Frederick George Jackson

Frederick George Jackson (6 March 1860 – 13 March 1938) was an English Arctic explorer remembered for his expedition to Franz Josef Land, when he located the missing Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen.

He was born the son of George Frederick and Mary Elizabeth Jackson at Alcester Lodge, Alcester, Warwickshire, England and educated at Denstone College in Staffordshire and Edinburgh University.

His first voyage in Arctic waters was on a whaling cruise in 1886–1887, and in 1893 he made a sledge-journey of 3000 miles across the frozen tundra of Siberia lying between the Ob and the Pechora. His narrative of this journey was published under the title of The Great Frozen Land (1895).

On his return, he was given the command of the Jackson-Harmsworth Arctic expedition (1894—1897). Sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society, this expedition was to conduct general exploration of Franz Josef Land. Whilst leading this expedition, Jackson and his men were contacted on 17 June 1896 by the Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his companion Hjalmar Johansen, who had not been heard of for three years and were presumed dead, but were in fact trying to reach Spitsbergen by kayak. Jackson informed him that they were in fact on Franz Josef Land, and with Jackson's help, Nansen and Johansen were able to return home, departing aboard the Windward on 7 August. Jackson and his party wintered at their camp according to plan. The Jackson-Harmsworth expedition proved that Franz Josef Land is nothing more than an archipelago of small islands.

In recognition of his services he received a knighthood of the first class of the Norwegian Royal Order of St Olaf in 1898, and was awarded the gold medal of the Paris Geographical Society in 1899. His account of the expedition was published under the title of A Thousand Days in the Arctic (1899).

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