Otto Realf Norland was born in 1930 in Oslo. In 1950 he entered NHH (The Commercial University) in Bergen and obtained the university degree in 1953. Already same year he came to Hambros Bank in London as a trainee. After completing London’s Institute of Bankers in just over two years, setting a record in the City, he advanced rapidly to become successively Director, Managing Director and Partner in Hambros. An incredible career in the international financial service. In 2021 his book The Magic of Merchant Banking – My Years in the City of London was published in Oslo.

Norland’s profound passion for Polar exploration, both in the Antarctic and the Arctic, started already in 1938 at the age of eight. From his grandmother he got a nice copy of Fridtjof Nansen’s Farthest North. For a period Otto’s father Realph Norland had worked for Nansen and shortly before the Polar hero died in 1930, Otto had been sitting on Nansen’s knee during a visit to their home. In 2022 very few people can claim they met Fridtjof Nansen! In 1982 Norland was made a fellow of The Royal Geographic Society by Lord Shackleton.

To read more about the auction, click here.