Home > Tourist > Why Oslo? > Introduction to Oslo > Article

The Explorers

Norway has been producing great explorers ever since the Viking Age. Several of their daring adventures have contributed to changing the course of history. The first great explorations and expeditions took place in the Viking Age and have continued up to our day.

Daring journeys and great discoveries

In 1000 AD, Leiv Eiriksson wrote his name in the annals of history by discovering America. Every since, the innate longing to explore has taken Norsemen to the most distant outposts of the world.

The voyages have been primarily motivated by an urge to fill in the blank parts of the map, to discover new transport routes and to acquire scientific evidence on the origin of ethnic groups.

Museums in Oslo have well-preserved vessels and equipment that was used on several of the great expeditions during an era when ships were still the most appropriate means of transport across great distances.

Leiv Eiriksson and Helge Ingstad

Leiv Eiriksson was only twenty-five years old when he and his crew discovered America. Researchers disagree as to whether he discovered America as a result of a navigational error or of a planned westward voyage. Whatever the cause, this young man – who had already advanced to the rank of captain in King Olav Tryggvason’s navy – had made a great achievement.

For a long time, historians also disagreed as to whether Eiriksson and his men had actually discovered America. During the last thirty years, however, clear evidence has emerged that the voyage actually took place. Every year on the ninth of October, the USA celebrates Leiv Eiriksson Day to commemorate the voyage. Although the ravages of time destroyed Eiriksson’s ship long ago, of course, substantial evidence supports the fact that the great voyage took place.
This evidence was discovered by Norwegians Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine Ingstad who in 1970 discovered the place where Leiv Eiriksson and his followers had landed a thousand years before. Helge Ingstad was himself a great explorer, author and historian. He had lived as a trapper in Canada back in the late 1920s.

Afterwards, he embarked on several scientific expeditions, the most important of which was the discovery of Eiriksson’s settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Helge Ingstad celebrated his one hundredth birthday on the last day of the millennium, and when he died in March 2001, he was still fully engaged in scientific activities.

Polar explorers

Anyone who visits Norway is the guest of a polar nation. More than 40% of Norway is located north of the Arctic Circle. Svalbard, Bjørnøya and Jan Mayen cover more than 60,000 square kilometres and constitute Norway’s northern territories. To the south, Norway has jurisdiction over more than two million square kilometres, and the islands Bouvetøya and Peter I are also Norwegian possessions.

The polar wessel Fram

The polar vessel "Fram" played an integral role in the Norwegian expeditions to polar areas, as it was used on three historic journeys. "Fram" was the world’s most powerful conventional ship specially designed to withstand pack ice in the polar regions. The Arctic Sea ship has been well restored and preserved for posterity and is now moored at the Fram Museum in Bygdøy, Oslo. This museum also houses much of the equipment used by Nansen, Sverdrup and Amundsen on their expeditions.

The Fram Museum presents great segments of our polar history, which is simultaneously world history in Polar contexts, and the museum is one of the finest sights of interest Oslo has to offer.

Fridtjof Nansen

Fridtjof Nansen was an explorer and a scientist, as well as a pioneer in polar research. His trek across Greenland in 1888 was a historic event in the annals of polar expeditions.
Nansen, together with Colin Archer, designed the polar vessel ‘Fram’ that ended up serving on three polar expeditions.

The ship was launched in 1892. The purpose of the expedition was to drift with the ice across the Arctic Ocean to prove the existence of a current from east to north and west. Over a three-year period, the ship drifted across the Arctic Ocean (1893-96). Nansen’s theory was proven, and substantial scientific results were achieved and described in Nansen’s six-volume treatise.
Since the drifting did not take them as close to the North Pole as originally assumed, Nansen tried to trek to the North Pole on skis, together with Hjalmar Johansen. They were forced to turn back, however, when they reached 86 degrees and 14 minutes. Furnished with provisions for only ninety days, they ended up living on the ice and on Franz Josef Land for 462 days. They survived almost solely on polar bear and walrus meat.

