Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930), Norwegian explorer, scientist, statesman, author, and Nobel laureate.

Nansen was born in Store Froën. He explored Greenland in 1882 and again in 1888, recording his experiences in The First Crossing of Greenland (1890) and Eskimo Life (1891). From 1893 to 1896 Nansen engaged in exploration of the Arctic regions, attaining 86°14’ N, the most northerly point reached up to that time. The ship he used during this expedition, called the Fram, was specially constructed to withstand the great pressure of ice. He described this journey in Farthest North (1897) and The Norwegian North Polar Expedition (6 volumes, 1900-1906).

In 1905 Nansen took part in the movement that led to the peaceful separation of Norway and Sweden and served (1906-1908) as the first Norwegian minister to Britain. From 1910 to 1914 he engaged in various explorations in the North Atlantic Ocean, Arctic Ocean, and Siberia. In 1917 he headed a commission to the U.S. to arrange various commercial agreements and in 1918 was a delegate to the Assembly of the League of Nations. He arranged for the repatriation of war prisoners in 1920, and from 1921 to 1923 he had general charge of the Red Cross famine relief in the Volga and South Ukraine regions of the USSR. For this latter work he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922. In 1927 he represented Norway on the disarmament committee of the League of Nations. The league honored him by creating (1931) the Nansen International Office for Refugees, which won the 1938 Nobel Peace Prize.

Nansen wrote, in addition to works already mentioned, The Oceanography of the North Polar Basin (1902), Through Siberia, the Land of the Future (1914), Spitzenbergen (1922), and Armenia and the Near East (1928).