Jackson, Frederick George

Related Category: Explorers, Travelers, and Conquerors: Biographies

1860–1938, British arctic explorer. He explored (1893–94) the tundra in arctic Russia and in Lapland, and he commanded (1894–97) the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition that explored Franz Josef Land. Jackson proved that Franz Josef Land was an archipelago, not a continent as had been suspected. His chance encounter (1896) with Fridtjof Nansen and F. H. Johansen, who were returning by sledge from their attempted journey to the North Pole, probably saved the lives of these two explorers. In later years Jackson became a well-known African traveler. His writings include The Great Frozen Land (1895) and A Thousand Days in the Arctic (1899).