I have always considered the Fram story as the quintessential refutation of characterizing early efforts as "failures." They are anything but. They often provide mankind's first sight of what is possible. And, those are successes.
So true. I got lost reading about this expedition and to think a few decades later it was solved by airplanes, but nevertheless part of the Heroic era of Polar exploration.
I made my own journey to the pole under somewhat different circumstances. Nonetheless, the environment was precisely the same and equally dangerous. We lived in modified tents on the trek from the northern tip of Ellesmere island. Life changing it was, without doubt. I was eighteen: https://aspiritquest.substack.com/p/to-the-north-pole-i-went
I have always considered the Fram story as the quintessential refutation of characterizing early efforts as "failures." They are anything but. They often provide mankind's first sight of what is possible. And, those are successes.
So true. I got lost reading about this expedition and to think a few decades later it was solved by airplanes, but nevertheless part of the Heroic era of Polar exploration.
I made my own journey to the pole under somewhat different circumstances. Nonetheless, the environment was precisely the same and equally dangerous. We lived in modified tents on the trek from the northern tip of Ellesmere island. Life changing it was, without doubt. I was eighteen: https://aspiritquest.substack.com/p/to-the-north-pole-i-went
Loved reading this
I got cold writing it and wished I were with you in FL.
For once, I can see the cause for my mother's perpetual exclamations that all these Norweigan people look like me. 😎
elm
that must have been a hell of a drag trip