‘Victory awaits him who has everything in order – people call it luck. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck.’
ROALD AMUNDSEN
THE AMUNDSEN SEA. The Amundsen Glacier. Amundsen Bay. The Amundsen Basin. The Amundsen Plain. Mount Amundsen.
Any explorer with so many parts of the world named after him has to have been doing something right. This guy even has a crater named after him on the moon!
So what’s the big deal? Why is it that the name Amundsen is plastered all over the most hostile parts of our planet, and beyond?
Well, you’ve read the story of Sir John Franklin and his attempt to find the Northwest Passage. You’ve read the story of Scott of the Antarctic, and his famous attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.
The final expeditions of both Franklin and Scott were failures. Glorious failures. Courageous failures. Failures that would mark them down in history as some of the toughest, most resilient explorers ever. But failures all the same.
So it only seems right that a word must remain for the one man who achieved what neither of these men was able to do: to navigate the Northwest Passage and be the first to reach the South Pole – and then, of course, to make it back safely.
He is the success to the failures. The yin to the yangs.
Let me introduce you to Amundsen. Roald Amundsen. And he was, by any measure, one of the greatest, most efficient explorers of all time.
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Roald Amundsen was Norwegian. Elsewhere in the book you’ll have read about Jan Baalsrud and Thor Heyerdahl, and you’ll have found out that Norway has been home to some of the toughest, most extraordinary characters out there. Amundsen was no exception. People called him ‘the last of the Vikings’, and it was a nickname he cherished.
He was born into a seafaring family, and he always knew that polar exploration was the life for him – so much so that as a young man he used to sleep with the windows open during the bitterly harsh Norwegian winters, in order to acclimatize himself to the life he had chosen.
As a kid, he set himself a goal: to be the first person ever to set foot at the North Pole.
I like a kid that aims high.
In 1899, he made his first trip to Antarctica as part of the Belgica expedition. This was not a trip that went down in history, but it could have done. Even before the explorers reached the Antarctic, they had to plough through storms so terrifying and seas so massive that the freezing cauldron of waves literally swamped the vessel. One of the crew was washed overboard by a crashing wave, and swept to his death.
And then they reached Antarctica.
The Belgica expedition was the first to spend an entire winter on the Antarctic ice. They didn’t have any option: their ship became trapped in the sea ice and was forced to drift wherever the pack took it. In the total darkness of an Antarctic winter.
The crew certainly weren’t prepared for the lonely months of solitude, with scant supplies and the constant fear that the ice might eventually crush the ship. Its hull was stuck fast and the masts and rigging covered in thick frost. Returning alive was looking unlikely, as the ship began to get squeezed.
It was a formidable test of character and resolve for the young Amundsen.
Many of the men went insane through solitude and terror. One of them jumped off the ship and on to the ice, announcing that he was going to walk home to Belgium. Another man died of heart failure. Many became so ill that they started writing their wills.
Scurvy – the bane of an explorer’s life – hit the crew. The captain was laid low, so Amundsen and Frederick Cook, the ship’s doctor, took command. Crucially, Cook had insisted that they hunt for seals, and had stored their frozen flesh on board. Nobody knew what caused scurvy, but Cook was convinced this seal flesh would do the job, so he fed mouthfuls of the blubber to all the men. Gradually, the scurvy subsided.
But their difficulties weren’t over yet.
Winter turned to spring. Daylight returned. But the ice – some of it more than two metres thick – still held the ship fast. If they couldn’t loosen their vessel and get out into open water, they would have to spend another winter trapped there. Which would, surely, have killed them all.
Have you ever tried to dig a car out of the snow? Well, try digging a ship out of the Antarctic ice. That’s what Amundsen and the others did. They used metal tools and even dynamite to blast their way out, before starting their arduous, nine-month journey home.
The Antarctic had shown that it wasn’t a place that welcomed humans – unless you had a strong streak of steel running through you.
But in showing that humans could survive over the winter in such a bitter and hostile environment, the expedition set the scene for the great Antarctic exploits of Scott, Mawson and, of course, Amundsen himself.
It also established Amundsen as a great leader, and a master of the ice.
He had taken the first step on his path to greatness.
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Every explorer worth the name wanted to find the Northwest Passage – that long-sought-after seafaring route across the Arctic Circle between the Atlantic and Pacific. Hundreds of men had died trying to do so, and many people thought such a route was simply not possible.
But in the soul of any great pioneer is a refusal to believe that anything is impossible. A refusal to be beaten, no matter how many people have been beaten before you.
Amundsen set out for the Northwest Passage in 1903 with just six other men. They sailed in a small fishing vessel called the Gjøa. The Gjøa must have looked impossibly tiny stuck in the endless ice of the frozen north, but it turned out to be a smart call. In order to navigate the Northwest Passage, the crew had to pass through very shallow waters. A bigger ship would have run aground.
