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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Sair Dowdy and I'm Deblin to truck Reboarding and Deblina.

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Speaker 1: We're going to pick up where we left up last

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Speaker 1: time with the Norwegian explorer slash diplomat Ritchie Off Nonsen,

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Speaker 1: and we've already talked on the last episode a little

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Speaker 1: bit about nonsense upbringing and his pretty impressive scientific studies.

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Speaker 1: His first adventures there was this trek across Norway on skis,

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Speaker 1: followed by another trek across all of Greenland on skis,

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Speaker 1: but baby part one in two exactly crazy part one

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Speaker 1: and two. But where we left off last time was

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Speaker 1: aboard the from which was of course the ice ship

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Speaker 1: that Nonsen had commissioned specifically for this journey over the

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Speaker 1: North Pole. And in case you missed the last episode,

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Speaker 1: just to give you a little recap of his motivations,

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Speaker 1: he was operating under the observation that currents move east

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Speaker 1: to west over the Arctic Ocean, so he had helped

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Speaker 1: design this specially built ship that could withstand being frozen

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Speaker 1: in the middle of the ice pack and would be

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Speaker 1: purposely frozen into the ice pack, and then once they're

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Speaker 1: the plan was to sort of just ride the current

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Speaker 1: over the North Pole, or at least get really close

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Speaker 1: to it. And it worked, or at least the first

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Speaker 1: part of it worked. The From, which set off from

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Speaker 1: oslo In, withstood the ice and was comfy and cozy

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Speaker 1: to boot. It had a fully stocked library, as you

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Speaker 1: may remember, a windmill that generated light during those Arctic nights,

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Speaker 1: and a saloon. But after a couple of years at sea,

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Speaker 1: Nonson was ready to leave the From behind. He had

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Speaker 1: realized that the projected four to five year trip might

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Speaker 1: take something more like six to seven years, and also

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Speaker 1: it was clear that the ship wasn't going to travel

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Speaker 1: far enough north to actually hit the pole. If he

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Speaker 1: were to achieve that record, he'd have to make a

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Speaker 1: dash basically head out with kayaks, skis, sleds, dogs and

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Speaker 1: just one companion. But there's a crazy part three to

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Speaker 1: this whole scheme. He wouldn't just be able to dash

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Speaker 1: out and then return to the coziness of the ship

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Speaker 1: with its windmill and its library and everything. Leaving the

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Speaker 1: From meant that he'd never be able to return to

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Speaker 1: it because locating the ship in the middle of the

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Speaker 1: Arctic wilderness and catching up with it again too, because

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Speaker 1: of course the ship would be drifting all this time,

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Speaker 1: would be impossible. So instead he was going to have to,

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Speaker 1: after trying to make it to the pole, find solid

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Speaker 1: land and from there try to locate a settlement and

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Speaker 1: hazard ice flows and polar bears and temperatures in the

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Speaker 1: negative thirties along the way. No problem, right, sounds easy.

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Speaker 1: But first, nonsen he never sets off without a plan, right,

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Speaker 1: So his first concern was who was going to go.

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Speaker 1: It was going to be either Nonson or Captain Auto

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Speaker 1: swa Edrop. He decided quickly enough that square Drop was

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Speaker 1: going to be responsible for the trip, so he would

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Speaker 1: stay behind, and Nonson was going to be responsible for

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Speaker 1: the mission as a whole, so spare Drop would stay

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Speaker 1: with the from Nonson would go out on the ice,

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Speaker 1: he'd take along Yalmar Johansson, a famous gymnast who was

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Speaker 1: really good with the sled dogs and seemed like he

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Speaker 1: could hold up under the physical and mental strain that

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Speaker 1: they were going to say, it would be the major

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Speaker 1: qualification for your dash to the North Pole part. Indeed,

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Speaker 1: so we talked a little bit in the last episode

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Speaker 1: about how Nonson differed from many other explorers, how he

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Speaker 1: sort of considered the risks carefully. He observed nature the

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Speaker 1: whole getting purposely packed in the ice flow is one

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Speaker 1: good example of that, and observed natural conditions, and also

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Speaker 1: really learned from the people who lived in the north,

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Speaker 1: you know, adopting things like kayaks, uh, and knowing when

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Speaker 1: to turn back to But I read some of nonsense

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Speaker 1: account Farthest North, which is uh, some worry of this

