he was sailing abroad. In 1875, he passed his mate's examination, and some years later the shipmaster's examination.

In 1877 Sverdrup's parents moved from Bindal to the farm Trana outside the town of Steinkjer. At this time O. T. Olsen, a teacher and employee in the bank at Kolvereid and a relative of his mother, had purchased the steamboat TRIO. Sverdrup was employed as captain. Around this time Sverdrup also met the lawyer Alexander Nansen who lived in the town of Namsos.