The Explorer Society | The Forgotten Amundsen

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Ask most people who the first people on the moon were and you’ll usually get a quick response: Armstrong and Aldrin. The same goes for Everest: Hillary and Norgay. You might get last names, you might get full names, you might get one of the people, you might get both. You might even get details on the achievement. But, ask these same people about the South Pole and you’ll get a whole range of answers. Was it Sir Ernest Shackleton? Perhaps Sir Robert Scott? Maybe Sir Douglas Mawson. None of these, of course, are correct. But, it raises the question: Why is it that the first man to reach the South Pole, and one of the greatest explorers ever, flies under the radar? Why has the world ignored Roald Amundsen?

Ignored may be a strong word. But without question, Amundsen does not have the cultural weight that other explorers of this or any era have. Despite claiming a much sought-after achievement during what is now known as the ‘Golden Age of Exploration’, Amundsen has largely slipped into the shadows compared to his contemporaries. Some of it is due to prejudice and nationalism, some is due to the epic dramas of the Shackleton and Scott disasters and some is due to the simple fact that Amundsen was a terrible storyteller. An amazing explorer for sure, but not a great entertainer. In war, history is said to be written by the victors. In peacetime, however, it’s often written by the loudest or the most engaging. Amundsen was neither.

His story, however quietly whispered, is one of the greatest feats in exploration.

Who was Roald Amundsen?

Hailing from Norway, Amundsen was born into a sea-going family, full of captains and ship owners. Entranced by the stories of explorers before him, like Franklin’s disastrous attempt to cross the Northwest Passage, Amundsen dreamt of a life full of adventure. His mother, however, dreamt of something else for him. She wanted him to be a doctor, and being a dutiful son he deferred to her request. That is, of course until she passed away when he was 21. Upon this life event, he immediately quit university and began his life at sea.

His first foray into polar exploration was aboard the Belgica, a Belgian Antarctic expedition that really kickstarted the ‘Golden Age of Exploration’. The Belgica expedition is best known for being the first to overwinter in the Antarctic, the ship being trapped for months by sea ice. Whether, as argued, by design or by accident, they were stuck deep. Despite being poorly prepared for the ordeal, many of the lessons learned during this challenge were learned and carried forward onto future expeditions by other explorers. This included conditions the ship encountered and also the use of fresh meat and offal, mainly from nearby wildlife, as a way of preventing scurvy.

Side note: Funnily enough, the cook that provided this breakthrough was an American, aptly named Frederick Cook. He was later mired in controversy (that continues to this day) over his claims to have successfully reached the North Pole. He also claimed to be the first to climb Denali in Alaska, the tallest mountain in North America. Both his claims of this and those of another claimant, Robert Peary, have been scrutinised and argued for years afterwards. This will come into relevancy later on.

The Northwest Passage

Returning from the Antarctic winter after the Belgica was eventually freed, Amundsen set off a few years later to try and become the first man to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage, the northern Canadian/American coastline. Travelling from east to west, he set off with six men on a ship called the Gjoa. Making their way through the far north they eventually became firmly stuck in the ice in what is now known as Gjoa Haven, in modern-day Nunavut. This delay, whilst disappointing at the time, was to provide the secret weapon that Amundsen later used for his other successes.

Spending two winters here trapped in the ice, both he and his crew spent time with the local Inuit, learning to survive in the harsh Arctic conditions. They received training in the use of sled dogs and the construction of animal skin clothing, all of which proved invaluable in later expeditions. After time spent here in frozen stasis, eventually, the ship was freed and he completed his journey. In doing so, he became the first man in history to make a successful crossing of the Northwest Passage.

Not content with just one world first, Amundsen now focused on another. He planned to take a ship and negotiate the Northeast passage and when inevitably becoming frozen in the ice, drift with the pack across the North Pole. By doing so, he’d be the first man to reach it. Always keen to learn more, he also attended lectures by Shackleton, freshly back from his successful Nimrod expedition, to study what he found useful on his trips. But, without the fame of Scott or the showmanship of Shackleton, and not being a famed explorer of the British Empire, Amundsen struggled to find financial support for his expedition. Most donors either weren’t interested or were instead supporting the Antarctic expedition of the highly touted Robert Scott.

Amundsen’s fortunes then took a turn for the worst when, in 1909, news broke that Robert Peary had reached the North Pole first. With that target already claimed and all his money (and that of donors) invested in his North Pole expedition, he needed a new adventure to aim for or faced financial ruin.

The Fram

So, in the utmost secrecy, he changed his mind and focused on the one remaining unclaimed prize: The South Pole. And when we say utmost secrecy, we mean it. Even the crew didn’t know the real destination until they had set off and realised they were heading south rather than north. He refitted the same ship, the Fram, as used by the famed Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen. **Steaming towards Antarctica, Amundsen sent a telegram to Robert Scott, about to head off on his own second expedition to the South Pole, which simply read “Beg to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic – Amundsen”.

Reaching the Antarctic peninsula, he decided to avoid all landing areas and walking routes used by Shackleton and Scott, for he thought them theirs to use only. Instead, he landed at the Bay of Whales and quickly set about laying out supply depots for his journey. After one aborted attempt, they set off for the South Pole on the 19th of October 1911. They took advantage of their Norwegian background and utilised skis, vastly speeding them along. All people in his party were excellent skiers and often chosen for this ability. This is in opposition to other expeditions that largely mocked their usefulness.

