Stories of Frozen Seas (For Planet Ocean Challenge, 05/06/2025)

When I think of Frozen Seas, I think of Nansen and the Fram crew - because there's really no better way to represent Frozen Seas from a human point of view. Therefore, for this third prompt of the For Planet Ocean challenge, I (very loosely) based my (amateur) painting on this ship and its magnificent story.

Let me take you to 1890s Norway. About a decade earlier, pieces of the ship USS Jeannette had washed up on the coast of Greenland. Odd, since the ship was known to have sunk in the Arctic. This suggested the existence of an ocean current flowing across the Arctic Ocean from east to west. Fridtjof Nansen was intrigued by this theory and wanted to test it. There was one major problem: the polar ice would prevent any ship from freely navigating the region.

So, together with renowned shipbuilder Colin Archer, Nansen began designing one of the sturdiest ships ever constructed: the Fram. Not only did it have immensely thick sides, but its hull was specially shaped to rise above the ice as it closed in, rather than being crushed. The goal? To allow the ship - with its crew of 13 men and 35 sledge dogs - to become intentionally frozen in the Arctic ice and drift westward with the current from Russia.

For three years, the crew was stuck in the ice. They took scientific samples, did their skiing exercises on the ice surrounding the ship, and endured ever-lit summers and pitch-black winters together, until they finally broke free and returned to Norway as true heroes.

The full story is even more remarkable. You can find it on the Fram Museum website. If you want to know more about this expedition, I also highly recommend the gorgeous book The Nansen Photographs, by Fram Museum director Geir O Kløver. 

This post is part of my contribution to the For Planet Ocean Challenge 2025, using art and storytelling for ocean awareness. The prompt of 5 June is "Stories of Frozen Seas".

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