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
Diplomat Turned Humanitarian
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. 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.
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.
Nansen in World War I
During the First World War he 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.
Sources;
Briggs, A (editor) Longman Dictionary of 20th Century Biography (1985) Longman, London
Briggs, A (editor) A Dictionary of 20th Century World Biography (1992) Oxford University Press, Oxford
Brogger, W. C and Rofsen, N. Friedtjof Nansen 1861-1893 (1896) Longman, Green & co, London
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Crampton, R.J Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (1994) Routledge, London
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