**The dog teams with the Fram in the background**

Taking a previously undiscovered route into central Antarctica, they eventually reached the Pole on the 10th of December. Leaving a flag and a note marking their achievement in case they didn’t make the return journey, Amundsen and his team set off and made it back to the main camp in late January. It was, despite the achievement, a largely uneventful trip. Departing Antarctica and heading straight for Hobart, they announced their success to the stunned world in March. Not everyone, however, was happy to hear his news.

Colder than the Antarctic

Beginning a speaking tour upon his return to repay debts, he received a frosty reception in England. The nation waited for news from Scott’s expedition, assumed to be stuck overwinter in the ice. With ‘their man’ leading the charge for English exceptionalism, having his thunder stolen by this Norwegian was an insult too great to bear.

And so, insults returned Amundsen’s way. He was mocked for his lack of focus on the scientific aspect of the expedition, choosing to make the journey straight for the pole. This is despite the science often proving nothing more than a minor distraction for his fellow explorers and usually simply a PR exercise to further fundraise funding. He was also labelled unsporting or ungentlemanly for changing his destination last minute. His use of dogs provided another avenue to attack him, with the president of the Royal Geographical Society refusing to toast him at a celebratory dinner (held through gritted teeth) and instead famously toasting “Three cheers for the dogs!”.

By contrast, Scott did think the struggle was a noble pursuit and man-hauling equipment worthwhile suffering. This didn’t, however, stop him from trying to avoid it. He took along Siberian ponies, dogs and untested mechanical engines to haul the equipment for him. The difference is, in the case of the animals, they never bothered to learn how to properly use them and were instead forced to man-haul their supplies. The same goes for skis or proper winter clothing. As Scott famously wrote in his diary, “Skis are the thing, and here are my tiresome fellow countrymen too prejudiced to have prepared themselves for the event.”.

Scott, a Navy man, packed large amounts of equipment which then inevitably all had to be hauled by foot. Amundsen instead travelled light and fast. Rather than work the animals to death and then eat them, as both Scott and Shackleton did, Amundsen meticulously planned the death of each animal. After all, as the supplies dropped, so did the number of dogs needed to pull them. Each one then got a second use after death feeding the team, so much so that Amundsen and his team put on weight on the way to the Pole.

Amundsen was practical. He was ruthlessly efficient. He was meticulous and singularly focused. These attributes didn’t always align with the British ideal of the ‘Valiant Explorer’. It didn’t help that he wasn’t a natural writer or orator, able to tell his story. It also didn’t help that he wrote quite plainly in his native Norwegian, rather than the more widespread English. His camera broke early in the expedition and the surviving photos weren’t of great quality.

This muted reception only got worse for him when news later broke that the bodies of Scott and his team had been found on the Antarctic continent. Arriving at the South Pole a month after Amundsen, he and his entire team had perished on the way back, freezing to death in their tents. Scott was immediately held up as an ideal example of a British Empire hero. Whilst not painted as a villain, Amundsen was pushed into the shadows by the public image of Scott, the ‘tragic hero’. This entire story cast a shadow over Amundsen that he could never shake. He didn’t have too much interest in fame. It was the challenge he sought, not so much the acknowledgment of his achievements, however, the lack of recognition given to him did sting.

Amundsen carries on

Able at least to use the success of his expedition to pay off his debts, Amundsen founded a successful shipping company and turned his sights back to the north, reviving his old plans to drift across the Northeast Passage and towards the North Pole. This expedition didn’t go as well as the last and was eventually abandoned. The short notes of the expedition read like an epic saga: he badly broke his arm, was attacked by a polar bear, got trapped in sea ice, adopted two children and eventually lost the ship, the Maud, when he became bankrupt and creditors seized it.

Despite this failure, Amundsen turned to the skies and took an expedition to instead fly to the North Pole. They began with two flying boats, setting a new north record for an airplane trip. they only just managed to make it out after spending weeks stranded on the ice, their last remaining plane hastily repaired and taking off from a makeshift runway above cracking ice. Pivoting again, he then used the airship Norge to fly across the North Pole from Norway to Alaska, making it the first crossing ever of the Arctic. With the claims of Peary and Cook making it to the North Pole both still argued and debated about their legitimacy, it’s possible that Amundsen was the first man to reach both the North and South Poles.

Two years later Amundsen set out on a rescue mission in a flying boat to find the crew of a lost airship.

He never returned. The wreckage was never found.

By age 55, he was the first to reach the South Pole, the first to cross the Northwest Passage and also possibly the first to reach the North Pole as well. He was one of the greatest explorers ever to have lived, but the stories of Shackleton’s remarkable Endurance survival and Scott’s failed Terra Nova expedition overshadowed his life’s work.

It wasn’t really until doubt began to creep in about Scott’s hero status in the mid-1960s that Amundsen started to get any recognition for his efforts. In fact, it was only in 2011, 100 years after his historic trek to the South Pole, that a statue of his achievement was finally unveiled in his native Norway. It seems as though despite being the first to make such incredible achievements, he was the last to be recognised for them.

Tales about Amundsen’s achievements are slowly changing from unspoken, to a whisper, to being shared in a much louder voice. Maybe what was needed was for someone to shout them loudly on his behalf for the world to finally take notice. He would have never done that himself.