Otto Neumann Knoph Sverdrup (31 October 1854 – 26 November 1930) was a Norwegian sailor and Arctic explorer.
Early and personal life
He was born in Bindal Municipality as a son of farmer Ulrik Frederik Suhm Sverdrup (1833–1914) and his wife Petra Neumann Knoph (1831–1885). He was a great-grandnephew of Georg Sverdrup and Jacob Liv Borch Sverdrup, first cousin twice removed of Harald Ulrik and Johan Sverdrup, second cousin once removed of Jakob, Georg and Edvard Sverdrup, third cousin of Georg Johan, Jakob, Mimi, Leif and Harald Ulrik Sverdrup. He was a brother-in-law of Johan Vaaler, and Otto himself married his own first cousin, Gretha Andrea Engelschiøn (1866–1937), in October 1891 in Kristiania.
His father was born on Buøy in Kolvereid Municipality. As oldest son Otto was heir to the Sverdrup properties at Buøy. However, he left it all to his younger brothers and went to Åbygda in Bindal, to the farm named Hårstad, where Otto Sverdrup was born. In 1872, at the age of 17, Otto Sverdrup returned to Nærøy Municipality, to Ottersøy where his uncle Søren worked in transportation with his own vessels. Here Sverdrup started his career as a seaman and after a while he was sailing abroad. In 1875, he passed his mate's examination, and some years later the shipmaster's examination.
In 1877 Sverdrup's parents moved from Bindal to the farm Trana outside the town of Steinkjer. At this time O. T. Olsen, a teacher and employee in the bank at Kolvereid and a relative of his mother, had purchased the steamboat TRIO. Sverdrup was employed as captain. Around this time Sverdrup also met the lawyer Alexander Nansen who lived in the town of Namsos. He was the brother of Fridtjof Nansen and through him Sverdrup and Fridtjof Nansen learned to know each other.
Career and expeditions
thumb|right|Photograph of Otto Sverdrup on the first journey of Fram.
Sverdrup joined Fridtjof Nansen's expedition of 1888 across Greenland. In 1892 he was an advisor to Fridtjof Nansen when the ship Fram was built. In 1893 Sverdrup was given command of the ship, and in 1895 he was left in charge of it while Nansen attempted to reach the North Pole. Sverdrup managed to free the ship from the ice near Svalbard in August 1896 and sailed to Skjervøy, arriving just 4 days after Nansen had reached Norway. in the Canadian Arctic.
Between 1899 and 1902, he overwintered three more times on Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic with the Fram, continuing to explore and map, culminating in the discovery of the islands to the west of Ellesmere Island, namely Axel Heiberg, Amund Ringnes and Ellef Ringnes, collectively known as the Sverdrup Islands. The area was famously mapped by his topographer, Gunnar Isachsen, and 35 academic publications were penned as a result of the expedition. Sverdrup also has an unsuccessful business venture in Cuba, a plantation project in the Oriente Province in 1904. He died in November 1930. A statue of Sverdrup was erected in Steinkjer in 1957, and in 1999 a statue of Sverdrup was erected in Sandvika, in the square named after him, Otto Sverdrups plass. but in an open letter to the German legation in Oslo on 25 October 1917 declared that he was returning the order in protest against the unrestricted warfare then being waged by the German U-boats in the First World War, causing the deaths of hundreds of Norwegian sailors. The day before Sverdrup's return of his order, fellow explorer Roald Amundsen had also returned his German awards.
References
Further reading
- Guldborg Søvik og Lars Hole Der isen aldri går. Et år i Otto Sverdrups rike , 2001
- William Barr, Otto Sverdrup to the rescue of the Russian Imperial Navy.