This book is an account of the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition of 1894. Financed by the newspaper magnate Alfred Harmsworth, Viscount Northcliffe, the explorer Frederick George Jackson was to undertake an expedition to Franz Joseph Land in the Arctic amid rumours that the territory stretched all the way to the North Pole. At its conclusion in 1897, the expedition had discovered that the territory was little more than a small archipelago.
While undertaking the journey, in 1896, Jackson had a chance encounter with the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his companion Hjalmar Johansen who had gone missing three years earlier and had been presumed dead. The pair said they were trying to return to Svalbard by kayak. Jackson informed them where they were and arranged for the pair to return home.
On his own return to Europe, Jackson received a knighthood of the Norwegian Order of St Olaf in gratitude for his efforts.