If there is one tool that I bless sometimes it's the internet! There is indeed a month ago, I (finally) came across a book I was looking for a long time: the story of Fridtjof Nansen and his North Pole expedition. Originally the first Norwegian polar expedition, Nansen achieved the feat of scientific and human approach the pole more than anyone before him. Party with his ship, the Fram, he was first led away by the drift, before approaching the mythical point with his companion Hjalmar Johansen on the ice until it reaches 86 ° 15 '.
Three years after their departure, the two men will be collected by a British expedition. The Fram, meanwhile, continued its long drift in the ice before you get free. On September 9, 1896, Nansen and Johansen Fram made ​​a triumphal entry into the port of Christiania (later Oslo) as evidenced by the explorer himself: "The capital of Norway makes us a receipt which had a prince been proud. The cannon roared, the cheers rang, flags flying across the wind ... "
Much later, on 1 September 1921, he became the first "High Commissioner for Refugees" of the League of Nations. On July 5, 1922, an international agreement concluded in Geneva created the "Nansen passport" that allows displaced persons to find an identity. This document will be recognized by 54 countries and will include hundreds of thousands of Russians, Jews, Greeks, Turks and Armenians to settle in the country of their choice. For this action he received the Nobel Peace Prize December 10, 1922. From 1921 to 1923 he was also responsible for food aid from the Red Cross in the regions of the Volga and southern Ukraine.
Nansen will die of a stroke, May 13, 1930 in Lysaker, near Oslo. As a tribute, we are going to baptize the craters on the Moon and on Mars to its name.
So what about this man? Difficult to summarize everything here. And what about this book (which happens to be translated into French) bought on the internet to an individual? So I start my collection of old books with it, the edges of pages browned, a few tasks to fat and most of all, the smell of old book that escapes each page is turned. The smell of old book that has lived, the smell of old book that recounts an experience ...

"The ice and along moonlit polar nights seem distant dream of another world, a dream has faded. But what would life be without dreams? "
Fridtjof Nansen