Fridtjot Nansen was born on 10 October 1861 just outside the Norwegian capital of Oslo then known as Christiania, which at that time was still ruled by Sweden. From his mother the young Fridtjof Nansen would gain a love of skiing and became adept at hunting and fishing, skills that would serve him in good stead later in life. He also inherited his father’s intellect although he would chose a career in science rather than law. Perhaps Norway and the world would have been a poorer place if he had become a lawyer too. Nansen would also become something of
a role model both for his fellow Norwegians and others. Nansen would even play his part in Norway peacefully achieving its independence in 1905. He would have an eventful life during which he used his not inconsiderable talents to achieve great scientific and humanitarian feats. As the events and achievements mentioned below will demonstrate it would not unjust to describe as one of the greatest Norwegians as well as a humanitarian of the highest order. American President Herbert Hoover described Nansen as 'a fine, rugged character, a man of great physical and moral courage'. Hoover himself was interested in humanitarian causes through the Hoover Foundation, of which more later.Before his involvement in other areas Fridtjof Nansen made his reputation as a scientist, having graduated as a zoologist from Christiania University. He had picked up an interest of both nature and exploration during his childhood that always remained with him. Another attribute he gained during his youth was self reliance combined with stamina and grit. Fridtjof Nansen despite his wealthy background was selfless and always willing to help others. Not only was he a scientist he was a very accomplished one. Nansen himself believed that he was blessed in being able to do what he wanted in his life “If any one be excused for believing in his lucky star, it is I.” Over the years the lucky star guided him well on the way to greatness.
Nansen had a great thirst for knowledge, wanting to know how nature worked and wishing to explore the great unknowns in life for “Man wants to know, and when he ceases to do so, he is no longer a man.” That was an approach to life that took him far and wide. Or to be more exact it took him across Greenland on skis and to latitude of 86 degrees north in his attempt to reach the North Pole.4 His wide scientific knowledge and expertise led to his employment as a zoology curator firstly at Bergen Museum in 1883. At Bergen, Nansen became a convinced Darwinist and continued to study towards a doctorate in zoology. Initially his scientific research of the hagfish and its nervous system formed the major part of his doctorate studies. It is highly unlikely that if Nansen had restricted his future activities exclusively to the study of invertebrates that he would have become famous worldwide. At best he would have gained academic renown at universities and published a few scientific books and journal articles. It was his desire to explore and ski that would make him a global celebrity. Six years later he was given the same position at Oslo Museum, in the mean time his explorations had already started to bring him fame. Nansen used his expeditions to increase scientific knowledge. He thus became famous for his achievements in oceanography as well as zoology with a bit of botany thrown in for good measure. For he usually returned from his expedition with a range of data, samples and observations that proved invaluable for scientific advancement.
Leading on from his achievements as a scientist were his achievements as an explorer particularly of the Polar Regions, although that too was also a branch of science in the form of oceanography. Aboard the sealing ship Viking, Nansen sailed deep into the Arctic in 1882 followed eleven years later by an even more successful voyage on The Fram. For the trip on the Viking had given him a thirst for adventure and exploration that would make him famous across the globe.6 In between his voyages on the Viking and The Fram, Nansen was amongst the six men that made the first successful crossing of the interior of Greenland in 1889.
From his villa outside Oslo known as Polhogda, Nansen meticulously planned and organised his daring expeditions. Polhogda has continued to be used as a centre for polar and arctic research. Both his old office and the Fram moored in the fjord nearby are now national museums. The Fridtjof Nansen Institute also studies environmental and climate change. Not only was the Fram used by Nansen it used by prominent explorers afterwards including Roald Amundsen who beat Captain Scott to the Antarctic. The Fram was built with a specifically strengthened hull to be able to survive the harsh conditions of the Arctic and Antarctic. Nansen had the philosophy that there was no going back in life that was reflected in the way he carried out his expeditions and only added to his fame and reputation. For instance for the skiing trek across Greenland, Nansen planned to go from east to west whereas as anybody else would have followed conventional wisdom and gone from west to east. But conventional wisdom did not always get everything done, Nansen and his group had to succeed, as the only alternative would have been death. For Nansen it was an approach that got results and made him famous. In later life Fridtjof Nansen explained his attitude towards life in the following terms, “I have always thought that the much praised “line of retreat” is a snare.” Therefore to avoid been held back one must draw up goals, work out plans to achieve those goals and were possible always stick to them.