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Speaker 1: whole journey, And there's a passage that I think really

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Speaker 1: emphasizes the care that he took, and it's it takes

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Speaker 1: place when he's telling the men about his plan to

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Speaker 1: make a dash for the pole, and this is what

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Speaker 1: he writes. I impressed on them, however, that while it

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Speaker 1: was unquestionably a fine thing to push on as far

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Speaker 1: as possible towards the north, it was no whit less

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Speaker 1: honorable and undertaking to bring the from safe and sound

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Speaker 1: right through the polar sea and out on the other side,

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Speaker 1: or if not the from at all events themselves, without

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Speaker 1: any loss of life. I mean, it sounds like not

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Speaker 1: the kind of speech you expect from the leader of

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Speaker 1: the polar expedition, who's usually like, let's do it, you know,

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Speaker 1: let's make it all the way, especially because you don't

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Speaker 1: think that the rest of the crew would be clamoring

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Speaker 1: to go exactly. I mean, I don't know if I

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Speaker 1: would be. Some of them were actually they really wanted

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Speaker 1: to go on the dash, but that he emphasized, uh,

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Speaker 1: try to stay alive guys. Seems like a really important

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Speaker 1: difference between him and a lot of his contemporaries. He

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Speaker 1: wasn't all motivational speeches, though. He also got really busy

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Speaker 1: getting together his supplies that he would need. In addition

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Speaker 1: to their regular scientific observations, the guys aboard the from

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Speaker 1: started preparing gear, started helping him get everything ready. This

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Speaker 1: included silk tents, sewing, sleeping bags. One person even copied

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Speaker 1: Johanson and Nonsense Journal and their research so that they

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Speaker 1: would have twice the chance the information would have twice

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Speaker 1: the chance, that is, of making it back to the

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Speaker 1: outside world. Nonsen, in the meantime, worked on building bamboo

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Speaker 1: frame kayaks, which were covered in canvas thirty six pounds

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Speaker 1: apiece and they really look kind of funny too. They're

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Speaker 1: they're not long and narrow like kayaks traditionally are because

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Speaker 1: they were afraid that something like that would get bumped

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Speaker 1: around so much they break their kayaks before they needed them.

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Speaker 1: But if you read far this north, this is kind

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Speaker 1: of the fun part of nonsense account, you know, getting

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Speaker 1: ready and all the preparations, and it's before the monotony

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Speaker 1: of the ice starts, where it's just cold day, one

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Speaker 1: cold day after another. Um At this point he's still

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Speaker 1: wondering if it will even get cold enough to warrant

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Speaker 1: bringing the wolf skin clothes he's considering, and he hosts

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Speaker 1: a big party to aboard the ship when it reaches

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Speaker 1: the highest recorded northern latitude. So there's sort of a

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Speaker 1: sense of anticipation and celebration at this point, but he's

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Speaker 1: also trying to psych himself up for what's coming around

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Speaker 1: New Year's Eve. He says, never before have I had

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Speaker 1: such strange feelings at the commencement of the new year.

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Speaker 1: It cannot fail to bring some momentous events and will

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Speaker 1: possibly become one of the most remarkable years in my life,

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Speaker 1: whether it leads me to success or destruction. Years come

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Speaker 1: and go unnoticed in this world of ice, and we

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Speaker 1: have no more knowledge here of what these years have

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Speaker 1: brought to humanity than we know of what the future

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Speaker 1: ones have in store. So heavy thoughts before embarking on

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Speaker 1: this journey, but it does take a few more months.

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Speaker 1: He has two false starts because they are so concerned

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Speaker 1: about having their equipment and supply to just be flawless.

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Speaker 1: But they finally left the From for good March fourteenth eight,

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Speaker 1: and they had twenty eight dogs with them, those two

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Speaker 1: bulky kayaks but lightweight kayaks, three fleds, and for a

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Speaker 1: very short time a few extra companions who just sort

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Speaker 1: of tagged along for a little while to wish them

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Speaker 1: wish them off well. Things got off to a difficult

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Speaker 1: start though. There were not as many level patches of

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Speaker 1: ice as they were hoping there would be these ridges,

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Speaker 1: and when they came across a ridge it would mean

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Speaker 1: they'd have to drag the sleds over the uneven surface

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Speaker 1: and then constantly disentangle all of the dog harnesses too,

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Speaker 1: And the dogs weren't behaving very well because they had

