A Very Special Birthday!!!!

That's right! Today we celebrate Fridtjof Nansen's 153:rd birthday!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Obviously he is no longer alive, at least not in a sense that any biologist would recognize, but he left such a great legacy behind that I personally find his advent to this world a reason of celebration if any; this, dear reader, is something I want to share with you.

Who was Fridtjof Nansen?
People who know me well, which is a quantity I am not in a position to brag about, will be aware of my fascination with the great men and women of the world, who left an imprint on history that we can still see today; the ones whose ideas shaped the way in which we come to think of things. My fascination especially extends to the ones who make significant contributions to more than a single field, and my go-to example for this type of person is Fridtjof Nansen.
In short, he was the equivalent of Chuck Norris on a planet populated exclusively by Chuck Norrises!
A Norwegian scientist, explorer and diplomat known for a whole mess of impressive things.

Since young age an outdoorsy person, in fact a renowned athlete, he chose a to study zoology at the University of Christania 1881, in hopes of having these preferences accomodated. The very next year he earned himself a post as curator at the Bergen Museum, wherein he spent the next six years buried in his research. He attested that direct anastomosis between the processes of ganglion cells could not be observed, which as you can imagine caused quite an uproar at the time!
Nonetheless, in the year 1888 he successfully defended his PhD thesis;  The Structure and Combination of the Histological Elements of the Central Nervous System, an achievement he celebrated by immediately surpassingt, for that very year he launched an expedition to cross the icecap of Greenland, from the east shores to the west; on skiis!
Nansen decided not to set up bases. "Retreat", he thought "is a wretched invention! I burn the bridges behind me, then there is no choice but forward!"
All in all, this plan had all the characteristics of that of a madman. 670km of unforgiving climate without any chance of survival except complete success!
So obviously he had to succeed.

All of this is just the tip of the ice-berg. The ice-berg which his ship climbed in order to reach the North Pole, that is.
You heard me! Nansen, deciding that Greenland wasn't deadly enough, decided to design a ship that could climb ice, so that he could traverse the Polar Area. The ship, named Fram after the Norwegian word for 'forward' for what else could it be called, was designed and constructed by the Scottish-Norwegian shipswright Collin Archer, with Nansen overseeing every step of its construction.
See, he remembered, from a sabbatical at the sealer Viking, when he came about driftwood which he confirmed was from the other side of the Polar Circle. He formed a theory that a current swept across the arctics; currents that might take him across the North Pole ( see, at this time there was no reason to think the North Pole wasn't frozen as well ). 1884, parts of the wreckage of the American vessel Jeannette, which several years earlier had been crushed in the ices of Siberia, were find on the shores of Greenland, which confirmed Nansen's theory.
At last the ship was finished, and the year 1893 he and his crew set out to discover the North Pole. The plan worked; the hull was able to float up on top on top of an iceberg and lodge itself into the ice!
It turned out, however, that riding an iceberg had a couple of severe drawbacks. For one, it goes really, really slowly; and Nansen was a very impatient man. Not that the journey turned out to exclusively be a flop; the amount of scientific knowledge recorded on the journey was MORE than enough to justify the expedition, but if you think Nansen was complacent would be to gravely underestimate his adventurous spirit.
He and his buddy Hjalmar Johansen decided to set their feet on their ice and make a dash for the Pole. Nothing less would do for this dream team. As I am sure you can imagine, the Arctic is no vaccation resort, but on many occasions during their journey their survival were directly contingient on the reliability of their badassness. At one time, for instance, Johansen went mano-on-mano with a polar bear, which of course ended with Nansen shooting it. Johansen later recorded "Everything thus turned out well, even though it could have ended so sadly", because at the time, overselling something was looked down upon.
At another point, their kayak drifted away the ocean, so Nansen had to instantly dip into the freezing water and swim after it!
Eventually they emerged at Franz Josef Land, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean near Russia, where they were greeted by the expedition of British Arctic explorer Frederick George Jackson, a meeting often envisioned as the polar equivalent of "Doctor Livingstone, I pressume".
Nansen and his companion never did make it to the North Pole, but as they still made it a bit farther north than anyone has ever gone before, not to mention the scientific data they collected, I think it qualifies as a good attempt. Of course, having returned both the vessel and his own party to Norway against all odds, received international fame and written a best-selling book about it which he himself illustrated; there is no reason to believe Nansen was done. On the contrary, apart from tending to his family, he advocated the immancipation of Norway from the Swedish-Norwegian union. After said dissolution, Nansen was sent on a secret mission to Denmark, in order to examine the prospect of Christian Frederik Carl Georg Valdemar Axel, prince of Denmark; taking the throne of the now independent Norway. That's right, not only was he a genius scientist, defier of the elements, the setter of feet where no feet has been sat before and a successful author; he was now also a secret agent!
By the way, if you have trouble with Christian Frederik Carl Georg Valdemar Axel, just go with Haakon VII. He certainly did; AFTER NANSEN CONVINCED HIM TO ACCEPT THE THRONE.

Everyone was so impressed with the way Nansen determined the fate of his homeland, they made him official diplomat set in London, a position that while he prospered in, he was somewhat uncomfortable in. He longed for his family and his research.

By the way, all this happened around 100 years ago today. Guess what's next on the program?
You guessed it! The Big Boom-time! The First Real War, because to this, any violent instance would be the equivalent of a dirty look. The Great Brawl of the 20th century! I am talking, of course, of Wold War I!

And Nansen, realizing the horrors of this new type of war, set out for a new goal; to aide the victims of the war, especially the civilians. The restrictions of international trade imposed by the US had a devastating effect on Europe, causing a wave of famine claiming thousands of lives. Nansen's mission was pleading to Washington DC for supplies for Norway, which, after months of negotiation, succeeded! The US would send food and other supplies to Norway, in excange for their state to enforce a rationing system.
Unfortunately, the government back home was not properly equipped with the balls to make such a decision. Nansen then, being known for his abundance of balls, signed the treaty without the consent of his state; a decision credited with saving millions.

Nansen believed in peace. The dignity and continued survival of humans were more vital to him than anything ideology or nationalism could offer. This made him an impopular figure amongst the top-hats of the years between the Wars; and he himself was no stranger to frustration. His pursuit for colaboration was met with resistance from both fronts; skepticism from the West and suspicion from the East. He never did let this disillusion him though, and worked diligently to organize the repatriation of prisoners of war, help refugees that were left in the war, and tackled the famine of Russia.
He instigated the "Nansen passport", a means of identification which would allow refugees to travel freely across Europe. In time this passport has been recognized by over fifty countries!

The year 1922 Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in population exchange, and against the famine plagued in Russia.
 He continued his efforts to help the less fortuntte until his untimely death of a mere 69 years old. At least one cannot accuse him of not spending his time well.


To summarize:
Fridtjof Nansen was a man with advanded physique and awesome willpower who subverted present expectations of what is and isn't possible, and spent nearly all his time and efforts fighting for peace and justice.
If that doesn't make him a super hero, then being a super hero is worth fuck-all!

Today is one and a half century after his birth, and over eighty years after his death, but he was such a remarkable man that I can't hepl but celebrate the advent of him to this world.


If you still are not impressed with his accomplishments:

That's him!
Keep that in mind before you say you are not impressed! Thorough every hardship he went through, all the adversaries he faced; he did so sporting some epic 'stache!