New Land Four Years in the Arctic Regions

This well-illustrated account of polar exploration was originally published in Norway in 1903, and in this two-volume English translation in 1904. It tells the story of the four years spent by Otto Sverdrup (1854–1930) and his crew in surveying and charting the seas and coastlines of the Arctic. Sverdrup had qualified as a ship's master when he first met Fridtjof Nansen, whose Greenland expedition of 1888 he accompanied. He advised on the construction of Nansen's wooden ship, the Fram, and became its master in 1895. Both with Nansen and under his own leadership, he undertook many expeditions. In June 1898, he took the Fram and a crew including several scientists to Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, where they overwintered for four years. Volume 2 describes the remainder of the expedition's time on the ice, and also the results of the various scientific surveys made by the crew.

1. Isachsen relates; 2. Summer journeys and fertility; 3. Westward with the ship; 4. To Gaasefjord; 5. Happy hunting grounds; 6. Snowstorm and misfortunes; 7. Before the polar night; 8. A wolf winter; 9. Christmas and new year; 10. New land!; 11. Spring journeys, 1901; 12. Troldfjord; 13. A polar idyl; 14. Heureka!; 15. A dying people; 16. Seventeenth of May; 17. Towards the south!; 18. To Skaarefjord; 19. Björnesund and Ulvefjord; 20. A stony land; 21. Fuglefjord; 22. A surveyor's life; 23. Fosheim's account; 24. Isachsen and Hassel's journey, spring, 1901; 25. Spring journeys and summer impressions; 26. North Devon and St Helena; 27. Closed in and shut out; 28. Hunting for winter food; 29. The fourth winter and spring; 30. To Smörgrautberget; 31. Seventeenth of May; 32. Blaamanden and Bay Fjord; 33. Home to the Fram; 34. Our comrades' experiences; 35. The last summer; 36. Homeward!; Summary of expenses incurred; Scientific appendices 1-4; Index.