''Fram'' ("Forward") is a
ship
A ship is a large watercraft that travels the world's oceans and other sufficiently deep waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research, and fishing. Ships are generally distinguished ...
that was used in expeditions of the
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
and
Antarctic regions by the
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
explorers
Fridtjof Nansen,
Otto Sverdrup
Otto Neumann Knoph Sverdrup (31 October 1854, in Bindal, Helgeland – 26 November 1930) was a Norwegian sailor and Arctic explorer.
Early and personal life
He was born in Bindal as a son of farmer Ulrik Frederik Suhm Sverdrup (1833–1914) ...
,
Oscar Wisting, and
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen beg ...
between 1893 and 1912. It was designed and built by the Scottish-Norwegian shipwright
Colin Archer for Fridtjof Nansen's 1893 Arctic expedition in which the plan was to freeze ''Fram'' into the
Arctic ice
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
sheet and float with it over the
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...
.
''Fram'' is preserved as a
museum ship at the
Fram Museum
The Fram Museum ( no, Frammuseet) is a museum telling the story of Norwegian polar exploration. It is located on the peninsula of Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway.
Fram Museum is in an area with several other museums including the Kon-Tiki Museum, th ...
in
Oslo
Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population ...
, Norway.
Construction
Nansen's ambition was to explore the
Arctic
The Arctic ( or ) is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories, Nunavut), Danish Realm (Greenland), Finland, Iceland, N ...
farther north than anyone else. To do that, he would have to deal with a problem that many sailing on the polar ocean had encountered before him: the freezing ice could crush a ship. Nansen's idea was to build a ship that could survive the pressure, not by pure strength, but because it would be of a shape designed to let the ice push the ship up, so it would "float" on top of the ice.
''Fram'' is a three-masted
schooner with a total length of and width of . The ship is both unusually wide and unusually shallow in order to better withstand the forces of pressing ice.
Nansen commissioned the shipwright
Colin Archer from
Larvik to construct a vessel with these characteristics. ''Fram'' was built with an outer layer of
greenheart wood to withstand the ice and with almost no
keel
The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...
to handle the shallow waters Nansen expected to encounter. The
rudder
A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (generally air or water). On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adve ...
and
propeller were designed to be retracted. The ship was also carefully insulated to allow the crew to live on board for up to five years. The ship also included a
windmill
A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some ...
, which ran a generator to provide electric power for lighting by
electric arc lamps.
Initially, ''Fram'' was fitted with a steam engine. Prior to Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole in 1910, the engine was replaced with a
diesel engine
The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...
, a first for polar exploration vessels.
The ship was
launched on 26 October 1892.
Expeditions
''Fram'' was used in several expeditions:
Nansen's 1893–1896 Arctic expedition
Wreckage found at Greenland from , which was lost off Siberia, and driftwood found in the regions of
Svalbard and
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
, suggested that an
ocean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of sea water generated by a number of forces acting upon the water, including wind, the Coriolis effect, breaking waves, cabbeling, and temperature and salinity differences. Depth contours ...
flowed beneath the Arctic ice sheet from east to west, bringing driftwood from the
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a ...
n region to Svalbard and further west. Nansen had ''Fram'' built in order to explore this theory.
He undertook an expedition that came to last three years. When Nansen realised that ''Fram'' would not reach the North Pole directly by the force of the current, he and
Hjalmar Johansen set out to reach it on skis. After reaching 86° 14' north, he had to turn back to spend the winter at
Franz Joseph Land. Nansen and Johansen survived on
walrus
The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the fami ...
and
polar bear meat and
blubber. Finally meeting British explorers, the
Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition, they arrived back in Norway only days before the ''Fram'' also returned there. The ship had spent nearly three years trapped in the ice, reaching 85° 57' N.
Sverdrup's 1898–1902 Canadian Arctic islands expedition
In 1898,
Otto Sverdrup
Otto Neumann Knoph Sverdrup (31 October 1854, in Bindal, Helgeland – 26 November 1930) was a Norwegian sailor and Arctic explorer.
Early and personal life
He was born in Bindal as a son of farmer Ulrik Frederik Suhm Sverdrup (1833–1914) ...
, who had brought ''Fram'' back on the first Arctic voyage, led a scientific expedition to the
Canadian Arctic Archipelago
The Arctic Archipelago, also known as the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, is an archipelago lying to the north of the Canadian continental mainland, excluding Greenland (an autonomous territory of Denmark).
Situated in the northern extremity of ...
. ''Fram'' was slightly modified for this journey, its
freeboard
In sailing and boating, a vessel's freeboard
is the distance from the waterline to the upper deck level, measured at the lowest point of sheer where water can enter the boat or ship. In commercial vessels, the latter criterion measured relativ ...
being increased. ''Fram'' left harbour on 24 June 1898, with 17 men on board. Their aim was to chart the lands of the Arctic Islands, and to sample the geology, flora and fauna. The expeditions lasted until 1902, leading to charts covering , more than any other Arctic expedition.
