冰封1,000日 1,000 Days in the Ice

1,000 Days in the Ice
冰封1,000日


Norway's Fridtjof Nansen was a pioneer of polar exploration.


冰封1,ooo日
在寒冷的峡湾里，从奥斯陆市中心搭一趟短程渡轮就能抵达的一处岩岬上，有一座为著名船只设立的「国家墓地」。这是挪威的专利——还有哪个国家会为他们最钟爱的船只建造地穴，而且多年来一直珍藏着它们呢？
在比格多半岛这里，游客可以漫步于各个华丽的博物馆，里面展出古代的维京海盗船、19世纪渔船，甚至还有挪威探险家索尔‧海尔达著名的轻木筏康提基号。
但是在奥斯陆的航海圣殿当中，最引人注目的是一个用玻璃与金属建成的尖形构造，它就像一个巨大的英文字母A一般自吃水线中升起。有一艘坚固的木造纵帆船就静静地停在里面，沐浴在渗入的光线下──它建造于1892年，名叫「前进号」。
前进号可能是挪威漫长的航海史上最著名的一艘船，也是极地探险的象征。前进号本身就是一个工程奇迹：它的船身经过强化，曾经熬过受困在北极浮冰中的三年，而且船如其名，前进号挺进到比先前的船只都更为深入的冰封地带。
前进号背后的主要推手，也就是委托制造这艘船，并带领它展开危险的处女航、进入北极迷雾中的那个人，是一位才华横溢但性情不定的科学家兼探险家，至今仍被视为挪威的国家元老。他名叫弗里乔夫．内森，虽然今日在挪威以外的地方，他的名声没有其它赫赫有名的极地探险家，例如皮里、史考特与阿蒙森等人响亮，但其实他应该与他们齐名。因为内森可说是现代极地探险之父；其它人充其量只能算是他的追随者。
内森是一位魁梧的金发男子，肤色白皙、眼神泠漠、面容凶猛，看起来跟他高雅的知性智慧略显不符。内森跟极地探险黄金时代许多追逐虚名的人大不相同。他就像文艺复兴时代的维京人，是才华洋溢的作家、广受欢迎的演说家、一流的动物学家，以及出色的政治家。他精通至少五种语言、擅长拍照，绘制了精美的地图与插图，保存大量的科学信函，并且为他所有的探险注入知性的精准度。有位当代的德国科学家在提及内森时说，他「不但懂得操作显微镜，用起冰斧和滑雪板来也一样得心应手」；他的科学成就亦相当不凡，包括一篇探讨中央神经系统本质的突破性论文。
1888年，内森率领首度横越格陵兰的创举（一如往常，他轻描淡写地称之为「滑雪之旅」），但是他却错过了返乡的最后一趟船，被迫留下来靠猎海豹过冬，学习划爱斯基摩式轻艇，还有跟格陵兰人一起生活。他根据这次的经验，出版了《首度横越格陵兰》（1890年）这本广受好评的著作，以及生动的人类学书籍《爱斯基摩人的生活》。继格陵兰的冒险之后，内森成为滑雪运动的首要推动者。在奥斯陆的贺美科伦滑雪博物馆里，内森被描绘为穿着毛皮、脚踏两片滑雪板的神祇，也是挪威国家运动的创始者。



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相关英文内容:
1,000 Days in the Ice
Norway's Fridtjof Nansen was a pioneer of polar exploration.
By Hampton Sides
Photograph by Fridtjof Nansen
Photograph courtesy National Library of Norway Picture Collection
Out in the cold fjord, on a spit of rocky land just a short ferry ride from the city center, Oslo has created a kind of national cemetery for famous ships. It's a Norwegian thing—what other country would build public crypts around its most beloved boats and enshrine them for the ages? Out here on the Bygdøy Peninsula, visitors can spend days rambling through splendid museums that house ancient Viking longships, 19th-century fishing vessels, even Thor Heyerdahl's famed balsa wood raft, the Kon-Tiki.

But the most striking of Oslo's nautical temples is a pointy glass-and-metal structure that rises from the waterline in the shape of an enormous letter A. Inside, basking in the filtered light, sleeps a sturdy wooden schooner, built in 1892, called the Fram.


Fram (which means "forward") is perhaps the most famous ship in Norway's long seafaring history, and an icon of polar exploration. Nothing about this fat-bellied ark would begin to suggest the grueling odysseys it has endured. The story of the Fram is a modern Norse saga, a story of unimaginable hardship and intelligent striving that is closely tied to Norwegian national identity. The boat itself is an engineering marvel—its reinforced hull having withstood three years gripped by Arctic ice. True to its assertive, full-frontal name, Fram bored farther into the frozen latitudes than any vessel had before.

The prime mover behind the Fram, the brilliant and moody scientist-explorer who commissioned its construction and led its insanely dangerous maiden voyage into the polar mists, remains a national patriarch. His name is Fridt­jof Nansen, and although today he is not as well-known outside Norway as other marquee polar adventurers—Peary, Scott, and Amund­sen—he should be. For Nansen was quite simply the father of modern polar exploration; all others were, in a very real sense, his acolytes.

Nansen was a strapping blond man, fair complected, with a frosty stare and a truculent face that seemed slightly at odds with the refinements of his intellect. Nansen stood apart from the quixotic glory hounds who characterized much of polar exploration's golden age. Call him a Renaissance Viking: He was a gifted writer, a sought-after lecturer, a first-rate zoologist, and a prominent statesman. Fluent in at least five languages, adroit with a camera, he made beautiful maps and illustrations, kept up a voluminous scientific correspondence, and brought an element of cerebral precision to all his explo­rations. A contemporary German scientist said of Nansen that he "knew how to handle the microscope as well as the ice axe and skis," and his scientific achievements were notable, including a groundbreaking paper on the nature of the central nervous system.

In 1888 Nansen led the first traverse of Greenland—with typical understatement, he called it a "ski tour"—but he missed the last boat home, forcing him to stay the winter hunting seals, learning to kayak, and living with Greenlanders. This experience formed the basis for his acclaimed account, The First Crossing of Greenland, published in 1890, and a lively ethnology, Eskimo Life. Following his Greenland adventures, he became a leading proselytizer for the sport of skiing. At Oslo's Holmenkollen Ski Museum, Nansen is depicted as a twin-planked deity in furs, a founding father of Norway's national sport.

For all of Nansen's protean accomplishments, it was the harrowing journey of the Fram between 1893 and 1896 that gave his life story real drama. The expedition was predicated on an idea so outlandish that the leading polar authorities of the day, including the Royal Geographical Society, considered it suicidal. Nansen deliberately set out to become locked in the Arctic—or, as he put it, to "give ourselves up to the ice."











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