Nansen had hoped to return to expeditions after his diplomatic position in Britain came to an end. He put off a planned expedition to allow Amundsen to use the Fram on the successful Antarctic expedition already mentioned. Any further plans for polar expeditions were put on hold for the duration of the First World War, by the end of which Nansen would turn his attention to humanitarian issues. His plans were changeable after all, as he would always try to do the things that brought the greatest benefits to humanity. Perhaps Nansen’s greatest qualities were that he sought knowledge and was deeply compassionate. His thirst for knowledge and his helping of others may have made him famous and they almost certainly could have brought wealth and power, which were not his prime motivations. Fridtjof Nansen did find that the fame he gained as an explorer and scientist would help him be Fridtjof Nansen the diplomat and great humanitarian later on in life.
The polar expedition of 1893-1896 undoubtedly sealed Fridtjof Nansen’s position as a famous if not legendary explorer. As already mentioned the ship Fram was specially constructed for this expedition being designed to withstand the pressures of the Arctic ice caps. His plan was straightforward yet highly dangerous and the fact he even returned proves the effectiveness of his organizational skills. Nansen had a hypothesis that the tidal flows in the Arctic would take a ship sailing east close to Siberia up to or within close proximity to the North pole and on the return journey would carry the ship back to Greenland. If the drift did not take him far enough he would attempt to reach the pole on skis or sledges.
Perhaps to his contemporaries deliberately allowing your ship to get caught in polar ice caps and just let it drift towards the North Pole must have seemed eccentric at best if not crazy. The tidal drift would prove not to take the Fram as close to the North Pole as the expedition team would have wished so after a year drifting Nansen and Hjalmer Johansen left the ship to see how far they could progress over the ice flows. All they took with them was their skis, kayaks; their dog pulled sledges with dogs and enough provisions for one hundred days. Nansen and Johansen set out in March 1895 but harsh conditions and dwindling provisions forced them to abandon their attempt to reach the North Pole. Nonetheless their achievements were considerable and they had they had gone farther north than anybody else had before. They stayed the whole of the following winter in a hastily built hut on Franz Joseph Land before setting out to get to the Fram.
Before they found the Fram they met up with the British explorer Frederick Jackson and his expedition team. Nansen had been proved right about the ocean currents within the Arctic and the Fram had survived three years in ice drifts. When Nansen and Johansen returned home in August 1895 they received a heroes welcome. Theirs was a remarkable feat to have reached latitude of 86 degrees north and to have a 132-day trek in the harshest of conditions before reaching Franz Joseph Land.
The reputation and high esteem his scientific and exploration achievements gave him allowed Nansen to represent both Norway and humanitarian or diplomatic organisations such as the Red Cross and the League of Nations. To use a modern term he was a goodwill ambassador for humanitarian causes and an actual diplomatic ambassador for his country. Norwegian independence was achieved mainly through the adroitness of Christian Michelsen who outmaneuvered the Swedish government and even attempted to get Nansen to become Prime Minister. For a short time it looked possible that Sweden would fight a war to prevent Norway being independent, Fridtjof Nansen urged his compatriots to carry on the struggle to a successful conclusion. Although the Swedes were not happy about the way Norway gained independence they accepted the overwhelming Norwegian vote in favour (only one in every 2,000 had wished to maintain the union with Sweden) of the plebiscite held to decide the issue. Michelsen wanted to gain international recognition for Norway and enlisted the widely respected Nansen to go to Britain via Denmark, as British support was considered vital. The British government was sympathetic towards Norway and also admired Nansen’s integrity and his achievements as an explorer. While in Denmark, Nansen helped to persuade Prince Carl to become the Norwegian king, Haakon VII the people’s king.