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Speaker 1: of course also been stuck aboard the From for months

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Speaker 1: and months and not getting all the exercises that exercise

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Speaker 1: that this tyle Library and Entertainment, the Windmill didn't do

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Speaker 1: it for the dogs, so they weren't too far in

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Speaker 1: when they had to kill the first dog, though it

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Speaker 1: was what Nonson called some of the most disagreeable work

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Speaker 1: they had to do on their entire journey. When they

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Speaker 1: killed the dog, they fed it to the others because

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Speaker 1: they needed something to feed the dogs anyway. They were

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Speaker 1: starting to run low and provisions and um, we'll talk

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Speaker 1: about this a little more, but his account of dealing

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Speaker 1: with the dogs and gradually having to kill them is

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Speaker 1: pretty heartbreaking and um it was one of the more

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Speaker 1: disturbing parts of his trip. It seems so Nonson and

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Speaker 1: Johansen themselves that would get so tired from this dash

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Speaker 1: to the poll that sometimes they'd fall asleep while they

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Speaker 1: were on their skis, but they still did maintain this

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Speaker 1: kind of routine. They would stop for the day and

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Speaker 1: Johansen would tend to the dogs, feed them, make sure

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Speaker 1: they were all, you know, tied up put away. Nonson meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: would pitch the tent and get dinner going, and then

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Speaker 1: they would just crawl into their sleeping bags while dinner

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Speaker 1: was cooking and thaw out. Nonson describes their clothes just

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Speaker 1: from the um I guess from sweat combined with little

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Speaker 1: drops of moisture getting stuck in their clothes would turn

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Speaker 1: them into quote complete suits of ice armor, which I

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Speaker 1: don't know that sounds really really uncomfortable because nonsense account

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Speaker 1: also expresses how they look forward to dinner. All day long.

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Speaker 1: They had three meals pemmican with dried potatoes, fish meal,

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Speaker 1: flour and butter, and pea bean or lentil soup. And

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Speaker 1: as a kind of nightcap, they'd have some white powder

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Speaker 1: in boiling water. In the morning they'd have breakfast, some

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Speaker 1: which sometimes included chocolate sounds better than fish meal, and

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Speaker 1: they would journal before they headed out. And they had

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Speaker 1: a plan too for going about this race to the pole.

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Speaker 1: Originally Nonsen planned to reach the pole or go for

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Speaker 1: fifty days before turning around, but by early April he

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Speaker 1: was starting to reconsider, starting to think they were going

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Speaker 1: to have to turn back earlier than that. So in

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Speaker 1: April eighth they decided they were going to have to

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Speaker 1: turn back, and they celebrated achieving at that point the

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Speaker 1: northernmost record. It was only two miles from the pole.

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Speaker 1: They had a big banquet, maybe a little extra chocolate

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Speaker 1: or way powder, or something, and Johanssen wrote that he

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Speaker 1: should have liked it if we could have got further.

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Speaker 1: It has our consolation that we have done what we could,

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Speaker 1: and that we have even lifted a little more of

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Speaker 1: the veil which conceals this part of our planet. So

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Speaker 1: kind of an understatement for disappointment. I mean, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: sound too bad. They must have been upset that they

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Speaker 1: couldn't actually get there. I was disappointed to what I

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Speaker 1: got to this point in the story because I really

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Speaker 1: thought that they were going to make it. But it

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Speaker 1: turned out to be a really smart decision for them

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Speaker 1: to turn around. Their new southern goal Franz Joseph Lynn

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Speaker 1: was six hundred miles away, and they had to get

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Speaker 1: there before the ice broke up, so they get stuck

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Speaker 1: on the ice. It was a race, so the turnaround

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Speaker 1: was easy. At first they had nice even ice to

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Speaker 1: travel on, but things got rough as the men were

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Speaker 1: driven off course by open handels and ice ridges. They

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Speaker 1: kept a break neck pace, though sometimes they went for

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Speaker 1: thirty six hour stretches at a time, and by mid

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Speaker 1: May there were only twelve of the twenty eight dogs

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Speaker 1: still alive. By June, there were only six left Nonson

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Speaker 1: at one point writes about how hard it was to

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Speaker 1: kill a dog that had actually been born aboard the

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Speaker 1: from um so when you know, a dog he had raised.

