Account of Nansen's three-year expedition to the North Pole, describing his plan to allow the specialliy designed Fram to become frozen in the treacherous pack ice of the Arctic Oceans, with an aim to drift, with the current, to the pole. Unfazed by the failure of this plan, he and another crew member set out to cover the remaining distance on foot - they were to travel 146 miles farther north than any Westerner had gone before, representing one of the greatest single gains in polar exploration in four centuries.