The United States & Norway: Partners in the Polar Regions

This Fram Museum exhibition book celebrates Americans and Norwegians who have explored unchartered areas in the Polar Regions for centuries. Many of the first discoveries in the Arctic and Antarctic were made by Norwegian or American expeditions, or by Norwegian and American explorers working together. This exhibition is a celebration of their efforts and their contribution to our knowledge of the ends of the Earth.

Famous explorers like Richard Byrd, Roald Amundsen, Fridtjof Nansen, and Robert Peary have remained an important part of international polar history, but their cooperation partners are largely forgotten. Byrd needed a Norwegian pilot to get to the South Pole, Amundsen needed a wealthy American explorer to get to the North Pole, Nansen needed the inspiration of driftwood from an American ship to prove the current across the Polar Sea, and Peary needed a Norwegian ski expert to cross Northern Greenland.

When we look closer into the history of polar exploration, there are many examples of how Americnas and Norwegians worked together through hardship and frost to discover new land and lay the foundation for polar science.