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Speaker 1: And the men themselves were at this point reduced to

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Speaker 1: eating a gruel made with the dog's blood and just

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Speaker 1: barely barely scraping by. They really didn't know if they

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Speaker 1: were going to make it. Um Nonsen writes about how

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Speaker 1: horribly he felt for treating the exhausted dog, you know,

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Speaker 1: just trying to make them keep going, because it was

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Speaker 1: a matter of life or death for the men. At

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Speaker 1: this point, he wrote, it is the sad part of

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Speaker 1: expeditions of this kind that one systematically kills all better

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Speaker 1: feelings until only hard hearted egoism remains. So by late June,

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Speaker 1: the slushy ice meant that the men had to start

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Speaker 1: using their kayak X, carrying the two surviving dogs on

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Speaker 1: top of their kayaks, so every time they hit solid

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Speaker 1: ice again they had to haul the kayaks up and

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Speaker 1: start over on foot. When they stopped for the night,

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Speaker 1: there was the risk that they'd drift north again or

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Speaker 1: a flow would open up by their tent, which you

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Speaker 1: wouldn't want at all, No, because your tent could go

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Speaker 1: in the water, and the I use drifting north again too.

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Speaker 1: That erases any progress that you make during the day.

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Speaker 1: Rock Bottom was probably when Johansen was attacked by a

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Speaker 1: polar bear. You would expect that means that was the

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Speaker 1: end of Johansen. He miraculously survived the attack. The polar

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Speaker 1: bear hit his face and kind of must have grazed

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Speaker 1: it um and jumped on top of him before Nonsen

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Speaker 1: shot it um. Finally, to another Rocko attom moment, the

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Speaker 1: men had to kill the last two dogs. They shot

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Speaker 1: each other's. They hadn't use bullets on the dogs until

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Speaker 1: this point, but they didn't have the heart to to

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Speaker 1: do it anyway for these last survivors. Finally they reached

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Speaker 1: land after a whole summer of looking for it. They

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Speaker 1: hit an island and started to hop their way south,

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Speaker 1: hunting bears along the way. They actually got a taste

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Speaker 1: for polar bear cubs during this time and walruses. They

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Speaker 1: did not get a taste for walruses. That the statement

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Speaker 1: kind of ran together. They got a taste for polar

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Speaker 1: bear cubs, but they hunted both polar bear cubs and

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Speaker 1: walruses to be clear, but you can't island hot through

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Speaker 1: an arctic winter, so they had to make a camp.

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Speaker 1: So they used a sled runner to heck out a

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Speaker 1: little ditch and build a small stone hut with moss

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Speaker 1: lining and a walrus skin roof, and they modified their

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Speaker 1: sleeping bags to fit to and stored up on walrus

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Speaker 1: blubber and use that for fuel. So they lived in

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Speaker 1: what they called a den for the next nine months.

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Speaker 1: That's really hard for for me to wrap my mind around.

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Speaker 1: It's one thing to be aboard the ship that's frozen

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Speaker 1: in at least has the library and the little newspaper.

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Speaker 1: But to be in this hut for nine months, it

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Speaker 1: found very very bleak. But it also doesn't sound like

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Speaker 1: what you might expect. You might think that they would, um,

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Speaker 1: sort of go lord of the flies, start hating each other,

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Speaker 1: start bickering constantly, maybe go a little bit crazy. They

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Speaker 1: really maintained their sanity and their camaraderie to they had

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Speaker 1: this almanac with them. For a little bit of entertainment.

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Speaker 1: They would eat bear broth and bear steaks and blubber cakes,

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Speaker 1: which were a special treat. And um, this, I guess

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Speaker 1: this sort of show is how Nonsen still maintain his sanity,

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Speaker 1: but it's also a sad marker if this is the

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Speaker 1: best you can do. He wrote about celebrating Christmas by

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Speaker 1: changing his underpants and then using the old pair as

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Speaker 1: a bath sponge, and that was, you know, a real

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Speaker 1: celebratory way to mark the holiday for him. Shows you

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Speaker 1: what state they were at by this point. But by

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Speaker 1: mid May it was warm enough finally to leave that

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Speaker 1: hut and head south like in so months of hut living,

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Speaker 1: though meant that they were out of shape and pretty slow,

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Speaker 1: so they couldn't travel necessarily at the same pace that

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Speaker 1: they had before. At one point they almost lost their kayaks,

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Speaker 1: which at that point was their main method of transportation.

