Frontispiece Portrait of Roald Amundsen

In: The South Pole: An account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the "Fram," 1910-1912, Volume II, London: John Murray, 1913.

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Roald Amundsen

1872-1928

Roald Amundsen, born in 1872 near Oslo, Norway, left his mark on the Heroic Era as one of the most successful polar explorers ever born. His career of adventure began at the age of 15, originally studying medicine, but dropping out to go to sea where he soon moved his way up to the rank of mate. His first experience in the Antarctic was with Adrien de Gerlache's 1899 Belgica Expedition. He became the first to travel the Northwest Passage, in his ship Gjoa in 1903-06. After this expedition, plans were assembled to drift across the North Pole in Nansen's famous Fram, but news arrived of Peary's successful attainment of the pole which caused Amundsen to make new plans - covert plans - for an expedition to the Antarctic and the subsequent capture of the South Pole.

Amundsen's expedition to the South Pole was an incredible masterpiece of organization. Once on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, Amundsen and his men spent three months establishing a 260 km long line of supply depots. Amundsen had viewed the way his British rival, Robert Scott, who was also making a dash for the pole, had marked his depots as verging on criminal negligence. The problem was an awkward and vital one in a featureless desert. The method Amundsen adopted was a line of black pennants on short sticks running east-west across his intended line of travel. Twenty were laid out half a mile apart; ten on each side of the depots, making a transverse marking of 6 km in all. This was well within any conceivable instrumental error, so that even in thick weather, the chances of missing a pennant were small. Each pennant was numbered, giving the distance and bearing of each depot. While laying the depots, Amundsen also left a line of dried fish along the intended route as both markers for the sled dogs to follow, and a supplementary food.

On October 18, 1911 Amundsen set out for the final push toward the pole with four men, four sledges and forty-eight dogs. In contrast, Scott set out 3 weeks later using motor sleighs and ponies for travelling. Amundsen knew that the motors in Scott’s sleighs would break down in the fierce cold. He also knew that Scott's ponies were no match for sled dogs. Indeed, a dog is well adapted to cold because, among other things, it sweats only through its tongue, allowing its fur to remain dry. A horse, on the other hand, sweats through its hide and in cold weather the sweat turns to ice. Standing still, unable, like the dogs, to dig themselves into the comforting, protective snow, Scott's ponies froze; their flanks sometimes encased in an armour plate of solid ice.

Amundsen's use of skis and carefully selected sled dogs, were crucial factors in his success at reaching the South Pole first. Hand-picked from Inuit breeders in Canada and Greenland, Amundsen's canine crew members had been superbly equipped by centuries of natural selection for survival in the Arctic. He referred to them as "our children," and revealed, "The dogs are the most important thing for us. The whole outcome of the expedition depends on them."

On December 7, aided by exceptionally cooperative weather conditions, Amundsen's party, passed the point where Ernest Shackleton had been forced to turn back from his attempt to reach the pole two years earlier. Seven days later, at approximately 3pm on December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen raised the flag of Norway at the South Pole, naming the spot Polheim -- "Pole Home." He and his four companions - Hansse, Hassel, Bjaaland and Wisting - returned to their base camp on January 25, 1912, 99 days and 3,000 kilometers after their departure, forestalling Scott's arrival at the pole by nearly one month.

Roald Amundsen lived to experience other polar adventures, including flying over the North Pole in the dirigible, Norge, in 1926. But the Arctic would eventually claim his life, too. While flying on a rescue mission in 1928 searching for fellow Italian polar explorer, Umberto Nobile, Amundsen was killed when his plane crashed into the Arctic Ocean. Earlier that same year, speaking to a journalist about his love of the icy Arctic, Amundsen said, "If only you knew how splendid it is up there, that's where I want to die."

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