Norwegian Explorer. He was noted for his Arctic explorations including Fridtjof Nansen's Greenland expedition (1888) and Ellesmere Island (1899 to 1902). The son of a farmer, he 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. He joined Fridtjof Nansen's expedition of 1888 across Greenland and in 1892 he was an advisor to Fridtjof Nansen when the ship Fram was built. In 1893 Sverdrup was given command of the ship. In 1898 he embarked on another expedition with the Fram, in which he attempted to circumnavigate Greenland via Baffin Bay but failed to make it through the Nares Strait. Forced to overwinter on Ellesmere Island, he and his crew explored and named many uncharted fjords and peninsulas. 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. In adopting Inuit methods, he and his crew were able to chart a total of 260,000 square kilometers, more than any other polar exploration. One of his lesser-known exploits was the 1914-1915 search and rescue expedition in the Kara Sea. His aim was to search for two missing Arctic expeditions, that of Captain Georgy Brusilov and that of Vladimir Rusanov, but they were never found. He retired from his explorations in 1921 and spent the remaining years of his life at his home in Sandvika, Norway. Among his awards and honors include the Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav (1902), gold medals from the Norwegian Geographical Society (1889) and the Royal Geographical Society (1903), and an honorary degree at the University of St Andrews. He had also been awarded the Grand Cross of the Prussian Order of the Crown but returned it in protest due to the unrestricted warfare then being waged by the German U-boats during World War I that caused the deaths of hundreds of Norwegian sailors. He died at the age of 76.