The great polar journey

Daring the impossible - 111 years later The Arctic Ocean is perhaps man's toughest challenge: extreme and cruel cold, churning pack ice, bottomless leads and the hungry, ever-prowling polar bears. Sea-mist, wind and ceaseless currents. Up there, an inferno of threatening elements lies in wait. In 1895 Fridtjof Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen had to battle against all this, from the time they left the ice-bound Fram and headed for the North Pole, until they miraculously arrived at Vardø the following year. The story has enthralled people for more than a century, and continues to do so today. Now Børge Ousland and Thomas Ulrich have followed in the footsteps of Nansen and Johansen, from the North Pole, through Franz Josef Land, across the Barents Sea and on to Oslo. Both stories are told here by the man who knows the Arctic Ocean better than anyone else. Two expeditions with the same aim. For the first time Nansen's achievement is described by someone who has followed in his footsteps.