In the footsteps of… Nansen’s traverse of the Greenland Ice Sheet
On 17 July 1888, the young Norwegian scientist Fridtjof Nansen disembarked with five other men from the Jason, a seal-hunting ship, 10 miles from Greenland’s south-eastern coast. Boarding two small boats, the men began rowing through ice-choked waters toward land. Their goal, when they reached the shore, was to cross the ice sheet that cloaks much of Greenland. This remnant of ancient ice ages covers an expanse of 660,000 square miles and rises, in its centre, to an altitude of nearly two miles.
If Nansen’s expedition succeeded, he and his compatriots would become the first to cross the Greenland Ice Sheet. Since the early 18th century, explorers had made modest forays onto the ‘inland ice’ by foot, but all had turned back before completing the crossing, having encountered punishing cold and deadly crevasses.
Nansen believed he had devised a plan that could succeed where others had not. Once established on the shore, he and his colleagues intended to climb up the island’s rocky coast and onto the eastern edge of the island’s ice sheet. From there they would set out for the west, pulling sleds designed by Nansen that were laden with enough food and equipment to sustain the party for several months.
Because, despite its name, the ice sheet is a dome rather than a flat expanse, the expedition brought snowshoes (to climb the ice sheet’s eastern slope) and skis (to descend down the western side). By Nansen’s initial calculations, even at the narrower southern end of Greenland, this traverse would cover some 420 miles.
As they began their mission, Nansen’s team adopted a chest-thumping
