In Fridtjof Nansen's Footsteps

On July 25th we arrived at Fridtjof Nansen’s Halvoe to a place called Umivik. We had to search for a bit, to find a suitable anchorage as close as we could, to where we thought Nansen’s first camp on Greenland was. We found a nice bay, where we could drop the hook and pull a line ashore.

Nansen’s journey to Umivik:

Already in 1882, Nansen had his first trip to Greenland. But he had to wait for six years, until 1888, to gather finance to cross the Greenland icecap. Nansen had arranged a ride with the vessel "Jason" to the icebelt off East Greenland. Nansen had been advised not to travel from east to west, and both Nordenskiöld and Peary had started from the populated west coast on their expeditions. Nansen ignored these advices, and it is likely that the fact that no-one had done this before him and that the area was unknown that made him do it. A trip from the west would also have led them to go back the same way. This would have doubled both the distance and the food they had to carry, which made the option impossible in Nansen's eyes.

Of the east coast were dropped off on an ice sheet and set up their camp on it, and after drifting for 12 days totally helpless they approached Greenland's southern tip, Kapp Farvel. This was far from how Nansen had planned the journey. Here they finally put the boats on the water. They had to go further north, it would not be a good move and walk across the inland ice so far south.

On August 3rd the wind picked up, and they set up makeshift sails made of tents and canvases. But the wind soon turned to the north, and the group had to row in the headwinds through drifting ice. The ice came close and crashed into them several times. The tide also took off with their boats while they were sleeping, calving icebergs created tidal waves that almost drowned them, and they were bothered by swarms of mosquitoes everywhere.

But after some unbelievable work, they finally reached far enough north go ashore on the 10th of August but were almost a month behind schedule. Three weeks had gone south to drive south, and the time they used getting north again had delayed them further. They decided to camp in Umivik and hunted birds to get some fresh food.

This was the place we would like to find, almost 130 years to the day after Nansen was there. So, after we were all tied up, we jumped in the dinghy ready for a trip ashore, trying to find this first campsite. The only information we had one the location, was a picture in a book. We used the mountains in the picture to try locating the site. Definitely harder than we imagined.

After a lot of back and forth, and some internal disagreements we thick we found the spot.

We brought a pair of skis all the way from Norway, so we could try skiing on the Greenland icecap.

The second thing we wanted to do, was to actually camp at Nansen’s camp. So, Marselius, Bent, Catrine, Vegar and Per Morten, put up some tents and spent a night ashore.

The next morning, they packed up, we hoisted the anchor and started our journey back north. This next leg would become more intense then what we planned for but more about that in the next post.