60 Fun Facts About Fridtjof Nansen

Nansen was born in 1861 near which capital city, then called Christiania?

He grew up at Store Frøen, a rural estate a few kilometres north of the city, swimming, hunting and skiing.

In which year did Nansen win the Nobel Peace Prize?

He learned of the award while attending the Conference of Lausanne and donated the prize money to relief efforts.

How did Nansen's six-man team make the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888?

The party man-hauled lightweight sledges of Nansen's own design from the uninhabited east coast towards the settled west.

What record northern latitude did Nansen reach during the Fram expedition?

It was almost three degrees beyond the previous record and stood until an Italian expedition passed it in 1900.

What subject did Nansen study at the Royal Frederick University in Christiania?

He later said he chose it because it offered the chance of a life in the open air.

Nansen's doctoral research on marine creatures helped establish which idea?

He is considered the first Norwegian defender of the theory; Santiago Ramón y Cajal won a Nobel Prize for the same subject in 1906.

At age 18 Nansen broke a world record in which sport?

He broke the one-mile skating record and the following year won the first of twelve national cross-country skiing titles.

At what age did Nansen begin skiing, on improvised skis?

At ten he defied his parents to try the Huseby ski jump and bored into the snow up to his waist.

On which sealing ship did the young Nansen make his first Arctic voyage in 1882?

From water samples he showed that sea ice forms on the surface rather than below, and shot seals with the crew.

Nansen planned the Greenland crossing from east to west. Why?

Starting on the uninhabited east coast made it a one-way trip towards settlements, which suited his philosophy completely.

Who funded the Greenland expedition after Norway's parliament refused?

Augustin Gamél's donation was topped up by small contributions from Norwegians, raised by university students.

Which people, on Nordenskiöld's advice, did Nansen recruit for the Greenland crossing?

Samuel Balto and Ole Nielsen Ravna came from Finnmark; the Telemark skiers Nansen first approached had turned him down.

How many days did the Greenland crossing take, from Umivik to Godthaab?

The party reached a height of 2,719 metres on the ice cap, where night temperatures fell to minus 45 degrees Celsius.

What news greeted Nansen on reaching Godthaab in October 1888?

He had left for Greenland before learning the outcome of his thesis defence, and said the matter could not have been further from his thoughts.

Why did the party spend seven months in Greenland after the crossing?

The Danish ship Hvidbjørnen finally arrived on 15 April 1889, and Nansen wrote a book, Eskimo Life, from the stay.

Whom did Nansen marry in September 1889, less than a month after their engagement?

She was a celebrated mezzo-soprano and pioneer of women's skiing; the couple had first met when he saw two feet sticking out of the snow.

Whose theory of transpolar drift inspired Nansen's plan for the Fram expedition?

The meteorologist reasoned from Jeannette wreckage found on Greenland's coast that a current crossed the polar sea.

Wreckage from which sunken American ship suggested a current across the Arctic Ocean?

She was crushed off the Siberian coast in June 1881; her relics turned up on the far side of the Arctic in Greenland.

Which American explorer called the drift plan 'an illogical scheme of self-destruction'?

He later criticised Nansen again, in Harper's Weekly, for leaving his ship to strike for the pole.

Who designed and built the Fram?

The naval engineer gave the ship a rounded hull meant to lift her upward when squeezed by pack ice.

Roughly how long was the Fram?

At 11 metres wide she looked stubby, but speed mattered less than surviving years locked in ice.

Who served as second-in-command on the Fram expedition?

He had crossed Greenland with Nansen and later commanded the Fram alone after Nansen left the ship for the pole.

In what capacity did the dog-driving expert Hjalmar Johansen sign on to the Fram?

Competition for places was so fierce that the army lieutenant took the only position still available.

In which year did the Fram leave Christiania on the polar drift expedition?

She departed on 24 June and left Vardø, her last Norwegian port, on 21 July for the Siberian coast.

Which phenomenon slowed the Fram along the Siberian coast?

A layer of fresh water on top of heavier salt water creates friction that drags on a ship's progress.

At about what rate did the Fram usually drift north through 1894?

Nansen calculated the ship might need five years to reach the pole, which is why he began planning a dog-sledge dash.

On what date did Nansen and Johansen leave the Fram for their dash to the pole?

Nansen allowed 50 days to cover the 660 kilometres to the pole; they turned back on 7 April.

What navigational mistake did the pair make on 13 April 1895?

Without accurate time they could not fix their longitude, and were uncertain of their true position for the rest of the trek.

Where did Nansen and Johansen spend the winter of 1895-96?

They built a hut of stones and moss and lived for eight months on bear, walrus and seal; boredom, not hunger, was the enemy.

Which British explorer stumbled upon Nansen at Cape Flora in June 1896?

After an awkward pause Jackson asked "You are Nansen, aren't you?" and got the reply "Yes, I am Nansen."

