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Comment by sampo | Hacker News Reader

In 1893, Fridtjof Nansen took a ship with a 12 men crew to North of East Siberia, purposefully sailed the ship to get stuck in sea ice, and hoped that the ice movement with ocean currents would take them to the North Pole. The ship spent 3 years stuck in ice, but didn't quite flow over the North Pole. These people didn't go mad.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nansen%27s_Fram_expedition

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What kind of food did they store and eat that was to last five years? And water? The wiki is light on these details in my skimming of it.

They mention building a shelter with walrus hides so I'd imagine they did a fair amount of hunting rather than trying to bring all their supplies with them from the outset. Shackleton's voyage used a similar approach.

At this period in time, before Vitamin C was discovered, fresh meat, in particularly raw meat, was critical for survival. The canned food didn't contain vitamin C so scurvy was a constant problem.

The competent explorers learned the habit of eating raw meat from the inuits.

That said, the walrus hut was built by Nansen and Johansen after leaving the ship.

That wiki article was a super interesting read. I might find a book that goes more in depth.

Try Ronald Huntford's biographies. His books about Amundsen/Scott and Shackleton are also worthwhile. Such an amazing period.

In summary, Shackleton and Nansen are admirable for courage an endurance. But Amundsen is far ahead of them all in competence, and that is what counts.

And then you can also try "The worst journey in the world" by Ansley Cherry-Garrard. An expedition in darkness...

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