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Speaker 1: They would have been out of luck. And then by

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Speaker 1: June they were gearing up for an open water kayak

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Speaker 1: journey to Spitzbergen, and they were hoping that by doing

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Speaker 1: that they might find a ship along the way. But

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Speaker 1: on June sevent eight, ninety six, Nonson heard barking. By

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Speaker 1: pure chance, they had managed to run into the British

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Speaker 1: expedition of Frederick G. Jackson, and this is kind of

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Speaker 1: how their meeting went down. Jackson said, aren't you Nonson?

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Speaker 1: Nonson answered yes, I am, and then Jackson replies by jove,

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Speaker 1: I am glad to see you. Where have you come

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Speaker 1: from now? So Jackson's careful at this point though, even

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Speaker 1: while they're having this exchange not to mention the From

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Speaker 1: around Nonson and Johansson. He figures that they must have

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Speaker 1: been the only two survivors from some disaster. But miraculously,

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Speaker 1: only days after Nonson and Johansson returned to Norway, the

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Speaker 1: From and her complete crew arrived as well, having come

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Speaker 1: clear of the ice pack finally at almost the exact

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Speaker 1: same time. Pretty amazing, and it must have been especially

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Speaker 1: amazing to Notason, considering how long he thought that it

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Speaker 1: might take the From to get through. So this time,

298
00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:26,760
Speaker 1: with this whole reunited From crew back in Norway, Nonson

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00:16:26,920 --> 00:16:30,680
Speaker 1: became an international celebrity. We talked about after his Greenland trip.

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00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:33,360
Speaker 1: He was a pretty big deal back home, but this

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00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:37,920
Speaker 1: time he's an international celebrity, and he started teaching oceanography

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Speaker 1: at the University of Oslo. He wrote Farthest North, the

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00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:43,200
Speaker 1: one we've been quoting from a bit, and did this

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Speaker 1: huge lecture tour to support it, and just by the bye,

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00:16:48,120 --> 00:16:51,000
Speaker 1: it kind of seems like farthest north is still like

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Speaker 1: a boy's handbook for young adventures in Norway almost. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if you could maybe kind of like into

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Speaker 1: the Wild or something like that. I don't know if

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00:17:00,000 --> 00:17:02,840
Speaker 1: it's a false comparison, but something a lot of kids

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Speaker 1: in Norway still read today. Uh nonsense. Prominence though in

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Speaker 1: his country, came at a really great time for national politics,

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Speaker 1: because the country was ready to finally become independent from

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Speaker 1: Sweden and needed some kind of national hero like this guy. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Nonson was actually part of the secret delegation sent to

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Speaker 1: Copenhagen in nineteen o five to feel out the Danish

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Speaker 1: Prince carl On whether he was interested in becoming King

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Speaker 1: of Norway. The country achieved independence in nineteen o five,

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Speaker 1: and Nonson became its first ambassador to Great Britain, but

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Speaker 1: he didn't take his family with him. Ava by this

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Speaker 1: point had five kids with him, and she stayed behind um.

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Speaker 1: He always intended on returning to a Norway in a

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Speaker 1: short time, and when he finally returned to Norway in

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Speaker 1: nineteen o seven, his wife died suddenly of pneumonia. Their

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Speaker 1: relationship had actually been strained for some time. All that

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00:17:55,080 --> 00:17:58,040
Speaker 1: living apart probably added a lot to it, but it's

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Speaker 1: safe to assume that there are two things we can

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00:18:01,160 --> 00:18:03,720
Speaker 1: know about them, and that is that she very likely

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Speaker 1: helped keep him alive out on the ice. He wrote

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Speaker 1: of her a lot in his diary, and he had

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Speaker 1: promised her that he'd come back alive, and he was

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Speaker 1: intent on keeping that promise also without her. The home

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Speaker 1: life that he envisioned, five kids living together in this

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00:18:18,520 --> 00:18:21,439
Speaker 1: big house didn't really happen until his children were grown

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00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:23,880
Speaker 1: and married and he was old. Yah, his kids ended

335
00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:28,200
Speaker 1: up living more with relatives and friends while he embarked

336
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Speaker 1: on this really ambitious post explorer career, and he didn't

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00:18:34,000 --> 00:18:37,760
Speaker 1: end up remarrying until nineteen nineteen. But so moving on

