The First Crossing of Greenland

Before Fridtjof Nansen's Greenland expedition of 1888, the vast impenetrable arctic regions exasperated nineteenth-century scientists.

The twenty-six-year-old thought he knew better.

Convinced that he would succeed by skiing, a sport practically unknown at the time, he put together a group of only six members to cross the arctic interior of Greenland for the first time.

They would pull their own sledges and, on a shoe-string, arrange transport to Greenland on two steam liners to drop them off in the icy Arctic sea. They could only afford a basic camera to document their trip. Astonishingly, this audacious but much criticised plan succeeded! Nansen's riveting expedition classic including his diary entries are here republished for the first time in full. His words and captivating expedition photographs caught with a student camera set in motion a golden age of exploration.