh water resting 

 on a layer of salty water. Because the water on top of the undersea 

 wave moves backward, the progress of a low-powered ship is 

 deadened. Nansen found that while the water on the surface was 

 fresh enough to drink, the water entering the bottom cock of the 

 engine room was too salty to be used for the boiler. 



Ice and the hazards of a badly charted route added to their 

 difficulties. They were, in fact, following the famous Northeast 

 Passage, first completed by Baron Nordenskjold in his famous ship 

 Vega fourteen years before. But at last they found their way through 

 the Taimyr Strait, and Cape Chelyuskin lay ahead, jutting far to 

 the north. They rounded the cape and continued into the open 

 water beyond. On September i8 they were in lat. 75°3o'N. and 

 Nansen decided to head for the northern ice. On they sailed, mile 

 after mile through open sea, and on Wednesday the twentieth they 

 faced the main ice pack barrier. Nansen wrote: "I have had a rough 

 awakening from my dreams. As I was sitting at 1 1 a.m. looking at 

 the map and thinking that my cup would soon be full — we had 

 almost reached 78° — there was a sudden luff and I rushed out 

 Ahead of us lay the edge of the ice, long and compact, shining 

 through the fog." It was at this position that Nansen decided to 

 allow the Fram to be frozen in, so they settled down to make 

 preparations for life in winter quarters. His September twenty-fifth 

 diary entry read: "Freezing in faster and faster! Beautiful still 

 weather; 13 degrees of frost last night. Winter is coming . . . ." 



Now Nansen's faith was to be tested. The ship was bedded in 

 a good berth and they had to wait for the current to take them on 

 their journey. As the temperature continued to drop they carried on 

 their scientific work — taking soundings and dredging for plankton. 



Soon they had their first real encounter with the kind of ice 

 that can crush a ship as if it were a matchbox. "First you hear a 

 sound like the thundering rumble of an earthquake far away on 

 the great waste," Nansen wrote, "then you hear it in several places, 

 always coming nearer and nearer. The silent ice world re-echoes 

 with thunders; nature's giants are awakening to the battle. The ice 



Nansen's men took meteorological readings 

 every four hours day and night. Here, Scott- 

 Hansen and Nordahl pose by the observatory, 

 witli its thermometer housing protected by a 

 wind screen. Below/: A scientist on a recent 

 Arctic expedition prepares to lower a Nansen 

 bottle. Designed by Nansen , the device samples 

 water at chosen depths, records its temperature. 



59 