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00:18:37,800 --> 00:18:41,720
Speaker 1: to that post explorer career, we alluded to it a

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00:18:41,760 --> 00:18:44,840
Speaker 1: little bit in the beginning, and it's really impressive how

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00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:48,600
Speaker 1: broad its scope. So it all starts though with World

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Speaker 1: War One. Nonson accepted that further polar explorations were going

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00:18:53,080 --> 00:18:56,440
Speaker 1: to be an impossibility, so he got to work ending

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Speaker 1: the Allied Blackade against neutral Norway. He wanted at least

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00:19:01,119 --> 00:19:03,520
Speaker 1: vital supplies like food and things to be able to

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00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:06,640
Speaker 1: come through, so out of this whole thing he came

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Speaker 1: out of the war as the president of the Norwegian

347
00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:12,000
Speaker 1: Union for the League of Nations. He was a huge

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Speaker 1: League of Nations supporter, and this is where Nonson's great

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Speaker 1: humanitarian career kind of kicked off. And it's a bit

350
00:19:19,320 --> 00:19:22,520
Speaker 1: strange that he got so involved in this world of

351
00:19:23,080 --> 00:19:27,240
Speaker 1: tricky post war negotiating, considering that he was by training

352
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Speaker 1: a scientist, and he he was interested in returning to

353
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Speaker 1: his science after so many years as a diplomat and

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00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:38,479
Speaker 1: as an explorer. But he was also such a star

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Speaker 1: at this point that people from all over Europe were

356
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Speaker 1: willing to hear him out. You know, he was the

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00:19:43,640 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 1: one guy who everybody was okay talking to. In he

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Speaker 1: went to work repatriating prisoners of war, people who had

359
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Speaker 1: waited for years for someone to help them get home again.

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Speaker 1: So who was going to be paying for this? Who

361
00:19:56,480 --> 00:19:58,920
Speaker 1: was going to be helping them? So when Notson was

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Speaker 1: appointed to the League of Sations High Commissioner or appointed

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00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:04,040
Speaker 1: as the League of Nations High Commissioner, i should say,

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00:20:04,080 --> 00:20:07,199
Speaker 1: for prisoners of war, Nonson helped return four hundred and

365
00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:10,800
Speaker 1: fifty thousand prisoners of war from twenty six countries, keeping

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00:20:10,800 --> 00:20:14,280
Speaker 1: the cost to only about one pound per prisoner. During

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00:20:14,320 --> 00:20:17,760
Speaker 1: his travels for the Pow job, he saw that many

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00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:21,080
Speaker 1: in Europe were starving, especially in the Soviet Union. So

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00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:23,600
Speaker 1: Nonson started to raise money for a relief, but he

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00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:27,240
Speaker 1: found it difficult to get governmental support for the Soviets

371
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:32,480
Speaker 1: governments weren't interested in, you know, by helping out the

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00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:37,440
Speaker 1: starving people by extension, helping out the Soviet government. Nonson

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00:20:37,480 --> 00:20:41,720
Speaker 1: turned to private donors instead, appealing to humanity over politics.

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Speaker 1: He was kind of like, these are just people who

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Speaker 1: need help regardless, don't have any politics. So he raised

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00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:51,160
Speaker 1: enough money and gathered enough supplies to save and estimated

377
00:20:51,240 --> 00:20:54,800
Speaker 1: seven to twenty two million people according to his Nobel

378
00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:59,119
Speaker 1: Prize biography. Then in nineteen one, he used his experience

379
00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:04,440
Speaker 1: repatrioting POWs to start helping settle stateless refugees. So all

380
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:07,640
Speaker 1: these people left after World War One with maybe not

381
00:21:07,920 --> 00:21:11,000
Speaker 1: a country or a country they couldn't return to. And

382
00:21:11,160 --> 00:21:14,199
Speaker 1: the first step was creating identities for a lot of

383
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:17,240
Speaker 1: people who had lost their papers, you know, running away

384
00:21:17,240 --> 00:21:20,680
Speaker 1: from their country or in some kind of wartime trauma,

385
00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:24,400
Speaker 1: and we're just stuck in limbo, no papers, nowhere they

386
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:29,040
Speaker 1: could go. So he formed something called Nonson passports, which

387
00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:33,520
Speaker 1: were eventually issued and recognized by fifty two governments, something

388
00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:37,280
Speaker 1: I thought was pretty remarkable, and they helped hundreds of

