Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld

Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (18 November 1832 – 12 August 1901) was a

Nordenskiöld family

The

Upon his graduation, in 1853, Nordenskiöld accompanied his father to the Ural Mountains and studied the iron and copper mines at Tagilsk; on his return he received minor appointments both at the university and the mining office.^[3]

Political activity and exile

Having studied under

He then visited Berlin, continuing his mineralogical studies, and in 1856 obtained a travelling stipend from the university in Helsinki and planned to expend it in geological research in Siberia and Kamchatka. In 1856, Nordenskiöld was also appointed Docent in Mineralogy at the university. In 1857 he aroused the suspicion of the authorities again, so that he was forced to leave Finland, practically as a political refugee, and was deprived of the right of ever holding office in the university of Finland.^[3] He fled to Sweden.

In 1862, he was one of the founding members of Sällskapet Idun, a men's association founded in Stockholm.^[4]

In 1863 he married Anna Maria Mannerheim, the aunt of Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim.

Settling in Stockholm, and Arctic exploration

In 1883, he visited the east coast of Greenland for the second time, and succeeded in taking his ship through the great ice barrier, a feat attempted in vain during more than three centuries.^[3] The captain on the Vega expedition, Louis Palander, was made a nobleman at the same time, and took the name Palander af Vega.

Later life and death

In 1893, Nordenskiöld was elected to the 12th chair of the Swedish Academy. In 1900 he received the Murchison Medal from the Geological Society of London.^[7] He was nominated for the first Nobel Prize in Physics^[8] but died before the prizes were awarded.

Nordenskiöld died on 12 August 1901, in

As an explorer, Nordenskiöld was interested in the history of Arctic exploration, especially as evidenced in old maps. This interest in turn led him to collect and systematically study early maps. He wrote two substantial monographs, which both included many facsimiles, on early printed atlases and geographical mapping and medieval marine charts, respectively the Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of Cartography (1889)[9] and Periplus (1897).^[10]

He left his huge personal collection of early maps to the

• In 1858, Nordenskiöld took part in Torell's first expedition to Svalbard in the sloop Frithiof. The expedition made biological and geological observations along the coast of Spitsbergen.^[12]
• In 1861, he took part in Torell's second Svalbard expedition on board the Æolus. This included a boat journey along the scarcely explored northern coast of Nordaustlandet as far as Prins Oscars Land. They also began to measure a meridian arc, but did not complete the work.^[13]
• In 1864, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences placed Nordenskiöld in command of the schooner Axel Thordsen to complete the meridian arc survey. After conducting the necessary measurements in the south of Svalbard, they rescued 27 men who had to abandon their ice-locked ships.^[14]
• In 1868 on the schooner-rigged iron steamer Sofia, he went farther north than any vessel had ever been in the
  Eastern hemisphere. He reached 82° 42' N, surpassing William Scoresby's previous record by 12'.^[15]
• In 1870, he visited
  meteorites.^[16] Nowadays it is thought that the iron accumulated in basalt formations through volcanic eruptions.^[17]
• In 1872, Nordenskiöld embarked on an expedition to reach the North Pole using reindeer. To this end, the steamer Polhem, the steamer Onkel Adam, and the brig Gladan met by Spitsbergen. At Mosselbukta, the three ships were unexpectedly frozen in. Nordenskiöld was faced with feeding the 67 men throughout the winter, as well as helping out the crews from six Norwegian hunting vessels that had suffered the same fate. The situation was worsened when all but one of the reindeer escaped. Instead of a sledge journey to the pole, only a trip to Nordaustlandet could be undertaken during which one expedition member disappeared while searching for driftwood. The supplies ran dangerously low and scurvy was rampant. Only one sailor succumbed to it however, because Benjamin Leigh Smith on the steamer Diana found the beset ships and donated his provisions. Two weeks later, the ice opened up and the ships could return to Sweden.^[18][19]
• In 1875, he went to the
  Yenisei River in Siberia, on board the sloop Pröven, which he sent back while he went up the river in a boat and returned home by land.^[20]
• In 1876, Nordenskiöld repeated the journey to the mouth of the Yenisei with the steamer Ymer to prove that this route was not dependent on unusually favourable ice conditions.[21]
• In 1878–1879 he was the first to complete the entire
  River Lena to Yakutsk. At the end of September, Vega was frozen in near the Bering Strait and passed the winter among the coastal Chukchi. By sailing through Bering Strait in July 1879, Vega completed the Northeast Passage.^[22]
• In 1882–1883 – 2nd Dickson Expedition ("Den andra Dicksonska Expeditionen till Grönland"
  Ammasalik (Kung Oscars Hamn) 65° 37' N, only slightly to the north of where Wilhelm August Graah was forced to turn his Umiak expedition
  round in 1830.

• Nordenskiöld Archipelago, an island group in the Kara Sea, off the Siberian coast
• The Laptev Sea used to be called "Nordenskiöld Sea" (Russian: мо́ре Норденшёльда), in honour of this Arctic explorer.
• Nordenskiöld Fjord in Peary Land, Greenland
• Nordenskiöld Bay, Novaya Zemlya
• Nordenskiöld Glacier, East Greenland
• Nordenskiöld Glacier, Northwest Greenland
• Nordenskiöld Glacier, West Greenland
• Nordenskiöld Glacier (Novaya Zemlya), a group of four glaciers
• Nordenskiöldbreen, a glacier in Svalbard
• Nordenskiöld Bay in Svalbard
• Nordenskiöld crater on Mars
• Nordenskiöld was the main motif for a Finnish commemorative coin of 2007, the €10 Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and Northeast Passage commemorative coin. The issue celebrated the 175th anniversary Nordenskiöld's birth and his discovery of the Northeast Passage.
• Nordenskiöldinkatu (Nordenskiöld street), a street in Helsinki, Finland

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld.

Wikisource has the text of a 1920 Encyclopedia Americana article about Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld.

• Works by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld at Biodiversity Heritage Library
• Works by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld at Open Library
• Works by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld at Internet Archive (working link)
• Petri Liukkonen. "Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld". Books and Writers.
• The A. E. Nordenskiöld Map Collection at the National Library of Finland
• Digitized samples from Nordenskiöld's map collection
• The A. E. Nordenskiöld Collection at UNESCO's "Memory of the World" site
• "Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld".
  Svenska litteratursällskapet i Finland. urn:NBN:fi:sls-4800-1416928957406
  .

Cultural offices
Preceded by Anders Anderson	Swedish Academy, Seat No 12 1893–1901	Succeeded by Gustaf Retzius