whole month they had scarcely advanced. On July 22 they left 

 "Longing Camp," forcing their way over huge pressure ridges, 

 and at last they had their first glimpse of land — land they had 

 dreamed about. Nansen wrote: "At last the marvfl has come to 

 pass — land, land, after we had almost given up our belief in it ! 

 After nearly two years, we again see something rising above that 

 never-ending white line on the horizon yonder — a white line which 

 for countless ages has stretched over this lonely sea, and which for 

 millenniums to come shall stretch in the same way. We are leaving 

 it, and leaving no trace behind us ; for the track of our little caravan 

 across the endless plains has long ago disappeared." 



But they were not yet out of trouble. Rain, mist, grinding ice 

 still blocked their way. On August 6 they reluctantly shot their 

 two surviving dogs and launched their kayaks, enjoying the waves 

 splashing against the sides. For two months they had not seen the 

 surface of the sea. As the wind grew stronger they rigged a sail 

 and glided easily before the wind. They paddled along the coast, 

 pushing their kayaks over the floes until, on August 14, their feet 

 again touched solid land. 



Day by day it became more apparent that there was no chance 

 of their getting back to civilization before the winter, so on August 

 28 they landed again and looked for a winter camp site. They had 

 no materials or supplies, except the rocks around them and what 

 little they had been able to bring in their kayaks, yet they were 

 determined to build a permanent winter hut. For tools they used 

 their cut-off sledge runners and a spade made from a walrus' 

 shoulder blade tied to a broken ski pole. 



Their stone hut was anything but satisfactory: it was six feet 

 long and ten feet wide. On separate benches of stone they slept 

 with only a blanket over them and bear skins under them. When 

 the long Arctic night set in they spent their Christmas in their snowy, 

 rocky den, "feasting" on the few precious sledge rations and lighted 

 by a homemade lamp fueled with oil from blubber. They had 

 nothing to read except part of a nautical almanac. And so they 

 spent their winter — grimy and dirty with oil, dreaming of shops and 

 new, clean, woolen clothing. During most of the winter they 

 managed to sleep for many hours (sometimes twenty out of twenty- 

 four), and occasionally on fine nights they went out walking by the 

 light of the moon. For nearly nine months Nansen and Johansen 

 lived in soHtude in the frozen winter of Franz Josef Land. 



It was not until May 1 9 that they decided to leave. After setting 

 out and traveling about eighty miles over ice they reached water, 

 at which point they put their kayaks in the sea again and prepared 

 to move. Then disaster threatened. The kayaks were moored in- 

 securely to the ice and drifted away. Nansen quickly tore off his 

 clothes and dived into the icy water after them. As the current 

 continued to carry them offshore it became a race for life itself. At 

 last Nansen reached the kayaks, managed to scramble into one of 

 them and started to paddle back to the floe. Even though he was 

 exhausted and nearly frozen, on seeing two birds bobbing on the 

 water he drew his gun and shot them. Johansen thought that he 

 must have gone mad, until he remembered that their rations were 

 dangerously short. Afterwards Johansen admitted that the race for 

 the kayaks was the worst time he had lived through. 



Then came one of the most remarkable encounters in the history 



Nansen made this sketch of himself and 

 Johansen during their winter confinement 

 in a stone hut on Franz Josef Land. They 

 slept on stone benches with a bearskin 

 beneath them and one blanket to cover them. 



Pressure ridges, mountainlike walls of ice 

 on the move, were an almost constant threat 

 to the Fram. This one was recently 

 photographed in the Canadian Arctic. 



63 



