Important Correction
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Alongside Rushbrook Public Floats, Prince
Rupert One of my more astute sailing friends has pointed out to me that the Fram was not Amundsen's boat, but rather she was the vessel that Fridtjof Nansen made famous. Amundsen's little ship was of course the Gjoa, in which he was the first person to successfully transit the North West Passage. Fram on the other hand was especially constructed by Nansen for ice navigation and in which he sailed to the New Siberian Islands (or Novosibirskiye Ostrova), allowed her to get caught in the ice and then drifted over a thousand miles and coming within 350 miles of the North Pole, until August 1896 where the ice released the Fram near the Spitzbergen group. It was Nansen’s voyage which no doubt inspired Amundsen to believe that the transit of the NWP was possible with a small expedition in a small stout vessel, rather than the larger expensive operations that had been the case up until then. I need to go back up and brush up on my Arctic exploration history. I am sure Harald would be quite mortified if he learned of my mistake. It seems I have the makings of a good journalist, getting important details like this all mixed up. Tomorrow we sail to head south towards Vancouver. All is well. |