Amundsen's 1910–1912 South Pole expedition
''Fram'' was used by
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (, ; ; 16 July 1872 – ) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He was a key figure of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Born in Borge, Østfold, Norway, Amundsen beg ...
in his southern polar expedition from 1910 to 1912, the first to reach the South Pole, during which ''Fram'' reached 78° 41' S.
Preservation of ''Fram''
The ship was left to decay in storage from 1912 until the late 1920s, when
Lars Christensen
Lars Christensen (6 April 1884 – 10 December 1965) was a Norwegian shipowner and whaling magnate. He was also a philanthropist with a keen interest in the exploration of Antarctica.
Career
Lars Christensen was born at Sandar in Vestfold, No ...
,
Otto Sverdrup
Otto Neumann Knoph Sverdrup (31 October 1854, in Bindal, Helgeland – 26 November 1930) was a Norwegian sailor and Arctic explorer.
Early and personal life
He was born in Bindal as a son of farmer Ulrik Frederik Suhm Sverdrup (1833–1914) ...
and
Oscar Wisting initiated efforts to preserve her via the Fram Committee. In 1935, the ship was installed in the
Fram Museum
The Fram Museum ( no, Frammuseet) is a museum telling the story of Norwegian polar exploration. It is located on the peninsula of Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway.
Fram Museum is in an area with several other museums including the Kon-Tiki Museum, th ...
, where she now stands.
Named after ''Fram''
*
Fram Island ''(Ostrov Frama)'', an island close to the
Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands
The Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands (russian: Острова Комсомольской Правды, ''Ostrova Komsomol'skoy Pravdy'') are an archipelago in the far north of the Russian Federation. The islands are uninhabited and are covered with tun ...
,
Laptev Sea
The Laptev Sea ( rus, мо́ре Ла́птевых, r=more Laptevykh; sah, Лаптевтар байҕаллара, translit=Laptevtar baỹğallara) is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, t ...
*
Framheim (literally "Home of the Fram"), Amundsen's Base at the
Bay of Whales
The Bay of Whales was a natural ice harbour, or iceport, indenting the front of the Ross Ice Shelf just north of Roosevelt Island, Antarctica. It is the southernmost point of open ocean not only of the Ross Sea, but worldwide. The Ross Sea ex ...
in
Antarctica
Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...
during his quest for the South Pole
*
Fram Rupes, an
escarpment
An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations.
The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...
on
Mercury
*
Fram crater, a small crater on
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
, visited by the
Mars Exploration Rover ''Opportunity'' in 2004
*
Fram Basin, the deepest point in the
Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
*
Fram Strait
The Fram Strait is the passage between Greenland and Svalbard, located roughly between 77°N and 81°N latitudes and
centered on the prime meridian. The Greenland and Norwegian Seas lie south of Fram Strait, while the Nansen Basin of the Arcti ...
, a passage from the Arctic Ocean to the
Greenland Sea and
Norwegian Sea
The Norwegian Sea ( no, Norskehavet; is, Noregshaf; fo, Norskahavið) is a marginal sea, grouped with either the Atlantic Ocean or the Arctic Ocean, northwest of Norway between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea, adjoining the Barents Sea to ...
, between
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
and
Spitsbergen.
* ''
Fram'', a play by
Tony Harrison, premièred at the National Theatre London, 2008
* In
Arthur Ransome's children's book, ''
Winter Holiday
''Winter Holiday'' is the fourth novel of Arthur Ransome's ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books. It was published in 1933. In this story, the third set of major characters in the series, the Ds — Dick and Dorothea Callum—are ...
'', the children use the name ''Fram'' for their
Uncle Jim's houseboat, trapped in the ice on the lake which becomes the inspiration for some of their adventures.
* ''
The Adventures of Fram, the Polar Bear'' (
Romanian: ''Aventurile lui Fram, ursul polar''), a children's book written by the
Romania
Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, and ...
n author
Cezar Petrescu which was also made into a TV series in Romania;
See also
*
List of Antarctic exploration ships from the Heroic Age, 1897–1922
References
External links
*
"The Polar Ship Fram"by the
Fram Museum
The Fram Museum ( no, Frammuseet) is a museum telling the story of Norwegian polar exploration. It is located on the peninsula of Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway.
Fram Museum is in an area with several other museums including the Kon-Tiki Museum, th ...
{{Authority control
1892 ships
Amundsen's South Pole expedition
Arctic exploration vessels
Exploration ships
Fridtjof Nansen
Icebreakers of Norway
Individual sailing vessels
Museum ships in Norway
Ships built in Norway
Tall ships of Norway
North Pole