The Turning Point
01/29/21 • 48 min
By the second half of the 19th century, British explorers had competition from Americans and Norwegians in the race to claim the North Pole. Nowhere was the contrast in expedition styles more evident than between British naval officer George Strong Nares and Norwegian adventurer Fridtjof Nansen. While Nares stuck to tradition, Nansen ushered in a new era of polar exploration that favored tested theories over wishful thinking, self-organization over government sponsorship, and minimalism over the idea that bigger was better. The international competition to be the first at the Pole was on.
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By the second half of the 19th century, British explorers had competition from Americans and Norwegians in the race to claim the North Pole. Nowhere was the contrast in expedition styles more evident than between British naval officer George Strong Nares and Norwegian adventurer Fridtjof Nansen. While Nares stuck to tradition, Nansen ushered in a new era of polar exploration that favored tested theories over wishful thinking, self-organization over government sponsorship, and minimalism over the idea that bigger was better. The international competition to be the first at the Pole was on.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Previous Episode
Go North, Young Man
In this episode, we’ll dive into the first real attempts to conquer the North Pole in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As explorers pushed farther into uncharted territory, they encountered dangerous icebergs, Arctic mirages, Indigenous communities, and extreme hardship. British explorers like William Edward Parry, John Ross, and John Franklin didn’t have any idea what they were getting into—and paid the price. The learning curve for explorers who wanted to go north would be steep. But that definitely didn’t prevent people from trying.
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Next Episode
Inuit and the Explorers
European explorers often thought of the Arctic as an empty wasteland, and the Indigenous people who lived there as childlike. But as one historian put it, “the real children in the Arctic would be the white explorers.” From Martin Frobisher’s expeditions in the 16th century right up until Robert Peary’s time, Inuit people helped explorers in countless ways—from providing food, to teaching valuable skills, to saving their lives. In this episode, we’ll learn how Indigenous people viewed the Europeans and Americans in their lands, why they chose to assist in their expeditions, and how explorers often exploited them in their quests for the North Pole.
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Mental Floss Presents: The Quest for the North Pole - The Turning Point
Transcript
The Quest for the North Pole is a production of I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. It's June and Norwegian polar explorer fritch Off Nonson is waking up after another frigid night spent on Frontio's of Land. It's an uninhabited archipelago north of Siberia in the Arctic Ocean. With his assistant Yalmar Johansen still snoozing nearby, Nonsense starts a fire, tosses some meat into a pot to make soup, and climbs the top of Rocky Hill to admire the view
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