88 Facts About Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian polymath and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Fridtjof Nansen gained prominence at various points in his life as an explorer, scientist, diplomat, and humanitarian.

Fridtjof Nansen led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, traversing the island on cross-country skis.

Fridtjof Nansen worked on behalf of refugees alongside Vidkun Quisling until his sudden death in 1930, after which the League established the Nansen International Office for Refugees to ensure that his work continued.

Fridtjof Nansen's name is commemorated in numerous geographical features, particularly in the polar regions.

Hans Fridtjof Nansen, a trader, was an early explorer of the White Sea region of the Arctic Ocean.

Later generations of the family lived in Copenhagen until the mid-18th century, when Ancher Antoni Fridtjof Nansen moved to Norway.

At school, Fridtjof Nansen worked adequately without showing any particular aptitude.

Fridtjof Nansen became an accomplished skier and a highly proficient skater.

Fridtjof Nansen's sporting prowess continued to develop; at 18 he broke the world one-mile skating record, and in the following year won the national cross-country skiing championship, a feat he would repeat on 11 subsequent occasions.

In 1880 Fridtjof Nansen passed his university entrance examination, the examen artium.

Fridtjof Nansen decided to study zoology, claiming later that he chose the subject because he thought it offered the chance of a life in the open air.

Fridtjof Nansen began his studies at the Royal Frederick University in Christiania early in 1881.

Fridtjof Nansen was enthusiastic, and made arrangements through a recent acquaintance, Captain Axel Krefting, commander of the sealer Viking.

Fridtjof Nansen's readings demonstrated that the Gulf Stream flows beneath a cold layer of surface water.

Fridtjof Nansen became an expert marksman, and on one day proudly recorded that his team had shot 200 seals.

Fridtjof Nansen's chosen area of study was the then relatively unexplored field of neuroanatomy, specifically the central nervous system of lower marine creatures.

Fridtjof Nansen is considered the first Norwegian defender of the neuron theory, originally proposed by Santiago Ramon y Cajal.

Fridtjof Nansen rejected the complex organisation and heavy manpower of other Arctic ventures, and instead planned his expedition for a small party of six.

Fridtjof Nansen wanted expert skiers, and attempted to recruit from the skiers of Telemark, but his approaches were rebuffed.

Just before the party's departure, Fridtjof Nansen attended a formal examination at the university, which had agreed to receive his doctoral thesis.

Fridtjof Nansen left before knowing the outcome of this process.

Fridtjof Nansen ordered the team back into the boats after a brief rest and to begin rowing north.

Fridtjof Nansen ordered a change of course due west, towards Godthaab; a shorter journey by at least 150 kilometres.

Fridtjof Nansen soon learned no ship was likely to call at Godthaab until the following spring.

Fridtjof Nansen accepted the position of curator of the Royal Frederick University's zoology collection, a post which carried a salary but involved no duties; the university was satisfied by the association with the explorer's name.

The RGS president, Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff, said that Fridtjof Nansen has claimed "the foremost place amongst northern travellers", and later awarded him the Society's prestigious Patron's Medal.

Fridtjof Nansen was invited by a group of Australians to lead an expedition to Antarctica, but declined, believing that Norway's interests would be better served by a North Pole conquest.

On 11 August 1889 Fridtjof Nansen announced his engagement to Eva Sars, the daughter of Michael Sars, a zoology professor who had died when Eva was 11 years old.

The couple had met some years previously, at the skiing resort of Frognerseteren, where Fridtjof Nansen recalled seeing "two feet sticking out of the snow".

Eva was three years older than Fridtjof Nansen, and despite the evidence of this first meeting, was an accomplished skier.

Fridtjof Nansen was a celebrated classical singer who had been coached in Berlin by Desiree Artot, one-time paramour of Tchaikovsky.

The engagement surprised many; since Fridtjof Nansen had previously expressed himself forcefully against the institution of marriage, Otto Sverdrup assumed he had read the message wrongly.

Fridtjof Nansen first began to consider the possibility of reaching the North Pole after reading meteorologist Henrik Mohn's theory on transpolar drift in 1884.

Fridtjof Nansen developed a detailed plan for a polar venture after his triumphant return from Greenland.

Fridtjof Nansen made his idea public in February 1890, at a meeting of the newly formed Norwegian Geographical Society.

Fridtjof Nansen still managed to secure a grant from the Norwegian parliament after an impassioned speech.

Fridtjof Nansen chose naval engineer Colin Archer to design and build a ship.

Fridtjof Nansen selected a party of twelve from thousands of applicants.

Fridtjof Nansen followed the line of the pack northwards to a position recorded as.

Fridtjof Nansen calculated that, at this rate, it might take the ship five years to reach the pole.

Fridtjof Nansen went to investigate, and a few minutes later saw the figure of a man approaching.

Fridtjof Nansen later wrote that he could "still scarcely grasp" their sudden change of fortune; had it not been for the walrus attack that caused the delay, the two parties might have been unaware of each other's existence.

Fridtjof Nansen had not passed over the pole, nor exceeded Nansen's northern mark.

The crew were received by King Oscar, and Fridtjof Nansen, reunited with family, remained at the palace for several days as special guests.

Tributes arrived from all over the world; typical was that from the British mountaineer Edward Whymper, who wrote that Fridtjof Nansen had made "almost as great an advance as has been accomplished by all other voyages in the nineteenth century put together".

In 1900, Fridtjof Nansen became director of the Christiania-based International Laboratory for North Sea Research, and helped found the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea.

Fridtjof Nansen was now considered an oracle by all would-be explorers of the north and south polar regions.

