Abstract
This chapter examines the autobiographical writings of Norwegian national hero Fridtjof Nansen, arguing that Fram over polhavet (Farthest North, 1897) combines tropes of polar expedition rhetoric characterized by rationality, athleticism, and male agency with medieval religious ascetic traditions. The author argues that Nansen offers a complementary model for writing Arctic environmental history in the age of nationalism, colonialism, and the growth of industrial modernity by bringing to the fore spiritual components as constitutive of exploration. These components of Western religiosity emphasize the feminine, passive, and mythical. The author juxtaposes Nansen’s perspectives with Arne Naess’s twentieth-century eco-philosophy. Naess’s “deep ecology” emphasizes a persistent anthropocentrism that continues to influence environmental historiography about the Arctic and the Anthropocene. By bringing these perspectives together, the author offers a new model for understanding polar exploration.
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Safstrom, M. (2017). The Polar Hero’s Progress: Fridtjof Nansen, Spirituality, and Environmental History. In: Körber, LA., MacKenzie, S., Westerståhl Stenport, A. (eds) Arctic Environmental Modernities. Palgrave Studies in World Environmental History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39116-8_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39116-8_7
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