Posted by Shawn Dawson on July 08, 2005 at 17:21:53 from 168.103.51.141 user shawn.
I finished "Winter Holiday" on Tuesday. I received in the mail on the same day a copy of "Old News", which is a paper I subscribe to that covers old news as if it were happening today. The lead story was "Nansen Sets Sail Towards North Pole".
Being new to the Ransome stories, I had not yet read about the Nansen expedition, but I was of course aware of how much it inspired the children in Winter Holiday.
The drawings and the story suggest it also inspired Ransome quite a bit when he was creating the story.
I placed photos from the article on my home page at http://belit.homelinux.com/ which you may find interesting.
They include drawings of the Fram stuck in the ice, dog sledges, sledges with sails, and the stone igloo Nansen made to get through a winter.
This is serving off my home computer, so be patient if it's a bit slow.
-Shawn Dawson