Artist as well as explorer, Nansen did 

 many drawings (like this of the aurora 

 borealis) during his Arctic expedition. 



Nansen and Johansen now set off into the icy wilderness on 

 March 14, 1895, leaving the Fram to her fate, and seeking their own. 

 There could be no return, for the moving pack would make it 

 impossible for them to retrace their footsteps to the safety of the 

 Fram. Gradually the Fram slipped from sight as Nansen and 

 Johansen struggled over the jumble of ice - two men attempting 

 to guide three dog-drawn sledges, an awkward arrangement as they 

 soon discovered. Although occasionally they met smooth ice, much 

 of it was rough and ridged, and there were occasional patches of 

 open water, although it was only March. Soon they had to kill the 

 first of their dogs to feed the others. As they pressed north they 

 fell into a daily routine: hard work during the day, then camp, 

 putting up their tent and crawling into their sleeping bags with 

 their clothes frozen and stiff. 



As if their daily hardships were not enough, each time Nansen 

 plotted their position he found that they had not made the progress 

 north he had hoped for. The current must be taking them away 

 from the Pole, he thought. A discouraged Nansen soon realized 

 that it would be impossible for them to reach the Pole itself, but 

 they had gone farther north than any man, and on April 8 an ob- 

 servation showed they had reached lat. 86°i3'36"N., only 226 

 miles from the Pole. After a ceremonial "banquet" to celebrate this, 

 Nansen and Johansen directed their march back — not to the Fram, 

 but to Franz Josef Land. Where, Nansen wondered, was the Framl 



The weather began to get warmer, and their going was tempo- 

 rarily better. They had the occasional good day, and on one they 

 covered twenty-five miles. But before long, blizzards blocked their 

 path, and lanes of open water with loose brash ice floating in it 

 slowed them down. At one point they found a large piece of 

 Siberian larch stuck in the ice and on it they carved their initials and 

 latitude, 85°3o'N. 



By the end of May they were seriously worried about their 

 provisions. Although they knew their latitude was 82°3o'N., and 

 they should be near land, their longitude was a source for anxiety 

 because their chronometer watches had run down. Caught amid a 

 maze of open channels, by June they found it almost impossible to 

 move, yet they fought on through slush and melting snow. Soon 

 there were only five dogs left. On June 12 Nansen wrote: "[The 

 situation] is getting worse and worse. Yesterday we did nothing, 

 hardly advanced more than a mile. Wretched snow, uneven ice, 

 lanes and villainous weather." Yet they were cheered by the sight 

 of a water sky in the south. On June 14 they were completely 

 stopped and their supplies were getting short. Finally, as they 

 launched their kayaks Nansen noticed a large bearded seal. Quickly 

 he hurled his ready harpoon into the back of the animal which, 

 moments earlier, Johansen had shot and wounded. Nansen wrote : 

 "Halfpast nine a.m., after a good breakfast of seal's-flesh, seal liver, 

 blubber and soup. Here we lie dreaming dreams of brightness ; life 

 is all sunshine again. What a little incident is necessary to change 

 the whole aspect of affairs!" 



At least urgency was gone for they had plenty of food and fuel, 

 so much that Nansen decided to camp and await events. His diary 

 at this time is full of the delights of seal and how to cook it, how 

 to make blood cakes with sugar, etc. Slowly they drifted south, but 

 oh how slowly. June passed and they realized that during the 



62 



