1861: Fridtjof Nansen is born. He will become a towering figure
in Arctic exploration, the natural sciences and international
diplomacy. Nansen, born outside of Oslo, Norway, grew up hard
and fit … and intellectually curious. He developed an early
interest in science and studied zoology at the university before
shipping aboard the Norwegian sealer Viking in 1882. He made
extensive observations of the Greenland fauna, especially bears
and seals, and returned to serve for six years as zoological
curator at the Bergen Museum — meanwhile earning his doctorate
by defending the neuron theory as it pertains to the central
nervous system. But Fridtjof Nansen also returned with a passion
for the Far North and an unquenchable thirst for adventure.
Nansen returned to Greenland in 1888, skiing from east to west
across the interior’s massive ice fields. The trek yielded new
scientific information about the frozen island, but it also
served as a dress rehearsal for Nansen’s attempt, in 1893, to
reach the North Pole. Sailin