Fram
Encyclopedia
Fram ("Forward") is a ship
Ship
Since the end of the age of sail a ship has been any large buoyant marine vessel. Ships are generally distinguished from boats based on size and cargo or passenger capacity. Ships are used on lakes, seas, and rivers for a variety of activities, such as the transport of people or goods, fishing,...
that was used in expeditions of the Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
and Antarctic
Antarctic
The Antarctic is the region around the Earth's South Pole, opposite the Arctic region around the North Pole. The Antarctic comprises the continent of Antarctica and the ice shelves, waters and island territories in the Southern Ocean situated south of the Antarctic Convergence...
regions by the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
explorers Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...
, Otto Sverdrup
Otto Sverdrup
Otto Neumann Knoph Sverdrup was a Norwegian sailor and Arctic explorer.-Early and personal life:...
, Oscar Wisting
Oscar Wisting
Oscar Adolf Wisting was a Norwegian polar explorer. Together with Roald Amundsen he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles.- Biography :...
, and Roald Amundsen
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....
between 1893 and 1912. It was designed and built by the Norwegian shipwright Colin Archer
Colin Archer
Colin Archer was a Norwegian naval architect and shipbuilder from Larvik, Norway. His parents emigrated from Scotland to Norway in 1825....
for Fridtjof Nansen's 1893 Arctic expedition in which Fram was supposed to freeze into the Arctic ice sheet and float with it over the North Pole.
Fram is said to have sailed farther north (85°57'N) and farther south (78°41'S) than any other wooden ship. Fram is currently preserved at the Fram Museum
Fram Museum
The Fram Museum is a museum telling the story of Norwegian polar exploration. It is located on the peninsula of Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway.Fram Museum is situated in an area with several other museums, including the Kon-Tiki Museum; the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History; the Viking Ship Museum;...
in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
, Norway.
Construction
Nansen's ambition was to explore the Arctic farther north than anyone else. To do that, he would have to deal with a problem that many sailing on the polar ocean had encountered before him: the freezing ice could crush a ship. Nansen's idea was to build a ship that could survive the pressure, not by pure strength, but because it would be of a shape designed to let the ice push the ship up, so it would "float" on top of the ice.Fram is designed as a three masted schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
with a total length of 39 meters and width of 11 meters. The ship is both unusually wide and unusually shallow in order to better withstand the forces of pressing ice.
Nansen commissioned the shipwright Colin Archer
Colin Archer
Colin Archer was a Norwegian naval architect and shipbuilder from Larvik, Norway. His parents emigrated from Scotland to Norway in 1825....
from Larvik
Larvik
is a city and municipality in Vestfold county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the city of Larvik. Larvik kommune - has about 41 364 inhabitants and covers 530 km2....
to construct a vessel with these characteristics. Fram was built with an outer layer of greenheart wood to withstand the ice and almost without a keel
Keel
In boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts: a structural element, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event...
to handle the shallow waters Nansen expected to encounter. The rudder
Rudder
A rudder is a device used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, aircraft or other conveyance that moves through a medium . On an aircraft the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw and p-factor and is not the primary control used to turn the airplane...
and propeller
Propeller
A propeller is a type of fan that transmits power by converting rotational motion into thrust. A pressure difference is produced between the forward and rear surfaces of the airfoil-shaped blade, and a fluid is accelerated behind the blade. Propeller dynamics can be modeled by both Bernoulli's...
were designed to be retracted into the ship. The ship was also carefully insulated to allow the crew to live on board for up to five years. The ship also included a windmill
Windmill
A windmill is a machine which converts the energy of wind into rotational energy by means of vanes called sails or blades. Originally windmills were developed for milling grain for food production. In the course of history the windmill was adapted to many other industrial uses. An important...
, which ran a generator to provide electric power for lighting by electric arc lamps
Arc lamp
"Arc lamp" or "arc light" is the general term for a class of lamps that produce light by an electric arc . The lamp consists of two electrodes, first made from carbon but typically made today of tungsten, which are separated by a gas...
.
Initially, Fram was fitted with a steam engine. Prior to Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole in 1910, the engine was replaced with a diesel engine, a first for polar exploration vessels.
Expeditions
Fram was used in several expeditions:Nansen's 1893–1896 Arctic expedition
Due to ship wreckage, most notably from the , as well as driftwood found in the regions of SvalbardSvalbard
Svalbard is an archipelago in the Arctic, constituting the northernmost part of Norway. It is located north of mainland Europe, midway between mainland Norway and the North Pole. The group of islands range from 74° to 81° north latitude , and from 10° to 35° east longitude. Spitsbergen is the...
and Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
, Nansen
Fridtjof Nansen
Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In his youth a champion skier and ice skater, he led the team that made the first crossing of the Greenland interior in 1888, and won international fame after reaching a...
speculated that there was an ocean current
Ocean current
An ocean current is a continuous, directed movement of ocean water generated by the forces acting upon this mean flow, such as breaking waves, wind, Coriolis effect, cabbeling, temperature and salinity differences and tides caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon and the Sun...
flowing beneath the ice sheet from east to west, bringing driftwood from the Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
n region to Svalbard and further west. Nansen had Fram built, in order to explore this theory.
