Northern Waters

In later life the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for his humanitarian work, the explorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930) encouraged and supported the 1901 voyage of his fellow Norwegian Roald Amundsen (1872–1928), publishing this account of its scientific findings in 1906. Amundsen had just purchased his famous boat, the Gjøa, and wanted to test her in Arctic waters. He planned to pay for the expedition by hunting seals, but wanted to carry out scientific work at the same time. On Nansen's advice, he decided to make oceanographic observations. After a six-month voyage, he returned with both observations and samples of water and plankton which considerably enlarged understanding of the bottom waters of the Norwegian Sea and the play of current in the area. Nansen's work supplies technical details, diagrams and maps from this remarkable scientific survey.