Such was his importance to gaining international support for Norway’s independence he was his country’s first ambassador to Great Britain between 1906 and 1908.14 During the First World War was called on again to provide one more diplomatic mission for his country. Norway had not suffered badly from the Royal Navy blockade of Germany and her allies. However the entry of the United States into the war in 1917 brought a tightening of that naval blockade cutting off vital food supplies from Norway. Nansen headed the Norwegian delegation that returned from Washington with the restoration of those vital supplies. The Allied naval blockade was highly effective in fact contributing to the defeat of Germany and Austria –Hungary but left their civilian populations on the brink of starvation and prone to epidemics. Indeed the great pandemic of Spanish influenza that struck Asia and Europe in 1918-1919 caused millions of death. Nansen was committed to Norwegian neutrality and preventing the inhumanity and waste of wars. The First World War and its appalling losses sickened Nansen but he tried to lessen suffering by repatriating between 400,000 and 450,000 prisoners of war by the close of 1922. Virtually all the prisoners that were returned home were German and former Austro-Hungarian men imprisoned in the Soviet Union and Russians imprisoned by the Germans and the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Fridtjof Nansen was also an accomplished writer, usually writing about his other activities that had already made him famous. He wrote books about his explorations and perhaps more surprisingly a history of Norway. Unless of course you take into account the publication of A History of Norway’s union with Sweden it was written to support and explain Norway’s
peaceful secession away from Sweden’s rule. It was a remarkable feat that Norway could gain its independence peacefully. Nansen used the book to explain that Norwegians needed their independence but still respected the Swedes. He explained that the Norwegians would ‘try to help Sweden by concessions and liberality, so that the dissolution of the Union may be carried through without the Swedish people’s feeling humiliated.’ He tried to gain foreign support for Norwegian independence through numerous press articles. Newspapers were happy to print anything written by such a famous scientist and explorer who was held in such high regard.
His first widely read book was about the Greenland trek and titled First Crossing of Greenland. It detailed the feats and the hardships of the expedition including sub zero temperatures and high altitudes. It was followed a year later by the book Eskimo Life.16 The scientific data from the Fram expedition of 1893-1896 proved invaluable and filled six volumes when published as The Norwegian North Polar Expedition 1893-1896 Scientific Results. There was a slimmed down abridged two- volume version simply titled Farthest North for the general public that was an instant worldwide best seller. As part of his roles with the Red Cross and the League of Nations he later wrote accounts of the political and humanitarian situations in Russia and Armenia.
His work aiding the refugees caused by the First World War and the Russian civil war saved lives and reduced suffering. The compassion and humanity he showed further increased his fame and the admiration in which he was held. The First World War had brought destruction, loss and starvation for much of Europe and led to a great deal of economic distress especially to Germany and Russia. There was plenty of humanitarian work to be done. The war had killed at least 10 million men in arms, perhaps a further 5 million civilians and combatants died through disease and starvation. Countless more were left homeless, disabled or remained as prisoners of war.
For Russia the high human costs of the First World War were added the disastrous consequences of civil war and a war against Poland from 1919 to 1921.
When the United States, Britain and France were looking for somebody to lead a humanitarian relief operation in the Soviet Union, Herbert Hoover who was responsible for distributing aid programmes for the United States Government suggested Fridtjof Nansen could do the job. Nansen as it happens was already at the Paris Peace Conferences acting as a lobbyist for Norway and the League of Nations. At first Lenin refused to allow such an operation to proceed fearing that it would aid the anti-Communist forces in the civil war and was suspicious of western intentions. Hoover may have intended that aid be used as a bargaining tool to moderate the Soviet revolution but Nansen’s aims were entirely humanitarian. The loss of life during that most brutal of civil wars could have reached upwards of 10 million.
Lenin and Trotsky had made the humanitarian situation worse by using the policy of War Communism to take food off civilians to supply the Red Army. Added to the effects of War Communism and civil war came a disastrous bad harvest that left nearly 20 million on the brink of starvation. Nansen was not given relief funds by the League of Nations and was not able to save all those in danger. Severe food shortages meant that Lenin relented to allow Nansen head a relief operation in 1921 and started the New Economic Policy to revive the economy.22 Nansen’s mission went ahead because he was acting on behalf of the International Red Cross and his links with the League of Nations rather than for Britain, France and the United States. No doubt he would have been appalled with the return of famine to the Soviet Union in 1932-33 that resulted from Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture and crop failure in the Ukraine. The relief mission to the Soviet Union demonstrated the humanity and dedication of Fridtjof Nansen and earned him international recognition in the 1922 Nobel Peace Prize. Such was the selfless nature of Fridtjof Nansen that he gave the money from his prize to relief funds.
