Product Description

"If "Outside" magazine had been around during the first turn of the century, Fridtjof Nansen would have been its No. 1 cover boy."--"The Chicago Sun-Times" In September of 1893, Norwegian zoologist Fridtjof Nansen and crew manned the schooner "Fram," intending to drift, frozen in the Arctic pack-ice, to the North Pole. When it became clear that they would miss the pole, Nansen and companion Hjalmar Johansen struck off by themselves. Racing the shrinking pack-ice, they attempted, by dog-sled, to go "farthest north." They survived a winter in a moss hut eating walruses and polar bears, and the public assumed they were dead. In the spring of 1896, after three years of trekking, and having made it to within four degrees of the pole, they returned to safety. Nansen's narrative stands with the best writing on polar exploration. 20 b/w photographs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #304739 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Customer Reviews

A voyage into the proof-reading abyss
Nansen's account of his journey to the North is fascinating to anyone with an interest in polar exploration. It's beautifully written and Nansen conveys perfectly the magic of the landscape and the isolation. Or rather, he would have if someone had actually bothered to proof-read the book and remove at least one spelling error or incorrect word on every page. As it stands, we can enjoy his preparations for his trip on the ship the "Farm" (not the Fram) right from page one, and marvel as his loyal pack of "clogs" follow him across the ice, where he embarks on some "deter mining". This would be mildly amusing if it did not interrupt the flow of a beautiful narrative, and at times seriously confuse the reader. Given that this must have been one of the best and most carefully prepared voyages in the history of exploration, to have some lazy publisher churn this lamentable effort out is quite unforgivable. There is also no map provided, which becomes an impediment from about page 2 onwards. So, my advice is that this is a book that everyone should read, but no-one should buy this particular issue of it. Find an old copy from a different publisher if you can, or wait until someone else does a better job.