At one point Fridtjof Nansen seriously considered leading a South Pole expedition himself, and asked Colin Archer to design two ships.

The family home, which Fridtjof Nansen had built in 1891 from the profits of his Greenland expedition book, was now too small.

Fridtjof Nansen acquired a plot of land in the Lysaker district and built, substantially to his own design, a large and imposing house which combined some of the characteristics of an English manor house with features from the Italian renaissance.

Fridtjof Nansen wrote a book, Norway and the Union with Sweden, to promote Norway's case abroad.

Fridtjof Nansen was successful; shortly after the second referendum Charles was proclaimed king, taking the name Haakon VII.

Fridtjof Nansen was popular in England, and got on well with King Edward, though he found court functions and diplomatic duties disagreeable; "frivolous and boring" was his description.

The Treaty was signed on 2 November 1907, and Fridtjof Nansen considered his task complete.

Fridtjof Nansen had been persuaded by his government to rescind his resignation until after King Edward's state visit to Norway in April 1908.

Fridtjof Nansen had by now retired from polar exploration, the decisive step being his release of Fram to fellow Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who was planning a North Pole expedition.

Between 1910 and 1914, Fridtjof Nansen participated in several oceanographic voyages.

One of Fridtjof Nansen's lasting contributions to oceanography was his work designing instruments and equipment; the "Fridtjof Nansen bottle" for taking deep water samples remained in use into the 21st century, in a version updated by Shale Niskin.

At the request of the Royal Geographical Society, Fridtjof Nansen began work on a study of Arctic discoveries, which developed into a two-volume history of the exploration of the northern regions up to the beginning of the 16th century.

Fridtjof Nansen published a report from the trip in Through Siberia.

Immediately before the First World War, Fridtjof Nansen joined Helland-Hansen in an oceanographical cruise in eastern Atlantic waters.

Fridtjof Nansen was appointed as the president of the Norwegian Union of Defence, but had few official duties, and continued with his professional work as far as circumstances permitted.

Fridtjof Nansen was dispatched to Washington by the Norwegian government; after months of discussion, he secured food and other supplies in return for the introduction of a rationing system.

The foundation of the League at this time was providential as far as Fridtjof Nansen was concerned, giving him a new outlet for his restless energy.

Fridtjof Nansen became president of the Norwegian League of Nations Society, and although the Scandinavian nations with their traditions of neutrality initially held themselves aloof, his advocacy helped to ensure that Norway became a full member of the League in 1920, and he became one of its three delegates to the League's General Assembly.

Fridtjof Nansen had to rely largely on fundraising from private organisations, and his efforts met with limited success.

The impoverished Greek state was unable to take them in, and so Fridtjof Nansen devised a scheme for a population exchange whereby half a million Turks in Greece were returned to Turkey, with full financial compensation, while further loans facilitated the absorption of the refugee Greeks into their homeland.

From 1925 onwards, Fridtjof Nansen devoted much time trying to help Armenian refugees, victims of Armenian genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War and further ill-treatment thereafter.

Fridtjof Nansen's goal was the establishment of a national home for these refugees, within the borders of Soviet Armenia.

The plan ultimately failed, because even with Fridtjof Nansen's unremitting advocacy the money to finance the scheme was not forthcoming.

Fridtjof Nansen wrote Armenia and the Near East wherein he describes the plight of the Armenians in the wake of losing its independence to the Soviet Union.

Fridtjof Nansen was a signatory to the Slavery Convention of 25 September 1926, which sought to outlaw the use of forced labour.

Fridtjof Nansen supported a settlement of the post-war reparations issue and championed Germany's membership of the League, which was granted in September 1926 after intensive preparatory work by Nansen.

On 17 January 1919 Fridtjof Nansen married Sigrun Munthe, a long-time friend with whom he had had a love affair in 1905, while Eva was still alive.

Fridtjof Nansen entertained the hope that he might travel to the North Pole by airship, but could not raise sufficient funding.

In 1926 Fridtjof Nansen was elected Rector of the University of St Andrews in Scotland, the first foreigner to hold this largely honorary position.

Fridtjof Nansen used the occasion of his inaugural address to review his life and philosophy, and to deliver a call to the youth of the next generation.

Fridtjof Nansen largely avoided involvement in domestic Norwegian politics, but in 1924 he was persuaded by the long-retired former Prime Minister Christian Michelsen to take part in a new anti-communist political grouping, the Fatherland League.

In between his various duties and responsibilities, Fridtjof Nansen had continued to take skiing holidays when he could.

In February 1930, aged 68, he took a short break in the mountains with two old friends, who noted that Fridtjof Nansen was slower than usual and appeared to tire easily.

Fridtjof Nansen was a close friend of a clergyman named Wilhelm.

Fridtjof Nansen was a fearless peacemaker, a friend of justice, an advocate always for the weak and suffering.

Fridtjof Nansen was later able to apply this expertise to the problems of polar travel, in both his Greenland and his Fram expeditions.

Fridtjof Nansen invented the "Nansen sledge" with broad, ski-like runners, the "Nansen cooker" to improve the heat efficiency of the standard spirit stoves then in use, and the layer principle in polar clothing, whereby the traditionally heavy, awkward garments were replaced by layers of lightweight material.

In science, Fridtjof Nansen is recognised both as one of the founders of modern neurology, and as a significant contributor to early oceanographical science, in particular for his work in establishing the Central Oceanographic Laboratory in Christiania.

The Fridtjof Nansen Office faced great difficulties, in part arising from the large numbers of refugees from the European dictatorships during the 1930s.

In 1938, the year in which it was superseded by a wider-ranging body, the Fridtjof Nansen Office was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.