LAST ADVENTURE

Hawera Star, Volume L, 28 November 1930, Page 9

LAST ADVENTURE

®— ARCTIC EXPLORER’S DEATH. FOLLOWER OF NANSEN. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright 1 LONDON, Nov. 26. The death is announced of the Polar Explorer, Otto Sverdrup. With the late Dr. Fritdjof Nansen and five other companions, Otto- Sverdrup succeeding in landing on the east cost of Greenland in August, 1888. The party overcame great difficulties in penertating the ice lioes and reached 61 degrees north, gaining a height ol 8920 feet on the- inland ice, which was crossed on .ski in two weeks to the west coast.

On September 16. they reached' the head of the Ameralik fiord, having travelled 260 miles on the glacier. An important principle acted upon for the first time in Arctic travel on this journey was that of starting from the less accessible side and pushing straight through with no possibility of turning back and thus with no- necessity for forming a base or traversing the same route twice over.

Sverdrup was also the captain of the famous Frarn when she- left Christiania in the summer of 1893 and was frozen into the ice for her great north-west-ward drift to the highest latitude ever reached by any snip. The Fram was run into- the ice- at 77 degrees north and reached 85 degrees north.

The ice was finally broken by blasting. and the ship reached Spitzbe-rgen in August. 1896. After a second winter on the Fram, at a, time when the ship’s northward movement seemed checked, Nansen made lfi.s overland journey, exploring, the surroundings. Sverdrup brought back the whip safelv with skilful guidance, and the- expedition yielded a great harvest of scientific results.