Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Polar Saga 1893 - 1896

1,000 Days in the Ice, Norway's Fridtjof Nansen was a pioneer of polar exploration.
Article by Hampton Sides - writing for the National Geographic. The Tamshee really enjoyed reading this article on the exploits of the true pioneer of polar exploration. To survive so long in such a barren wilderness was a remarkable feat of endurance.
Photograph by Fridtjof Nansen
Photograph courtesy National Library of Norway Picture Collection
Out in the cold fjord, on a spit of rocky land just a short ferry ride from the city center, Oslo has created a kind of national cemetery for famous ships. It's a Norwegian thing—what other country would build public crypts around its most beloved boats and enshrine them for the ages? Out here on the Bygdøy Peninsula, visitors can spend days rambling through splendid museums that house ancient Viking longships, 19th-century fishing vessels, even Thor Heyerdahl's famed balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki.
But the most striking of Oslo's nautical temples is a pointy glass-and-metal structure that rises from the waterline in the shape of an enormous letter A. Inside, basking in the filtered light, sleeps a sturdy wooden schooner, built in 1892, called the Fram.

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