Otto Sverdrup

Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Wikipedia.
Related to Otto Sverdrup: Otto Neumann Sverdrup

Sverdrup, Otto


Born Oct. 31, 1854, in Bindalseidet; died Nov. 26, 1930, in Oslo. Norwegian arctic navigator and explorer.

In 1888, Sverdrup and F. Nansen became the first to cross southern Greenland on skis. From 1893 to 1896, Sverdrup was captain of Nansen’s ship Fram. From 1898 to 1902 he led an expedition aboard the ship that traced and charted the entire western coast of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago for the first time; led to the discovery of Axel Hei-berg, Ellef Ringnes, and Amund Ringnes islands and other islands of the group later named the Sverdrup Islands; and explored almost all the straits between the islands.

In 1914 and 1915, Sverdrup was in command of the Russian steamship Eklips, which was dispatched to search for G. Ia. Se-dov, V. A. Rusanov, and G. L. Brusilov. The ship wintered on the northwestern coast of the Taimyr Peninsula; in the autumn of 1915, Sverdrup raised the Russian flag over Uedinenie Island. In 1920, while commanding the Soviet icebreaker Sviatogor, Sverdrup freed the steamship Solovei Budimirovich, which had been carried by an ice drift from Cheshskaia Guba to the Kara Sea. The channel between Axel Heiberg and Meighen islands and also islands in the Kara and Lincoln seas were named after Sverdrup.


Nyt land, vols. 1–2. Oslo, 1902–03.


Nansen, F. “Fram” v Poliarnom more, vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1956. (Translated from Norwegian.)
Taylor, A. Geographical Discovery and Exploration in the Queen Elizabethlslands. Ottawa, 1955.
References in periodicals archive ?
The author has put together a compelling story about the three larger-than-life characters, Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, and Roald Amundsen, who carried out extraordinary polar adventures, to both north and south, in the ice ship.
After Nansen and Johansen departed, it was left to Otto Sverdrup to take charge of the remaining drift expedition and return the ship and crew to Norway.
The Canadian covers bear the cancellation of Grise Fiord (Nunavut), one of many place names that are an enduring legacy of Otto Sverdrup.
Bernier as explorer, captain, and leader of the government's Eastern Arctic Patrols--Canada's answer to Norway's Otto Sverdrup. During the 1910-11 Arctic Patrols, Captain Bernier's Second Officer was Robert S.
The planned objective of the expedition, headed by Robert Stein, had been a scientific investigation of the region Otto Sverdrup and his men hadjust surveyed.
Skelton, Canadian Under Secretary of State for External Affairs, had concluded a long negotiation with Otto Sverdrup and the Norwegian Government.
In the High Arctic, Robert Peary and Elisha Kent Kane are classic examples of the melodramatic explorer, while Otto Sverdrup exemplifies the ideal leader of a nineteenth-century scientific team.
In the fall of 1898, Otto Sverdrup led a Norwegian scientific expedition to survey, map, and make geological, biological, and archaeological observations that led to a claim of Norwegian sovereignty over the High Arctic Islands.