Nansen undertook an expedition that came to last three years. When Nansen realised that Fram would not reach the North Pole directly by the force of the current, he and Hjalmar Johansen
Hjalmar Johansen
Fredrik Hjalmar Johansen was a polar explorer from Norway. He shipped out with Fridtjof Nansen's Fram expedition in 1893–1896, and accompanied Nansen to notch a new Farthest North record near the North Pole on what was then the frozen Arctic Ocean...
set out to reach the pole by ski. Reaching 86° 14' north, he had to turn back to spend the winter at Franz Joseph Land. Nansen and Johansen survived on walrus
Walrus
The walrus is a large flippered marine mammal with a discontinuous circumpolar distribution in the Arctic Ocean and sub-Arctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. The walrus is the only living species in the Odobenidae family and Odobenus genus. It is subdivided into three subspecies: the Atlantic...
and polar bear
Polar Bear
The polar bear is a bear native largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the world's largest land carnivore and also the largest bear, together with the omnivorous Kodiak Bear, which is approximately the same size...
meat and blubber
Blubber
Blubber is a thick layer of vascularized adipose tissue found under the skin of all cetaceans, pinnipeds and sirenians.-Description:Lipid-rich, collagen fiber–laced blubber comprises the hypodermis and covers the whole body, except for parts of the appendages, strongly attached to the musculature...
. Finally meeting British explorers, the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition
Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition
The Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition to Franz Josef Land, 1894–97, was led by British Arctic explorer Frederick George Jackson and financed by newspaper proprietor Alfred Harmsworth. Jackson had been misled by false maps into believing that Franz Joseph Land was a land mass that extended to...
, they managed to reach Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
only days before the Fram arrived back there. The Fram had spent nearly three years beset in the ice, reaching 85° 57' N.
Sverdrup's 1898–1902 Canadian Arctic islands expedition
In 1898, Otto SverdrupOtto Sverdrup
Otto Neumann Knoph Sverdrup was a Norwegian sailor and Arctic explorer.-Early and personal life:...
led a scientific expedition to the Canadian Arctic islands. Fram was slightly modified for this journey, its freeboard
Freeboard (nautical)
In sailing and boating, freeboardmeans the distance from the waterline to the upper deck level, measured at the lowest point of sheer where water can enter the boat or ship...
being increased. Fram left harbour on 24 June 1898, with 17 men on board. Their aim was to chart the lands of the Arctic Islands, and to sample the geology, flora and fauna. The expeditions lasted till 1902, leading to charts covering 260,000 km2, more than any other Arctic expedition.
Amundsen's 1910–1912 South Pole expedition
Fram was used by Roald AmundsenRoald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....
in his southern polar expedition from 1910 to 1912, the first to reach the South Pole, during which it reached 78° 41' S.
Preservation of Fram
The ship was left to decay in storage between 1912 and the late 1920s, when Lars ChristensenLars Christensen
Lars Christensen was a Norwegian shipowner and whaling magnate with a keen interest in the exploration of Antarctica.-Career:...
, Otto Sverdrup and Oscar Wisting
Oscar Wisting
Oscar Adolf Wisting was a Norwegian polar explorer. Together with Roald Amundsen he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles.- Biography :...
initiated efforts to preserve her. In 1935 the ship was installed in the Fram Museum
Fram Museum
The Fram Museum is a museum telling the story of Norwegian polar exploration. It is located on the peninsula of Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway.Fram Museum is situated in an area with several other museums, including the Kon-Tiki Museum; the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History; the Viking Ship Museum;...
where she now stands.
Named after Fram
- Fram IslandKomsomolskaya Pravda IslandsThe Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands are a group of islands covered with tundra vegetation, shingle and ice. They were known as Ostrova Samuila before the 1917 Russian Revolution and then they were renamed after Komsomolskaya Pravda, being for a while the only island group in the world named after a...
(Ostrov Frama), an island close to the Komsomolskaya Pravda Islands, Laptev Sea - FramheimFramheimFramheim was the name of explorer Roald Amundsen's base at the Bay of Whales on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica during his quest for the South Pole...
(literally "Home of the Fram"), Amundsen's Base at the Bay of WhalesBay of WhalesThe Bay of Whales is a natural ice harbor, or iceport, indenting the front of Ross Ice Shelf just north of Roosevelt Island. It is the southernmost point of open ocean not only of the Ross Sea, but worldwide...
in Antarctica during his quest for the South Pole - FramFram (bicycle)For other uses, see Fram Fram was a Swedish bicycle manufacturer. Fram dated back to 1897 and was manufactured in Uppsala, Sweden until the early 1970s . The company B. Bernh. Oberg & Co. was founded by Bernhard Oberg in 1897 and began manufacturing bicycles similar to competitor Nyman companies...