Fridtjof Nansen used the occasion of his Nobel Peace Prize award on December 1922 to speak out about human suffering and his hopes for a better world built upon the success of the League of Nations and an end to wars. He emphasized the high cost of human fatalities and suffering caused by war. He likened the European peoples experience “bleeding to death on battlefields,” in wars that they had not chosen for causes that were not their own. Nansen was sad that the League of Nations had not helped Russia. Instead he praised everybody that had contributed to the relief funds particularly the Norwegians, the United States government and the Hoover foundation. From the United States between $50 to 60 million had been given to help the Russians. As already mentioned Hoover was an admirer of Nansen as a man and as a humanitarian, Hoover who was a self made man also engaged in humanitarian projects. It was perhaps a strange and cruel twist of fate that he was American president at the start of the Great Depression that so undermined the global economy and political stability.
The Norwegian government aware of Nansen’s abilities, his past diplomatic experience and his previous humanitarian work made him their representative in the League of Nations. He therefore became famous for promoting the cause of world peace and disarmament. All to be more accurate the League of Nations gave him further scope to carry on the activities he was already involved with. For Nansen the League of Nations was the organisation that would make the world a better place. Under the guidance of President Woodrow Wilson the League of Nations would secure global peace and harmony. The League would achieve some early successes and hopes were high. Nansen took part in the disarmament processes and negotiations. The League’s main weaknesses were that the United States did not join and that it had no military power of its own. The failure of collective security and the unwillingness of the British and French to support it undermined the league. Nansen knew that the League of Nations was not perfect but it did provide the world with hope. Perhaps Nansen was fortunate that he did not live to see the breakdown of peace and security in the 1930s.
He would have been heartened no doubt by the greater successes of the United Nations.
The League of Nations acted upon one of his suggestions by introducing travel documents for refugees known in his honour as the Nansen Passport. These passports helped refugees by allowing them to travel to countries to receive aid and asylum or let them return home.
After leading the famine relief effort in the Soviet Union the League of Nations appointed him as High Commissioner for Refugees to deal with the refugees from the Russian civil war and the population exchanges between Greece and Turkey. Just to indicate the scale of the refugee crisis that Nansen was faced with between four and five million of them to whom he was ‘a friend to the friendless. ’ His humanitarian mission continued with the rescuing of more than 300,000 Armenians escaping persecution and ethnic cleansing. Nansen is still held in high esteem amongst Armenians because without him they might have survived. Nansen would no doubt been further horrified by the even greater losses and suffering caused by the Second World War.
His work as a humanitarian and a statesman dedicated to peace certainly increased his fame. His achievements certainly added to the Scandinavian tradition of producing statesmen and women with similar humanitarian and peace diplomacy outlook. A good example of such a person was the Swedish Secretary General of the United Nations Dag Hammerskold posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1961.
Fridtjof Nansen was famous for his various achievements and his work. His fame stemmed from his daring and well planned expeditions that meant he was amongst the first to traverse across Greenland on skis and the arctic expedition of 1893-1896 that got nearer to the north pole than anybody else had before. He also established an organisation that continued polar expeditions and research in his own lifetime and since his death. His famous explorations provided the blueprint and inspiration for other explorers such as Roald Amundsen. They also provided examples of how good planning and strong determination could achieve success and make explorers famous. Nansen turned out to be an accomplished writer particularly of books about his expeditions, most famously the Fram expedition of 1893-1896. Later on Nansen became famous due to his role and work as a diplomat, statesman and humanitarian. He carried out these roles to help as many people as possible.
Though he was popular and famous enough in Norway to have been elected to political office he preferred not to do so, as he had no personal ambitions to hold power. His work for the International Red Cross and the League of Nations helped save many thousands if not millions of people in the wake of the First World War and the Russian civil war was recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize. Without Nansen who knows how many millions would have starved in the Soviet Union or how long five million refugees would have remained stranded. His achievements are even more remarkable when the limited time, money and resources available to carry out his work were limited and sometimes even restricted by the League of Nations. Unfortunately wars, refugees and famines have not become a thing of the past but Nansen’s work acts as a guide and relief projects have undoubtedly saved millions. Perhaps Hobsbawm’s description of a friend to the friendless is an apt epitaph for him. Fridtjof Nansen died in May 1930, many people across the globe and not just his native Norway mourned his passing, for he saved and served much of humanity when they had lost all hope. His was a life of outstanding achievements that justly made him famous during and after his lifetime.
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