Fridtjof Nansen was the first ship in the Norwegian armed forces to be built specially to perform coast guard and fishery protection duties in the Arctic. She saw service in the Second World War with the Royal Norwegian Navy until she ran aground on an unmarked shallow at Jan Mayen in November 1940.

Jan Mayen is a Norwegian volcanic island in the Arctic Ocean with no permanent population. It is 55 km (34 mi) long (southwest-northeast) and 373 km2 (144 sq mi) in area, partly covered by glaciers. It has two parts: larger northeast Nord-Jan and smaller Sør-Jan, linked by a 2.5 km (1.6 mi) wide isthmus. It lies 600 km (370 mi) northeast of Iceland, 500 km (310 mi) east of central Greenland, and 900 km (560 mi) northwest of Vesterålen, Norway. The island is mountainous, the highest summit being the Beerenberg volcano in the north. The isthmus is the location of the two largest lakes of the island, Sørlaguna and Nordlaguna. A third lake is called Ullerenglaguna. Jan Mayen was formed by the Jan Mayen hotspot and is defined by geologists as a microcontinent.