I.

Introduction

Fram, Norwegian ship, the first ship built to withstand the ice-choked waters of the polar regions. The Fram was used in two famous voyages of Arctic and Antarctic exploration, during which it sailed farther north (in 1895) and farther south (in 1911) than any previous surface vessel.

II.

Construction

Norwegian explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen came up with the idea of building a ship that could withstand the forces of floating pack ice in the polar regions. He wanted to test his controversial theory that the permanent ice of the Arctic Ocean drifts with currents from east to west. To demonstrate his theory, Nansen proposed to sail a ship as far eastward as possible and allow it to be frozen into the ice; the ship would then drift with the ice floes (floating ice sheets), recording their speed and direction. He surmised that the floes would carry the ship to the North Pole. He hoped to be the first person to reach the pole.

The main difficulty of the plan was to construct a ship that would not be crushed when exposed to the extreme pressures of heavy pack ice. Many experts said it could not be done. Nansen recruited an experienced Norwegian shipbuilder of Scottish descent, Colin Archer, for the task. Together they designed the ship, which Nansen’s wife, Eva, named Fram (Norwegian for “Forward”).

The ship was constructed of wood, giving it the necessary flexibility to survive the stresses that would come from every direction on the ice. Structural beams of American elm and Italian oak, unusually thick for a ship of its size, and four layers of pine, oak, and greenheart planking produced a hull up to 80 cm (34 in) thick in places. The ship had no protuberances or plane surfaces on its underside that ice could jam against and crush. In addition, the rounded hull ensured that as the ice formed around it, the ship would be forced upwards, until it was sitting on top of the ice floe.

The ship was unusually broad (11 m/36 ft) for its length (39 m/128 ft). It had three masts and schooner-rigged sails, plus a 220-hp steam engine, giving it a cruising speed of 6 to 7 knots. An electric generator, linked to a windmill on the deck, provided power for lighting. Six layers of insulation for the interior rooms solved the problem of water vapor condensing and freezing on the walls of cabins, a bane of previous Arctic expeditions. The layers consisted, from inside to outside, of felt (made from reindeer hair), cork, softwood board, more felt, linoleum, and lastly wooden paneling. Entry to the interior from the deck was through four sets of airtight doors, and the main saloon’s skylight was triple-glazed.

III.

Nansen’s Expedition

The Fram launched in July 1893 from Vardö, Norway, with a crew of 13 men. Nansen and the ship’s captain, Otto Sverdrup, navigated along the Siberian coast to the New Siberian Islands. From there they entered the open Arctic Ocean and managed to get the ship stuck in the ice on September 22, 1893.

In March 1895, frustrated by the ship’s slower-than-expected progress, Nansen and one companion left the Fram with dogs, kayaks, and sledges to make a 640-km (400-mi) dash for the North Pole. (They turned back at latitude 86º 14’ north, short of latitude 90º at the pole but closer than anyone had gone before.) The remainder of the Fram crew continued on, and the ship reached a record-setting latitude of 85º 57’ north on October 16, 1895. The Fram emerged from the permanent ice unscathed on August 13, 1896, near the Svalbard archipelago (then known as Spitsbergen), having proved Nansen’s theory of polar ice drift.

IV.

Sverdrup’s Expedition

From 1898 to 1902 Sverdrup led a polar expedition in the Fram to Greenland. His goal was to explore Nares Strait, which separates Greenland from Ellesmere Island, and if possible to find out how far north Greenland extended. (At that time, some people believed it might reach as far as the North Pole.) In preparation, another deck was added to the Fram, and its crew was increased to 16. After sailing up Baffin Bay and into Smith Sound, however, the Fram encountered solid pack ice and could go no farther northward. Despite its sturdiness, the Fram was not designed and did not have the necessary engine power to break a channel through standing ice. Sverdrup’s expedition spent the winter at Cape Sabine, on Pim Island off the eastern coast of Ellesmere Island.

The expedition spent the next three winters in harbors on the southern coast of Ellesmere Island, as the Fram was unable to make its way through a frozen strait leading to the western coast of the island. Sverdrup named the strait Hell Gate. Nevertheless, sledging parties from the ship discovered, explored, and named many islands to the west, including the islands of Axel Heiberg, Amund Ringnes, and Ellef Ringnes. These three islands, along with a number of smaller islands, formed an archipelago that later became collectively known as the Sverdrup Islands.

V.

Amundsen’s Expedition

In 1909 Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, following his triumphant navigation of the Northwest Passage, announced that he would sail the Fram through the Bering Strait, freeze the ship into the ice, and make an attempt to reach the North Pole by foot. In preparation, he replaced the ship’s steam engine with a gasoline-powered one. However, upon hearing the news that that American explorer Robert Peary had made it to the North Pole first, Amundsen secretly changed his plan. He instead set his sights on the South Pole, which had yet to be conquered.

Setting out on August 10, 1910, with a crew of 19, Amundsen sailed the Fram south to the coast of Antarctica. On February 15, 1911, the Fram set another record, being the first ship to reach as far south as latitude 78º 41’. During the following winter months of the southern hemisphere, spent aboard the Fram, Amundsen prepared for his overland expedition to the South Pole. Amundsen and four companions set out in October 1911, disembarking the Fram at the Bay of Whales on the Ross Ice Shelf. On December 14 they triumphed as the first to reach the South Pole. Meanwhile, the Fram’s crew conducted oceanographic research along the Antarctic coast, rendezvousing with Amundsen’s party on January 27, 1912.

Amundsen still intended to make his Arctic drift attempt in the Fram, and planning was under way when the outbreak of World War I in 1914 intervened. After the war, Amundsen used a different ship for his long-postponed expedition.

VI.

Museum at Oslo

The Fram was moored at Oslo, Norway, until plans were made to preserve the ship permanently. In 1930, soon after Nansen’s death, it was brought ashore at the Bygdøy Peninsula, near the main docks at Oslo, and a museum building was constructed around it. Designed in imitation of the ancient Viking longboat sheds, the inverted-V-shaped building still houses the Fram today. The Fram Museum is part of Oslo’s Museum Center, which also includes the Norwegian Maritime Museum and the Viking Ship Museum.