Between 1893 and 1896, the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen allowed his ship Fram to freeze into the Arctic icepack and attempted to drift with the ice across the North Pole. He came close but ultimately failed in the attempt. Recently, a new expedition was announced which hopes to succeed where Nansen failed. The MOSAiC (Multidisciplinary drifting Observatory for the Study of Arctic Climate) project will endeavor to drift in the ice using the 120m-long German research vessel, the Polarstern, starting in 2019. It is billed as “the biggest single Arctic research expedition ever planned and is expected to cost €63m (£54m; $67m).

Another group of scientists has been working on versions of Nansen’s Fram expedition on a much smaller budget. For several years, Yngve Kristoffersen, John K. Hall, and a small team of scientists have been using R/V Sabvabaa, an 11 meter hovercraft, as a mobile Arctic ice drift station. Their first expedition in 2012 was the subject of a critically acclaimed documentary, “North Into the Mist.”  (The video is after the page break.) 

In 2014-2015, R/V Sabvabaa returned to the ice to be used as a drift station in the FRAM 2014/15 expedition. The hovercraft with professor Yngve Kristoffersen and Audun Tholfsen from the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Bergen, Norway was deployed on the Arctic sea ice by the German icebreaker Polarstern, about 280 kilometres from the North Pole on 30th August 2014.  An ice camp was built up on a 2 square kilometers ice floe. For almost a year, the two scientists drifted through the central Arctic Ocean recording measurements of sea ice, oceanic, atmospheric and geologic data and observations. FRAM2014-15 was the first Norwegian ice drift in the Arctic Ocean since Fridtjof Nansen´s drift with the vessel Fram 118 years ago.

“North Into the Mist” was produced and directed by Neil and Ariel Weisbrod.

Thanks for Alaric Bond, Alan Rice and Roberta Weisbrod for contributing to this post.