The New International Encyclopædia/Sverdrup, Otto

SVERDRUP, Otto (1855—). A Norwegian Arctic explorer, born at Haarstad Farm, District of Helgeland. He followed the sea at the age of seventeen, was subsequently in command of a merchant vessel, and in 1888 joined Nansen's expedition to Greenland. In 1893 he started with Nansen for the North Pole as commander of the Fram, which had been built under his supervision, and when Nansen, in 1895, proceeded north on dog sledges, Sverdrup took the ship to the Arctic Sea and in 1896 back to Norway. In 1898 he led another expedition in the Fram as far as Cape Sable, was caught in the ice for a year, and, after advancing into Jones's Sound in the summer of 1899, was again ice-bound for three years. Having explored the southwest and western shores of Ellesmere Land and discovered islands north of the Peary Archipelago, he reached Goodhaven, Greenland, in August, 1902, and returned to Norway in the autumn.