389
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:40,840
Speaker 1: thousands of people resettle, including some pretty famous names like

390
00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:44,560
Speaker 1: Igor Stravinsky and Anna Pavlovo. We talked about both of

391
00:21:44,600 --> 00:21:48,640
Speaker 1: them in our Right of Spring episode uh Sergei, Rachmaninov,

392
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:52,199
Speaker 1: Mark Chical, So a lot of big names and then

393
00:21:52,240 --> 00:21:55,080
Speaker 1: a lot of other people too who were just stuck

394
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Speaker 1: with nowhere to go in the Greek government asked Nonson

395
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:02,280
Speaker 1: to figure out an unsub hordable influx of Greek refugees

396
00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:05,600
Speaker 1: from Asia Minor after the Greek's defeat by the Turks.

397
00:22:05,640 --> 00:22:08,359
Speaker 1: So with the League of Nations approval, Nonson arranged a

398
00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 1: swap of one million, two hundred fifty thousand Greek Turks

399
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:15,880
Speaker 1: for five hundred thousand Turkish Greeks with compensation to start

400
00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:18,280
Speaker 1: new lives. And I think that was kind of a controvert.

401
00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:21,119
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds controversial. It's easy to imagine, like

402
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:25,400
Speaker 1: will switch our ethnic Greeks for your ethnic Turks, and

403
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:29,960
Speaker 1: people will move from place that they've lived for maybe generations.

404
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:33,520
Speaker 1: But it seemed to work in this case, and Nonson

405
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:35,720
Speaker 1: ended up getting a lot of credit for it in

406
00:22:35,760 --> 00:22:39,240
Speaker 1: the end. Then, on December tenth nWo, Nonson won the

407
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 1: Nobel Peace Prize. His biographer Roland Huntford wrote that quote,

408
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:46,119
Speaker 1: Nonson is among the few really worthy winners of the

409
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:48,720
Speaker 1: Peace Prize, although he is probably the one who spent

410
00:22:48,720 --> 00:22:52,600
Speaker 1: the shortest time earning it. A Danish publisher actually ended

411
00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:55,280
Speaker 1: up doubling the prize money that Nonson got, and Nonson

412
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,840
Speaker 1: spent it on Greek refugees and on to model farms

413
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:01,560
Speaker 1: in the Ukraine and by the Volga, so he brought

414
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: them their first tractors in the area. It was a

415
00:23:04,560 --> 00:23:07,120
Speaker 1: big deal. And then by the late nineteen twenties knots

416
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:11,399
Speaker 1: and began experiencing heart problems and on May thirteenth, nineteen thirty,

417
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,160
Speaker 1: he died of a heart attack at home. He's buried

418
00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:18,400
Speaker 1: or he was buried May seventeen, on Norway's Constitution Day.

419
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:22,160
Speaker 1: And I think it is important to mention that amidst

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00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:26,320
Speaker 1: all of this nonsen of fandom sort of you know,

421
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 1: people who were willing from people from a lot of

422
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:30,919
Speaker 1: different countries who are willing to work with him and

423
00:23:30,960 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: listen to him. He did have his critics. He was

424
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 1: accused by a lot of people of being a Russia

425
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 1: worshiper because he was trying to help people who were

426
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:43,680
Speaker 1: starving there, and some folks interpreted that as him working

427
00:23:43,720 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 1: with the Soviets, and he did get some criticism for

428
00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:48,600
Speaker 1: that when he won the Nobel Prize. It was something

429
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:52,080
Speaker 1: he worked hard to deny, you know, say that was

430
00:23:52,119 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 1: not his motive, but it was still out there. But

431
00:23:55,920 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: he did have a certain agenda. He had certain goals,

432
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:02,800
Speaker 1: and I think appeal to people is best translated by

433
00:24:02,840 --> 00:24:06,040
Speaker 1: this quote that you have here on your outline. He says,

434
00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:08,760
Speaker 1: it is within us all. It is our mysterious longing

435
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:11,719
Speaker 1: to accomplish something, to fill life with something more than

436
00:24:11,760 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 1: a daily journey from home to the office and from

437
00:24:14,240 --> 00:24:17,399
Speaker 1: the office home again. It is our ever present longing

438
00:24:17,440 --> 00:24:21,879
Speaker 1: to surmount difficulties and dangers, to see that which is hidden,

439
00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 1: and seek the places lying away from the beaten track.

