'Nansen was the last of the Nordic gods. Tall, blond, and ridiculously handsome. The First Crossing Of Greenland is a. thrilling account of his earliest adventure. It was a hideous journey. Hair froze fast to headgear, beards solidified so that the lips could not be opened to speak. Polar exploration tends to attract more testosterone than talent. One man towers over the other ice-encrusted sledgers: Fridtjof Nansen, colossus of the glaciers.

Of all the frozen beards. only Nansen communicated a sense of the true subjugation of the ego that endeavour can bring. Failure, he acknowledged, would mean "only disappointed human hopes, nothing more".' Sara Wheeler, Guardian; 'Seminal. demythologised the polar environment and revolutionised modern polar travel with the introduction of skis.' Roland Huntford, The Times; 'Nansen defied that conventional wisdom, which dictated explorers proceed from the known to the unknown to maintain a line of retreat, by sailing first to the largely uncharted eastern coast of Greenland.' Times Higher Education; 'The visionary Norse explorer.' Jon Krakauer.