Fridtjof Nansen was later recognised for his great humanitarian efforts, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.

Otto Sverdrup

Otto Sverdrup is the least known of our polar scientists. He crossed Greenland on skis with Nansen in 1888. During the voyage through the Arctic Ocean on "Fram", he was the captain. After Nansen left the ship to trek to the North Pole on 14 March 1895, Otto Sverdrup became the leader of the expedition.

"Fram" departed on its next expedition in 1898. This time, Sverdrup was both captain and leader of the expedition. Their original purpose was to chart the "blank areas" of East Greenland. These efforts failed. With various winter harbours on Ellesmere Island as their base, a total of 250,000 square kilometres of new land west of Greenland was charted instead.

A wealth of scientific data was collected and this data resulted in more than thirty treatises. Botanists, a zoologist, cartographer and a geologist participated on the expedition. The expedition ended up lasting four years. They became ice bound in Goose Fjord near Ellesmere Island, however, and couldn’t get out.

In Norway, "Fram" and its crew were given up for lost. So the return of ‘Fram’ in autumn 1902 caused widespread rejoicing. Sverdrup’s polar efforts are fully equal to Nansen and Amundsen’s, but little noticed because Sverdrup is described as the most reticent man in Norway.

Roald Amundsen

Roald Amundsen was one of Norway’s leading discoverers and an unrivalled polar explorer.
He discovered the Northwest Passage in the northern Arctic areas on an expedition that lasted from 1903 to 1906.

In 1911, he and his men planted the Norwegian flag at the South Pole, becoming the first to reach this southernmost end of the earth. "Fram" was the ship Amundsen used on his voyage to and from Whale Bay.

Later, he tried to reach the North Pole both on the polar ship "Maud" and by plane, and in 1926 he flew over the Arctic on the dirigible "Norge".

Roald Amundsen never returned from a rescue expedition in 1928. He disappeared on a plane during an attempt to find the dirigible "Italia" and Captain Nobile who went missing over the northern Arctic regions. Nobile was found, but Norway had lost one of its most outstanding men in the process.

Thor Heyerdahl and his three rafts

The name Thor Heyerdahl is primarily associated with the Kon-Tiki expedition. In 1947, Heyerdahl and his crew sailed across the Pacific Ocean from Peru to the Tuamato Islands in Polynesia. The voyage took place on a lightweight raft made of balsa wood, and the expedition covered eight thousand kilometres in the course of 101 days. The purpose of the expedition was to prove Heyerdahl’s theory about migration from South America to Polynesia in former times.

The two RA expeditions were made in 1969 and 1970, which in Heyerdahl’s opinion proved that vessels were capable of crossing the Atlantic Ocean even in antiquity and also proved the great likelihood of a seafaring connection between Africa and America.

The last of Heyerdahl’s great raft voyages took place on Tigris, a papyrus vessel, in 1977-78. Tigris sailed round the Arabian Peninsula.

Heyerdahl has also made scientific expeditions to places like the Easter Islands, Galapagos, the Maldives and to ancient pyramids in Tacume, South America.

Heyerdahl’s life has been more exotic and eventful than most people even dream about. But fortunately, we have a museum in Oslo that shows everyone else the way to Heyerdahl’s discoveries. The well-preserved balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki is on display at The Kon-Tiki Museum in Bygdøy. In recent years, the Kon-Tiki has been joined by the papyrus raft RA. The museum also exhibits an abundant selection of archaeological finds from Heyerdahl’s expeditions across the Pacific Ocean.

The exhibitions are interestingly and unconventionally organised and appeal to children and adults alike. For many years, the Kon-Tiki Museum had the highest attendance figures of all the sights of interest in Oslo and is located beside the Fram Museum.

The Viking Ship Museum and the Norwegian Folk Museum are also located in this same area.