Put to Use
After months of travel against the southern drift, across pressure ridges and around lanes of open water and the occasional stretch of good ice, Nansen and Johansen reached 86° 14' North, the farthest north reached by human beings at that time. They decided it was time to give up the bid for the North Pole and turn south before supplies and dogs ran out (they would kill their weakest dog to feed the rest, a gruesome business that haunted Nansen in the years that followed). They reached open water August 7, 1895, after five months on the ice and down to one sledge dog each.

They had reached the sea near Franz Joseph Land, hundreds of miles from their intended target of Spitsbergen. Having dreamed of the ease of paddling instead of trudging over ice, they would still have to make a long crossing in a heavily laden, flat-bottomed boat not designed for the open ocean. Their solution was to lash the kayaks together catamaran-style with their skis through the deck straps as support and their sledges and two remaining dogs on the deck as cargo. They could only paddle on one side of each kayak, but they soon had a following wind and found that the sail they had carried for pushing their sledges across the ice worked just as well for their little watercraft.

Winter was approaching, so they found a suitable island where they built a stone-and-moss hut and survived on polar bear and walrus meat. Their plan was to stay until spring, then sail through the Franz Joseph archipelago to the westernmost point and make the open crossing of 140 nautical miles to Spitsbergen, where there was sure to be a Norwegian whaler that could take them home.

Up until this point, they had made much smaller open-water crossings from island to island of no more than a day and usually along the edge of ice where they could camp at night. To stay and wait meant hoping the Fram would make it out of the ice soon enough that their supplies wouldn't run out and that rescue would find them. Besides that, waiting was not in their character. To go south across the Barents Sea to northern Russia meant a longer crossing and a long walk home. Spitzbergen was the closest Norwegian territory.

One day during their voyage westward through the remaining Franz Joseph islands, Nansen heard dogs barking while he was breaking camp. He went to investigate and encountered a British man, clothed in fine wool and smelling of soap. Nansen, with only his sharp eyes peering from a face blackened with soot and grease, greeted the man and conversed with him as he walked back to the man's hut. Suddenly, recognizing who he was, the man turned to him and said, "Aren't you Nansen? By Jove! I'm glad to see you."

The man was part of a British scientific party that had a ship coming for them sometime that summer. Despite the comfort of clean clothes and a warm hut and coffee for both Nansen and Johansen, they were eager to sail south. Over the next few weeks in the company of the Brits, Nansen still considered trying for Spitsbergen in the kayaks. Luckily, the ship finally arrived and took him and Johansen and their kayaks and sledges back to Norway.

Remarkably, eight days later, the Fram arrived at Skjærvø, Norway, after having been freed from the ice only six days before. After almost a year apart, Nansen reunited with his crew and sailed home to Oslo.

The Fram was used twice more: in 1898 to explore the northern tip of Greenland and in 1910 to springboard Roald Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole, which makes it the ship that has sailed the farthest north and south on the surface of the Earth. In 1936, it was preserved for posterity in the A-framed museum where it currently rests.

Built to Last

It seems incredible today that a pair of canvas and bamboo kayaks of Fram no. 171's design would perform well in harsh arctic conditions. They had a couple of things going for them-they were short and wide, which enabled them to carry a large amount of cargo, and the design was flexible enough that it could be transported on sledge over ice, paddled across calm water lanes in the ice, lashed together and sailed over longer stretches and last over a year's hard use.

Although the frames and skin were damaged, they were repairable with simple materials and tools, such as splints and cord for the frame and soot and blubber grease to seal the canvas. Even when disasters occurred, like a walrus spearing holes through the deck of Nansen's kayak or a gunshot accidentally piercing the hull (narrowly missing Nansen's legs), the kayak could be repaired, usually in hours, and they could continue. The design's simplicity paid off. What better endorsement is there for the usefulness of good old canvas on a hand-lashed frame?

Flemming Sorvin builds kayaks in Victoria, B.C., Canada.
After traveling to Oslo, he now has an addiction to Norwegian chocolate.