Baron Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld

1832-1901

Finnish Explorer and Scientist

Nils Adolf Nordenskiöld made a total of 10 voyages of exploration to the polar regions, exploring the areas around Greenland, Spitzbergen, and discovering the Northeast Passage from Europe to Asia. He later became a professor of mineralogy at the University of Stockholm and director of the Mineralogy Department at the Swedish Museum of Natural History. In his later years, Nordenskiöld studied the history of cartography, assembling a fine collection of maps of historical significance.

Nordenskiöld was born in Finland to a wealthy family. He attended the Royal Alexander University of Finland (now the University of Helsinki), graduating in geology and mineralogy. In 1858, he set out on his first voyage of exploration, the first of 10 that he would complete between 1858 and 1883.

At this time, Finland was still under Russian domination as the Archduchy of Finland. As such, and unlike most other European voyages of exploration, Nordenskiöld did not set out to expand an empire. Nordenskiöld also did not set out to "fill in the white spaces on the maps"; rather, he tried to add to the body of scientific knowledge about the regions he visited and, on later expeditions, to prove the existence of a water route from Europe to Asia. This was also a time of increasing pride on the part of Nordic people, spurred on by the (then) recent discoveries suggesting that Vikings may have visited North America before Columbus, a fact not proved conclusively until the twentieth century.

During Nordenskiöld's explorations, he conducted detailed mapping of the eastern coast of Greenland, the southern coast of Spitzbergen, and the northern coast of Russian Asia. In addition to writing about his expedition's scientific, navigational, and geographic achievements, Nordenskiöld also wrote a book based on his journey through the Northeast Passage called The Voyage of the Vega (the name of his ship), in which he showed himself to be an excellent writer and popularizer. This book combining a travelogue with scientific observations, ethnographic studies, and some history was the first of its kind to be published in Scandinavia and was later translated into a number of foreign languages.

In preparation for his voyages with the Vega in 1878 and 1879, Nordenskiöld had spent much time studying maps of the far north. This led him, after his return, to the study of the history of maps and the influence of maps on the European view of the world. Virtually abandoning his studies in geology and mineralogy, he spent most of the rest of his life in this pursuit, making some significant discoveries, but also making some serious blunders.

Nordenskiöld's most serious mistake was accepting too readily any map he found as authentic. By so doing, he ended up purchasing several forged maps, basing some statements on documents later found to be fakes. This detracted from his credibility and caused others to take many of his writings less seriously than would otherwise have been the case. In addition, Nordenskiöld on several occasions erred in his interpretation of old maps, usually attributing knowledge of intent to ancient mapmakers that they could not have had. One particular instance of this was in his viewing of a sixteenth-century map of the world in which America is shown separated from Asia, in spite of the widespread belief of that time that the continents were joined. Nordenskiöld attributed this to superior knowledge of the mapmaker when, in fact, the mapmaker had stated in separate documents that he had erred and the two continents should have been joined. All in all, however, Nordenskiöld contributed tremendously to science, geography, and the history of cartography, and even his errors cannot detract from these accomplishments. Nordenskiöld died in 1901 at the age of 69.

P. ANDREW KARAM