This well-illustrated account of polar exploration was originally published in Norway in 1903, and in this two-volume English translation in 1904. It tells the story of the four years spent by Otto Sverdrup (1854–1930) and his crew in surveying, charting and mapping the seas and coastlines of the Arctic. Sverdrup had qualified as a ship's master when he first met Fridtjof Nansen, and took part in the Greenland expedition of 1888. He advised on the construction of Nansen's wooden ship, the Fram, and became its master in 1895. Both with Nansen and under his own leadership, he undertook many expeditions. In June 1898, he took the Fram and a crew including several scientists to Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, where they overwintered for four years, living like the Inuit while exploring as yet undiscovered islands and charting a total of over 250,000 square kilometres.