440
00:24:25,240 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: It is the call of the unknown, the longing for

441
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: the land beyond, the divine power deeply rooted within the

442
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,639
Speaker 1: soul of man. It is this spirit which drove the

443
00:24:34,680 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: first hunters to new places, and the incentive for perhaps

444
00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:41,040
Speaker 1: our greatest deeds the force of human thought, which spreads

445
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 1: its wings and flies where freedom knows no bounds. Spirit

446
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:50,160
Speaker 1: of adventure absolutely, and I think people of any time

447
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,280
Speaker 1: can relate to this. I think so and wanting to

448
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 1: do something bigger with your life. And I think that

449
00:24:56,160 --> 00:25:00,680
Speaker 1: maybe the most interesting point of Nonsense life is he

450
00:25:00,880 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 1: is famous for being an explorer, but he ultimately did

451
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:07,480
Speaker 1: do something bigger with his life than achieve a polar

452
00:25:07,840 --> 00:25:11,160
Speaker 1: record or something like that. A remarkable feat of endurance.

453
00:25:11,200 --> 00:25:14,439
Speaker 1: He went on to actually really help a lot of people,

454
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,520
Speaker 1: and he did that by not dying out there on

455
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:20,080
Speaker 1: the ice. But there's although I love this um how

456
00:25:20,119 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 1: he says home to the office and from the office

457
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: home again, it doesn't seem like for him ifice. Maybe

458
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,520
Speaker 1: he worked in the lab for a few years, but no,

459
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: he certainly wasn't in a cube for any of his days.

460
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,359
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ways to learn more about Nonsense today.

461
00:25:36,359 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: He is a really celebrated figure in Norway. There's the

462
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 1: fram Museum which is in Oslo, and then the fritchi

463
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:48,359
Speaker 1: Off Nonsen Institute, which focuses on environmental politics and bio diversity,

464
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:52,240
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. Or if you are actually an explorer.

465
00:25:52,320 --> 00:25:55,720
Speaker 1: Somebody can who can handle this, You can learn about

466
00:25:55,800 --> 00:25:57,440
Speaker 1: him by getting out there on the ice, and it

467
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:00,159
Speaker 1: seems that a lot of people do just that. I

468
00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 1: read a recent story about a Norwegian living in Maine

469
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,679
Speaker 1: who had cross Greenland on skis, and he said that quote,

470
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 1: if you're Norwegian, you love to walk in the footsteps

471
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 1: of your country's explorers. And then there was another story

472
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:18,920
Speaker 1: recently in National Geographic that featured two Norwegian adventurers who

473
00:26:18,960 --> 00:26:23,880
Speaker 1: were retracing Nonson and Johansson's polar trip using para sales

474
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: fortunately instead of dogs, but realizing that it was still

475
00:26:29,480 --> 00:26:33,120
Speaker 1: a really difficult journey and they knew where they were

476
00:26:33,119 --> 00:26:35,399
Speaker 1: going this time. Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's

477
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 1: anything I would take on probably at any point. I don't.

478
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: Polar exploration has no real appeal for me. No, but

479
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: it doesn't make for a really good story and a

480
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 1: really great podcast. So I think that's one that was

481
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: frequently requested as well, was it not? It was? And

482
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: really all sorts of these Polar Explorer episodes are very

483
00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:58,200
Speaker 1: frequently suggested, So let us know what once you really

484
00:26:58,200 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: really want to hear about, or they don't have to

485
00:27:00,359 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: be exploring ac regions that can be um any part

486
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 1: of the world. Just let us know where History podcast

487
00:27:06,680 --> 00:27:09,719
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. We're also on Twitter

488
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: at miss in history, and we're on Facebook. Those are

489
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,159
Speaker 1: two really great ways to reach out to it. And

490
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:16,840
Speaker 1: if you think you know a lot about one of

491
00:27:16,920 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: the topics we discussed on this podcast, which is dogs

492
00:27:19,320 --> 00:27:21,679
Speaker 1: and sleds, we have an awesome idd or odd quiz

493
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:24,119
Speaker 1: on our website and you can check it out by

494
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: visiting our homepage at www dot how stuff works dot com.

495
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:34,000
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff

496
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join how stupp Work staff as we

497
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The

498
00:27:41,280 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 1: house stuff Works iPhone app has a ride. Download it

499
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: today on iTunes