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Farthest North

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What to expect

In 1893 Norwegian zoologist Fridtjof Nansen set sail for the North Pole in the Fram, a ship specially designed to be frozen into the polar ice cap, withstand its crushing pressures, and travel north with the sea’s drift. Experts said that such a ship couldn’t be built and that the mission was tantamount to suicide.

Farthest North, first published in 1897 to great popular appeal, is the stirring first-person account of the Fram and her historic voyage. Nansen tells of his expedition’s struggle against snowdrifts, ice floes, polar bears, scurvy, gnawing hunger, and the seemingly endless polar night that transformed the Fram into a “cold prison of loneliness.”

Once it became clear that the Fram could drift no farther, Nansen and crew member Hjalmar Johansen set out on a harrowing fifteen-month sledge journey to reach their destination by foot, which required them to share a sleeping bag of rotting reindeer fur and to feed the weaker sled dogs to the stronger ones. In the end, they traveled 146 miles farther north than any westerner had gone before, representing the greatest single gain in polar exploration in four centuries.

Farthest North is an unforgettable story that marks the beginning of the modern age of exploration and is a must-read for the armchair adventurer.

Critics Review

“Nansen was the Chuck Yeager of polar exploration.”

New York Times Book Review
Author Fridtjof Nansen
Narrator Ulf Bjorklund
Duration 1 day, 4 hours and 10 minutes
Release Date
ISBN 9781538521427
Format Audiobook
Publisher Blackstone Publishing
Genre General and world history, Geographical discovery and exploration, History of other geographical groupings and regions
Availability AU, GB, IE, US

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