Which animal's attack on the kayaks caused the delay that led to the rescue?

Nansen wrote that without the attack the two parties might never have known of each other's existence.

Where did the Fram emerge from the ice in 1896, exactly as Nansen had predicted?

She had not passed over the pole, nor beaten Nansen's own northern mark, and headed for Tromsø.

What was the English title of Nansen's account of the Fram expedition?

He wrote 300,000 words of Norwegian text in a few months; the book secured his long-term financial future.

Whose party passed Nansen's northern record in April 1900?

The Italians reached 86°34′N from the same archipelago where Nansen had wintered; he remarked that goals for their own sake all vanish.

What did Nansen name the large house he built at Lysaker in 1902?

The name means polar heights; his ashes were later laid under a tree there and it now houses the Fridtjof Nansen Institute.

On a secret 1905 mission, whom did Nansen persuade to accept the Norwegian throne?

He took the name Haakon VII and was crowned with his British wife Maud at Nidaros Cathedral in 1906.

What diplomatic post did Nansen hold from 1906 to 1908?

He helped negotiate the Integrity Treaty guaranteeing Norway's independence, but found court functions frivolous and boring.

Nansen's Fram data helped a Swedish physicist establish which oceanographic principle?

Ekman concluded that wind on the sea surface produced currents like a spiral staircase down towards the depths.

What is a Nansen bottle used for?

Designed in 1894, it stayed in use into the 21st century in the version updated by Shale Niskin.

To whom did Nansen hand over the Fram, marking his retirement from exploration?

The ship was meant for a North Pole drift; when Amundsen secretly turned south instead, Nansen stood by him.

Which countryman did Nansen refuse to meet because he considered him a fraud?

By contrast he advised Robert Falcon Scott on equipment before the Discovery expedition and consulted for the Duke of the Abruzzi.

What post did Nansen accept in the League of Nations in September 1921?

His brief was the resettlement of some two million Russians displaced by the revolution.

How many prisoners of war did Nansen report repatriated in his final 1922 report?

They were returned to around 30 countries; 300,000 had been stranded in revolutionary Russia.

The Nansen passport was a travel document for whom?

By 1942 the papers were honoured by 52 governments and about 450,000 had been issued.

Which event precipitated the creation of the Nansen passport in 1922?

Some 800,000 refugees from the Russian Civil War were left without any nation to issue them papers.

Which future Nazi collaborator was Nansen's main assistant on Armenian refugee work?

Nansen's plan to irrigate 360 square kilometres of Soviet Armenia for 15,000 refugees failed for lack of money.

Nansen devised a population exchange between which two countries after their 1919-22 war?

Half a million Turks in Greece were returned with compensation while loans helped Greece absorb its refugees.

Which body, set up in 1930 to continue his refugee work, won the 1938 Nobel Peace Prize?

It secured 14 countries' agreement to the 1933 Refugee Convention and helped 10,000 Armenians return to Yerevan.

Nansen was elected Rector of which Scottish university in 1926?

He was the first foreigner to hold the largely honorary post; his inaugural address ended with a call to seek 'a Land of Beyond' in life.

Nansen hoped to reach the North Pole by what means late in life?

He could not raise the money, and Amundsen flew over the pole in Nobile's airship Norge in May 1926.

What music was played at Nansen's non-religious state funeral in 1930?

There were no speeches; his daughter Liv recorded that it was a piece his first wife Eva used to sing.

What was the UNHCR's Nansen Medal, established in 1954, later renamed?

Originally the Nansen Medal, it honours outstanding work on behalf of the forcibly displaced.

Who played Nansen in the 1985 television serial The Last Place on Earth?

Trond Espen Seim later played him in the 2019 film Amundsen.

What did the explorer call the device he invented to make spirit stoves more efficient?

He also devised a sledge with broad ski-like runners and pioneered layered lightweight clothing for polar travel.

Nansen's ancestor Hans, an early White Sea explorer, became mayor of which city in 1654?

The family lived in the Danish capital until the mid-18th century, when Ancher Antoni Nansen moved to Norway.

What was the profession of Nansen's father, Baldur?

He became Reporter to the Supreme Court of Norway and settled at Store Frøen, an estate a few kilometres north of Christiania.

In which Norwegian city did Nansen spend six years as a zoological curator before Greenland?

He took the post on Collett's recommendation instead of resuming formal university studies.

What did Nansen do with his Nobel Peace Prize money?

He learned of the award while attending the Conference of Lausanne in November 1922.

Whom did Nansen marry in January 1919, in a match resented by his children?

She was a long-time friend with whom he had had an affair in 1905 while his first wife Eva was still alive; the marriage proved unhappy.

Which anti-communist political grouping did Nansen co-found in 1924?

Former prime minister Christian Michelsen persuaded him to join; he headlined its biggest rally, 15,000 strong, at Tønsberg in 1928.