, a former Swedish bicycleBicycleA bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
manufacturer. - Fram Rupes, an escarpmentEscarpmentAn escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that occurs from erosion or faulting and separates two relatively level areas of differing elevations.-Description and variants:...
on MercuryMercury (planet)Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 Earth days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three rotations about its axis for every two orbits... - Fram crater, a small crater on MarsMarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
, visited by the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity in 2004 - Fram BasinFram BasinFram Basin is the lowest point of the Arctic Ocean at a depth of 4,665 m.The Fram Basin is a part of the Eurasian Basin, and lies between the Nansen Cordillera and the Lomonosov Ridge. The Barents Abyssal Plain is located at the center of the Fram Basin....
, the deepest point in the Arctic OceanArctic OceanThe Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions... - Fram StraitFram StraitThe Fram Strait is a passage from the Arctic Ocean to the Greenland Sea and Norwegian Sea, between Greenland and Spitsbergen. It is named after the Norwegian ship Fram. The Fram Strait is the major connection between the Arctic Ocean and the world ocean....
, a passage from the Arctic Ocean to the Greenland SeaGreenland SeaThe Greenland Sea is a body of water that borders Greenland to the west, the Svalbard archipelago to the east, Fram Strait and the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Norwegian Sea and Iceland to the south. The Greenland Sea is often defined as part of the Arctic Ocean, sometimes as part of the...
and Norwegian SeaNorwegian SeaThe Norwegian Sea is a marginal sea in the North Atlantic Ocean, northwest of Norway. It is located between the North Sea and the Greenland Sea and adjoins the North Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Barents Sea to the northeast. In the southwest, it is separated from the Atlantic Ocean by a...
, between GreenlandGreenlandGreenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
and SpitsbergenSpitsbergenSpitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
. - Fram, ursul polar, ("Fram, the Polar Bear"), a Romanian children's book by Cezar PetrescuCezar PetrescuCezar Petrescu was a Romanian journalist, novelist and children's writer.He was inspired by the works of Honoré de Balzac, attempting to write a Romanian novel cycle that would mirror Balzac's La Comédie humaine...
. It was also referred to in Saltimbanci (The Tumblers) [1981], a movie about a circus family that encounters hard times and family strife, but is brought into the limelight through their chance encounter with a polar bear cub. - "Fram", a song by British post-rock band iLiKETRAiNSILiKETRAiNSI Like Trains are an alternative/post-rock band from Leeds, England. The group play brooding songs featuring sparse piano and guitar, baritone vocals, uplifting choral passages and reverberant orchestral crescendos...
- FRAM CQ, Southern California soccer club
- Fram, a moody Glaswegian ambient rock band
- FramFram (play)Fram is a 2008 play by Tony Harrison. It uses the story of the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen's attempt to reach the North Pole, and his subsequent campaign to relieve famine in the Soviet Union to explore the role of art in a world beset by seemingly greater issues...
, a play by Tony HarrisonTony HarrisonTony Harrison is an English poet and playwright. He is noted for controversial works such as the poem V and Fram, as well as his versions of ancient Greek tragedies, including the Oresteia and Hecuba...
, premièred at the National Theatre London, 2008 - Fram Capital, an investment company based in São Paulo, Brazil
- In Arthur RansomeArthur RansomeArthur Michell Ransome was an English author and journalist, best known for writing the Swallows and Amazons series of children's books. These tell of school-holiday adventures of children, mostly in the Lake District and the Norfolk Broads. Many of the books involve sailing; other common subjects...
's children's book, Winter Holiday, the children use the name, Fram, for their Uncle Jim's houseboat, trapped in the ice on the lake which becomes the inspiration for some of their adventures.
Other ships named Fram
- A ship built in 1958 and named after Axel Enström was later renamed Fram.
- Harald VHarald V of NorwayHarald V is the king of Norway. He succeeded to the throne of Norway upon the death of his father Olav V on 17 January 1991...
, the King of NorwayNorwegian monarchyThe Norwegian monarch or Sovereign is the head of state of Norway, which is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government...
has had a number of sailboats for regattaRegattaA regatta is a series of boat races. The term typically describes racing events of rowed or sailed water craft, although some powerboat race series are also called regattas...
use named Fram. He became world champion in sailing with Fram X in 1987 and is currently racing in Fram XVI (2006). - The Norwegian passenger and freight line HurtigrutenHurtigrutenHurtigruten or Hurtigruta is a Norwegian passenger and freight line with daily sailings along Norway's western and northern coast. Sometimes referred to in English as Norwegian Coastal Express, Hurtigruten ships sail almost the entire length of the country, completing the roundtrip journey in 11...
operates a ship called MS FramMS FramMS Fram is a passenger vessel operated by the Norway-based Hurtigruten Group. The ship is named after the original Fram, the ship used by explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen. The ship operates in the Arctic Ocean and around Greenland in the summer, and cruises around Antarctica at other...
.