NOTE ON NANSEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 June 1930, Page 10

NOTE ON NANSEN

“KNIGHTERRANT OF HUMANITY.’

Only too rarely does humanity grow to the stature of the late Dr Fridtjof Nansen. He is the same as ever —a humanitaiian who has developed naturally from the young adventurer, wrote Stanley Frost in the “Review of Reviews” on Nansen’s last visit, to America. His kindly sympathy is a part of his courage. His zest for impossible tasks is what leads him to bis missions, and all his adventures are dominated by the simplicity of a mind which cuts through shams and fears and pretences until it is convinced that it has found truth and then faces that truth utterly unafraid. Perhaps he has set before him more than is wise, but he has been right so very often.

Nansen’s adventurings began with his life, for the tale of his boyhood is full of stories of investigations carried out at the risk of life and limb, of cold-blooded daring, of athletic prowess, and of great exploits. He is credited with reviving ski-running as a sport for the whole northern world. A trip to the shores of Greenland a few years earlier had given him the idea of crossing that vast, terrifying, unexplored island on skis. The only objection was that it was impossible—everybody said so. If one were to have a safe line of retreat in case of failure, which was the common experience, one must go in from the west coast where there were settlements. But them one had to fight his way against high head Winds over the bleak central plateau. This was impossible. Nansen solved that problem in his usual simple way—he decided to go in from the east coast and have the wind in his favour. Of course this left him no liifc of retreat. He was promptly dubbed a. madman, and Norway laughed and refused to give him the ,£3OO (5000 crowns) he asked for expenses. Finally a Dane, Augustin Gamel, gave the money, and Nansen started with five companions. There is no need to tell in detail the hardships and suffering and heroism of that trip. • It. was Nansen’s personality and courage that carried the party through. It took twenty-eight days to get to the top of the inland ice; for weeks the six men dragged their sledges, through a temperature reaching 49 degrees below zero, through wind and snow flurries. “It was not always agreeable,” Nansen wrote. “The beard would freeze fast to the head coverings, and it was hard to open the mouth to speak.” The next time he went it was in the Fram, which he took and froze in the ice to allow it to test his theory of north-eastward drift towards the Pole. She reached a point three or four hundred miles of the Pole. So he took a single companion, Lieutenant Johansen, and with three dog sledges started out to “examine the sea to the north, of the ship’s course.” They could never hope to find the ship again in that frozen waste, so once more he cut himself off from his base and headed for the Pole.

ft was a hideous trip. They had hoped for smooth ice but found none. The temperatures were terrific and they had abandoned their warmest clothing for the sake of speed. They very nearly froze, and after twentyeight days had to turn back. They had then reached 86 degrees north, or 184 miles nearer the Pole than any one had yet penetrated. Nansen’s story says nothing of disappointment at turning back —it simply was necessary.

Even Nansen’s love of trouble ought to have been satisfied on that trip back. They expected to find “Petersen Land,” where there might be game, but didn’t because there was none. So they headed for Franz Josef Land': They abandoned their sledges and took to skin kiaaks and daily escaped death in the ice floes by inches. Once their kaiaks got adrift with ail their food, clothing, weapons, everything, and Nansen swam two or three hundred yards through the icy water after them. Of course he almost died, hut he took it in the run of the day’s work.

Finally winter overtook them—lost, out of food, and half starved. They found a herd of walrus and killed many, later adding some bears. These furnished food, fuel; clothes, and shelter. They built a hut of stones, snow, and walrus hides, with a. chimnqy of ice which Nansen complains had to be renewed every little while. They had a simple menu; stewed bear and fried walrus one day, stewed walrus and fried bear the next. They slept in the same bag to keep warm, on a couch of stones so uncomfortable that “our most important business throughout the winter was to bend the body into the most varied positions in order to discover the one in which the pressure of the stones was least felt.”

But they lived through, got under way again in the spring, and presently met F. C. Jackson, another Arctic explorer with a well-equipped expedition, in. Franz Josef Land, and came out with him. The Fram came through a few weeks later. On their arrival in Christiania, in August of 1895, Dr Nansen received honours such, as are seldom given. He spoke before scientific societies everywhere, later lectured in America, and formed the friendships and contacts which have made his later work possible. But. ho soon retired to his study, and for years devoted himself to “his oceans”, until the World War called him into a brilliant public career.