Adventure & Knowledge - Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen was, as his biographer Walter Bauer writes, a polar explorer, zoologist, geographer, meteorologist, oceanographer, designer, organizer, writer, professor and rector, envoy, League of Nations delegate, high commissioner, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In 1888, he became the first person to cross Greenland and formed a friendship with the Inuit, whose fascinating way of life he studied for months. In July 1893, Fridtjof Nansen embarked on his legendary expedition with the Fram into the Arctic Ocean: he aimed to be the first person to reach the North Pole. Intentionally, he allowed the ship to become trapped in the pack ice to drift with the ocean currents. He then decided to reach the North Pole on foot. Exposed to the merciless icy conditions, Nansen and his companion Johansen faced life-and-death situations more than once during this expedition. Over a hundred years later, Swiss mountain guide and adventurer Thomas Ulrich follows in Nansen's footsteps into the eternal ice with Norwegian polar explorer Borge Ousland. He, who sees himself as a modern adventurer, recounts his most thrilling experiences here.