Farthest North

Nansen’s plan was to freeze a ship into the Arctic ice on purpose and let the current carry it across the top of the world. Fram survived the squeeze exactly as he had argued it would, but the drift ran too far south, so in March 1895 Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen left the ship with dogs, sledges, and kayaks and struck north on their own. This second volume covers that gamble: the record latitude of 86 degrees 14 minutes, the retreat over broken floes, a winter in a stone hut on Franz Josef Land living on walrus and bear, and the chance meeting with Frederick Jackson in 1896 that brought them home. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.