The above video shows what a 16th century explorer's ship would a have looked like, from its hull construction to its rigging. Such ships were small, with a shallow draft so they could work closer to coastlines. As you can see, while not having cargo space like a merchant would have, it was heavily armed if it needed to fight. It looks like the living conditions would have been miserable.
In 1893 Fridtjof Nansen set out on an expedition to reach the north pole. His plan was unique; after studying arctic currents, he decided to intentionally get a boat icebound where it would then get carried by the ocean currents to the pole. He had a boat, the Fram, specially built to withstand the pressures of the ice and the cold.
They spent a long time in the ice pack but eventually determined that they would not drift to the pole. In 1895, after reaching as far north as they thought the ship would, Nansen and Hjalmar Johansen decided they would try to reach the pole on skis. They fell short (by about 170 miles), but at the time it was the farthest north reached to date.
Because the ship was drifting and would be hard to locate, the two proceeded to Franz Josef Land. It was a long trek south, and they had to build a cabin to winter in. Eventually they encountered another polar expedition and were taken the others' base camp.
Meanwhile the Fram continued to drift for months, eventually clearing the ice pack and making it to Spitsbergen where they encountered yet another polar explorer -- this one trying to reach the north pole via balloon.
Remarkably there were no casualties during the years long expedition. It was judged a success, even though it fell short of the pole. The Fram is now a museum ship.
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It took a long time to flesh out the map of the Earth. For most of human history travelling any distance has been slow, arduous and frequently dangerous. In California Spanish missions were spaced about 30 miles apart because that was a day's travel on horseback. In these days of airplanes, automobiles, and passports that is a hard fact to grasp. Our ancestors had a greatly diminished horizon.
Of course, there were always people who wandered far to see what was beyond their homeland's borders. The Romans and Chinese knew of each other, the Vikings pushed west to Newfoundland, The Polynesians opened up the South Pacific, the Chinese explored the Indian Ocean, and so forth.
However, when we think of explorers we tend to think of the Age of Exploration -- that period when Europeans spread out and explored the globe, leading to the colonization of the New World, the seizing India, scrambling for Africa, and imposing Concession areas in China.
Regardless of the outcome (and cultural admixtures are frequently very disruptive) the original explorers are quite fascinating. To leave one's home on a long and uncertain trip just so see what's there is a special sort of an ambition.
Christmas brings to mind the North Pole and Santa's sweatshop workshop. That, through a fairly convoluted path, brings us to Hubert Wilkins' 1931 attempt to reach the North Pole via a WWI submarine. The above video documents his expedition. It had a lot of problems and didn't succeed, but he did manage to bring his ship and crew back to Norway. It's a very interesting story.
