Fridtjof Wedel-Jarlsberg Nansen was a Norwegian polymath and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He gained prominence at various points in his life as an explorer, scientist, diplomat, humanitarian and co-founded the Fatherland League.
Fram ("Forward") is a ship that was used in expeditions of the Arctic and Antarctic regions by the Norwegian explorers Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, Oscar Wisting, and Roald Amundsen between 1893 and 1912. It was designed and built by the Scottish-Norwegian shipwright Colin Archer for Fridtjof Nansen's 1893 Arctic expedition in which the plan was to freeze Fram into the Arctic ice sheet and float with it over the North Pole.
Jason was a Norwegian whaling vessel laid down in 1881 by Rødsverven in Sandefjord, Norway, the same shipyard which later built Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance. The ship, financed by Christen Christensen, an entrepreneur from Sandefjord, was noted for his participation in an 1892-1893 Antarctic expedition led by Carl Anton Larsen.
Professor Molchanov is a Russian ice-strengthened oceanographic research vessel. The ship was built in Finland in 1983 and is now converted to passenger duties for the expedition cruise market.
The research ship had origins in the early voyages of exploration. By the time of James Cook's Endeavour, the essentials of what today we would call a research ship are clearly apparent. In 1766, the Royal Society hired Cook to travel to the Pacific Ocean to observe and record the transit of Venus across the Sun. The Endeavour was a sturdy boat, well designed and equipped for the ordeals she would face, and fitted out with facilities for her research personnel, Joseph Banks. And, as is common with contemporary research vessels, Endeavour carried out more than one kind of research, including comprehensive hydrographic survey work.
The Shirshov Institute of Oceanology is the premier research institution for ocean, climate, and earth science in Russia. It was established in 1946 and is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is headquartered in Moscow. The institute is named after Pyotr Shirshov, who founded it in 1946.
Zarya was a steam- and sail-powered brig used by the Russian Academy of Sciences for a polar exploration during 1900–1903.
Arktika 2007 was a 2007 expedition in which Russia performed the first ever crewed descent to the ocean bottom at the North Pole, as part of research related to the 2001 Russian territorial claim, one of many territorial claims in the Arctic, made possible, in part, because of Arctic shrinkage. As well as dropping a titanium tube containing the Russian flag, the submersibles collected specimens of Arctic flora and fauna and apparently recorded video of the dives. The "North Pole-35" manned drifting ice station was established.
The Georgiy Sedov was a Soviet ice-breaker fitted with steam engines. She was originally the Newfoundland seal fishery support vessel Beothic and was renamed after Russian captain and polar explorer Georgy Yakovlevich Sedov in 1915.
HMNZS Endeavour was a Royal New Zealand Navy Antarctic support vessel. She was the first of three ships in the Royal New Zealand Navy to bear that name.
YWAM Liberty is the former L'Astrolabe, a French icebreaking research vessel which was used to supply the Dumont d'Urville research station in Antarctica. The vessel made regular voyages between Hobart and the Dumont D'Urville research station for fifteen years and was replaced by a new icebreaker bearing the same name in 2017.
HSwMS Trossö (A264) is an auxiliary ship in the Swedish Navy. She was built in Finland for the Soviet Navy as an Akademik Shuleykin-class ice-strengthened patrol craft tender, launched in 1984 as Arnold Veymer and renamed Livonia in 1991. Her sister ships were Akademik Shuleykin, Akademik Gamburtsev, Professor Molchanov, Professor Multanovskiy, Geolog Dmitriy Nalivkin, Professor Polshkov, Professor Khromov and Akademik Shokalskiy.
Nansen's Fram expedition of 1893–1896 was an attempt by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen to reach the geographical North Pole by harnessing the natural east–west current of the Arctic Ocean. In the face of much discouragement from other polar explorers, Nansen took his ship Fram to the New Siberian Islands in the eastern Arctic Ocean, froze her into the pack ice, and waited for the drift to carry her towards the pole. Impatient with the slow speed and erratic character of the drift, after 18 months Nansen and a chosen companion, Hjalmar Johansen, left the ship with a team of Samoyed dogs and sledges and made for the pole. They did not reach it, but they achieved a record Farthest North latitude of 86°13.6′N before a long retreat over ice and water to reach safety in Franz Josef Land. Meanwhile, Fram continued to drift westward, finally emerging in the North Atlantic Ocean.
MV Aurora is a cruise ship built in Germany in 1955. After several changes of ownership and name, as of 2022 she is moored in Stockton, California, US, and undergoing restoration.
Polar Pioneer is a Finnish-built expedition cruise ship managed by the Swedish shipowners Polar Alca Maritime AB.
Akademik Tryoshnikov is a Russian scientific diesel-electric research vessel, the flagship of the Russian polar research fleet.
MV Akademik Shokalskiy is an Akademik Shuleykin-class ice-strengthened ship, built in Finland in 1982 and originally used for oceanographic research. In 1998 she was fully refurbished to serve as a research ship for Arctic and Antarctic work; she is used also for expedition cruising. She is named after the Russian oceanographer Yuly Shokalsky.
CCGS Sir Humphrey Gilbert is a former Canadian Coast Guard light icebreaker and buoy tender that was later sold to a private owner and renamed Polar Prince. The ship entered service with the Department of Transport Marine Service in 1959 and transferred to the newly created Canadian Coast Guard in 1962, active until 2001. The icebreaker was sold to private interests in Newfoundland and renamed Polar Prince, sitting mostly idle until resold in 2009 to GTX Technology Canada Limited for service in the Arctic Ocean as a commercial icebreaker. In 2017, the vessel was temporarily rechristened Canada C3 and used for a high-profile voyage around Canada's three maritime coasts as part of the nation's 150th anniversary. In November 2021, the ship was purchased by Miawpukek Horizon Maritime Service Ltd, a joint venture between Horizon Maritime and the Miawpukek First Nation and chartered for educational and research expedition use.
Nikolai Mikhailovich Knipovich was a Russian and Soviet ichthyologist, marine zoologist and oceanographer, notable as the founder of fisheries research in the Russian North.
