GATEWAY TO THE ARCTIC In the footsteps of polar greats and guardians of the North Located 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle, Tromsø has for centuries been a final outpost of the known world. Existing beyond it was only endless ice, harsh winters and the courage of those who ventured into that whiteness I n order for us to understand the spirit of Tromsø, we must under- stand what was seen by those who set sail from its docks. The geo- graphic North Pole isn’t a land-
the Fram, a ship with a rounded hull that was designed so that the ice would actu- ally lift the vessel to float on the surface of the ice as it tightens around it. Nansen consciously allowed his ship to become icebound, believing that the sea’s natural currents would carry him across the Pole itself. The ship remained trapped in the ice for an incredible three years, floating thousands of kilometres. When Nansen realised that the currents wouldn’t car- ry the ship directly over the North Pole after all, he did something even crazier: with a single companion, he left the safe- ty of the ship and headed for the pole on foot, on skis and with dog sleds. They sur- vived for more than a year on the harsh ice, before sheer luck brought them in- to contact with a British expedition that saved them. Both Nansen and the inde- structible Fram returned to Norway tri- umphantly in 1896. An even greater story told around this city belongs to Roald Amundsen, the first man to ever conquer the South Pole and an undisputed titan of polar exploration. De- spite gaining worldwide repute in Antarc- tica in 1911, the Arctic was always his first and greatest obsession. Before his expedi- tion to the south, Amundsen became the
and ice cracks with sounds that are reminis- cent of thunder or cannon fire. It was right here, in Tromsø, that the great explorers gathered their last supplies, recruited the bravest sailors and drank their last beer in warm surroundings before disappearing in- to the Arctic night. Their stories are today preserved at the Polar Museum (Polarmu- seet), housed in a former customs ware- house built in 1830. The wooden building itself, filled as it is with the smell of tar, old ropes and dried wooden beams, repre- sents a portal to that heroic age. There we meet the spirit of Fridtjof Nansen, a visionary of the late 19 th cen- tury who came up with a crazy but bril- liant idea: instead of fighting the ice pack that would crush any ship, he constructed
mass where you can simply plant a flag. It is a dynamic, harsh and constantly moving ice sheet that’s two to three metres thick and floats over the frozen Arctic Ocean, which reaches incredible depths of as much as 4,000 metres. That absolute “zero point” at the top of the planet is roughly 2,100 kilometres from Tromsø. But back in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries, that distance was measured by superhuman exertion, in temperatures that plunge as low as minus 50 degrees Cel- sius, while winds howl at hurricane speed
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