The lives of Nansen & Amundsen (2018)
Hans Olav Thyvold

   This is a combined biography of two of Norway's most famous  polar explorers. Two national heroes that, by their accomplishments, helped shape national consciousness during the country's early stages.

   It's a great read, full of fascinating stories from a period long gone when arctic exploration was at it's peak, full of incertitudes and challenges.

   But even though it is the core of the book, it is not only about polar expeditions. As short and digest as they are, those are nonetheless complete biographies, and the lives of these men are told all the way through, not only their most notable achievements.

   Fridtsjof Nansen (1861-1930) is mostly known for being the first person crossing the icecap of Greenland, at age 27 (!!), but has done far many more things in his life.

   The Fram expedition has to be told here. A few years after returning from Greenland, after receiving notoriety and the possibility of raising funds (in contrast to his earlier adventures), Nansen had the insane plan of proving his theory that there was a drift in the sea ice in polar regions. He would do that by freezing a boat in the polar ice for multiple years to observe the drift - and maybe reach the north pole by doing so.

   To that end, him and master ship-maker Colin Archer built a ship capable of such a task, the Fram. They would sail towards New-Siberia from Vardø in 1893, only to return to Norway three years later.

   The craziest part of the expedition is still to come : being blocked in the ice yet so close to the North pole, Nansen and one companion named Hjalmar Johansen will go out of the ship and try to reach it by foot, on the sea ice, in March 1895. They reached 86°14' North, establishing a new record, the 8th of April. They would spend the next 3 months walking south on ice in the hope of reaching land. In August, they would come to the open sea, and reached Franz-Joseph Land (uninhabited islands in the middle of the Arctic) where they would spend the next year - included the polar night for about 5 continuous months, spent mostly inside their double sleeping-bag - before being rescued.

   After returning to Norway, Nansen would not only finish his studies, but also become one of the best representative of newly born Norway (that got  independence in 1905) internationally. He was sent as an ambassador in London for a couple of years. He became friends with the newly elected Norwegian King Haakon. His political career led him to take the head of the Norwegian delegation after the creation of the League of Nations consecutive to the first World War, which in turn led him to work helping refugees and prisoners of war.

   His reputation and status alone allowed him to work in collaboration with the newly formed Soviet Union, which didn't intend to work with the League of Nations if not for Nansen. 

   He got the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922, not accepting the money on principle. He would eventually get the money in the end, through a private donation from a Danish publisher, which he would redistribute to refugees in Russia, Greece & Armenia.

   Fridtjof Nansen will die in 1930, but remains to this day remembered as a Norwegian hero for more than one reason.

   Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) is also a Norwegian hero. An hero of a different kind. Thyvold opens his biography by stating that

   Young Amundsen would be inspired by Nansen's polar discoveries and achievements. He was there, at age 16, at the parade in Kristiania (Oslo) welcoming Nansen back from his first crossing of Greenland. He will later embark on his polar expeditions on his own. First he would be part of the antarctic expedition Belgica, on which disagreements with his superiors would according to Thyvold solidify his character and strong temper. "Roald Amundsen deemed himself beholden to no one."

   He will later put together his very own polar expedition aboard the Gjøa, with the intended goal of finding a North-West passage between Europe and Asia - a passage between Greenland and the North of Canada, which was only theorized about at the time but already had claimed many lives in its search. 

   It is on this voyage, which will be proved successful by Gjøa's arrival to Nome, Alaska in 1906 (three years after its departure), that Amundsen will learn about the culture (and in particular polar survival techniques) of the local Inuit population. He will learn about dog-sledges and how to handle them, he will also learn about their clothes and alimentation - essential aspects of arctic survival he will later use.

   By this point, after his discovery of the North-West passage, he was already a national hero, recognized as such by the newly established King, and by his peers too, as Nansen himself will congratulate him on his achievement.

   But of course, Amundsen is mostly known internationally for being the first person to reach the South Pole, in 1911.

   This story deserves to be told at length, and we really can't do it justice here.

   It starts with deception. Amundsen borrowed Nansen's ship Fram under a false pretend.

Fridtjof Nansen had the South Pole in his own mind for a while, but conceded to lend his ship, the Fram, to Amundsen for an expedition in the Arctic. But given that the race for the North Pole was already over in the middle of the expedition's preparation, Amundsen changed his goal, and aimed South secretly.

   They revealed to the crew and expedition members their real intent only when they were already in the middle of the Atlantic.

   Here started the race to the South Pole. And we are talking about a proper race. Another expedition was heading South at the same moment, the Terra Nova expedition (led by the British Robert Falcon Scott). When Scott was using ponies and motorized sledges, Amundsen would use his knowledge of the Arctic Inuits and prefer dog-sledges. There the race began, in 1910. Struggles at first, including an unfruitful first attempt which would nearly cost them their lives and greatly disturbed their group cohesion. Then, the second attempt, which would end up as a success, having them to finally plant the Norwegian flag at the South Pole, the 14th of December 1911.

   The British expedition would also reach the Pole, a month after, only to be met with the Norwegian flag and a letter from Amundsen. A cruel story followed, as the whole team would perish in terrible circumstances, fighting to come back to the shore.

   Amundsen would come back to Norway as a hero once again, in everyone's eye except Nansen, which would always keep a cold grudge against him. The British press also painted a grim portrait of him, after learning about Scott's death during the race.

   He would try to continue his life as a polar explorer, years of lectures followed, and new projects too. But most of them failed and he ended up bankrupt more than once.

   The Maud expedition for a North-East passage he invested personally in proved to be if not a failure, a disappointment : lives were lost, the expedition was running for too long, so much that Amundsen had to sell it. Dreams of being the first flying to the North Pole would risk lives again, and would make him approach doubtful characters like Mussolini for funding... 

   The Norge expedition, zeppelin funded with fascist Italy's money flew over the North Pole and landed in Alaska in May 1926. Roald Amundsen soon declared his career as a polar explorer was coming to an end. After publishing his memoirs in "My life as polar explorer" in 1927, he reportedly had only very few friends left, and got forced to resign his honorary membership of the prestigious Royal Geographical Society.

   He would die a year later, trying to rescue the members of another Italian North Pole expedition that crashed, somewhere in the Arctic.

   These biographies depict two very different men. If they were and still are both nearly mythical in Norwegian history, they showed to be very different people, in their approach to what they did best - polar exploration and pushing the limits of what had been done at the time - but also in their characters, and what they did with their lives beyond the ice.

   A great read.