The Gjøa was fitted with a small outboard motor but, even so, the journey took them three long years. During each winter the sea around them froze, and they had to wait for it to thaw sufficiently for the ship to move on. But Amundsen had a plan, and he kept to it. He hugged the coastline and he trusted that patience, in the end, would bring him victory.
He was right. But Amundsen’s heroics on that voyage did not end with the successful navigation of the Passage. When the ship hauled anchor on the Pacific Coast of Alaska, Amundsen was eager to send a message back to Norway to let people know that he had completed this amazing endeavour. Trouble was, the nearest telegraph station was 500 miles away.
Amundsen wasn’t fazed. He simply donned his skis and travelled the full distance across the ice, then back again to the Gjøa once his telegram was sent.
Like I said: he was tough.
He was clever, too. During his travels in the Arctic, he took the time to learn what he could from the indigenous people who lived in the area. He saw how they used dogs to pull their sledges, and how they used animals to keep warm. If you want to know how to survive an extreme environment, you’d better look carefully at the people who have been doing it for hundreds of years.
Amundsen did that. He was a man who liked to prepare, and it would stand him in good stead in the expeditions to come.
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Amundsen had ticked the Northwest Passage off his list. But the two great challenges of polar exploration still remained: the North and South Poles. And it was the first of these that Amundsen had always wanted to reach, ever since he was a boy. He turned his sights to the north.
An assault on the North Pole would take careful preparation and substantial financing. It would also take guts – especially to do it in the manner Amundsen planned. His intention was to drift towards the Pole in a ship that had become frozen in the pack ice. But ice can eat a ship up so completely that nothing remains. Amundsen’s solution was to use a round-bottomed ship that would be pushed upwards as the ice closed in around it, not crushed by the immense forces.
Would it work? Nobody knew for sure. But Amundsen was willing to give it a shot.
He never got the chance, however. His careful preparations took time, and while Amundsen was hesitating, devastating news reached him: two other explorers – rivals by the name of Frederick Cook (whom Amundsen knew from the Belgica expedition) and Robert Peary – had claimed the North Pole.
These claims were disputed, but that didn’t seem to matter much to Amundsen. He wasn’t the type to play second fiddle to anyone. So, although it must have been a body blow to learn that the achievement he’d set his heart on ever since childhood was not to be his, he immediately turned his sights to the South Pole.
Amundsen was crafty. He knew other men – Scott of the Antarctic, in particular – had their sights on the South Pole. He kept his plans a secret even from those closest to him. Even from the men who were joining him – he only told them the true objective of their expedition a month after they left Norway. And, having set out for the Antarctic eight weeks after Scott, he only cabled him at the very last minute to let his rival know that he had competition.
Amundsen and his men reached the Bay of Whales in Antarctica on 14 January 1911. Here, again, we can see the importance of careful planning, and more than a little cunning. Amundsen’s Antarctic base was 60 miles closer to the Pole than Scott’s. In a race like that, 60 miles could make a critical difference. The Bay of Whales also played host to colonies of penguins and seals. In other words: food. It was one of the few places on the continent where they could live off the land.
Amundsen had done his homework.
Once in situ he continued putting into action everything he had learned up until now.
He had enough provisions for two years. He also had almost one hundred dogs, having noted how the people of the Arctic used those animals to pull their sledges and get around. (The dogs had another advantage – when the going got tough, they could be fed to each other, and also to the men.)
First, though, Amundsen and his men had to overwinter on the Antarctic ice. He knew from his first expedition what a dark, lonely experience that could be. As always, he was well prepared. He kept his men occupied with preparations for the assault on the Pole throughout that long winter, ensuring that they were too busy to let the cold, the dark and the loneliness get to them.
Their days were filled with a strict working routine, starting at 7.30 in the morning and ending at 5 p.m., six days a week. Amundsen had brought with him everything he needed to build a large winter hut for them all to live in. He made sure that their rations were wholesome and tasty – because nothing is likely to hack away at a group’s morale more than poor and insufficient food.
He brought thousands of books for them to read. Musical instruments. A gramophone. There is something inspiring about the idea of these rugged men, holed away thousands of miles from civilization, listening to scratchy old records in the freezing darkness.
Amundsen even brought a portable sauna, just big enough for a single man – and once they’d had their sauna, the men had to run naked back across the ice to their hut. Bracing, but exhilarating, in an Antarctic winter!
When August came, the men were in good shape and ready to take on the South Pole. But the Antarctic is wild and unpredictable. Even when they were ready to make a dash for their first depot, and then on to the Pole, the weather took a turn for the worse and pinned them back in their winter hut. It wasn’t until September that Amundsen judged it safe enough to set out.
At first, the going was good. They covered 31 miles in three days. However, the following morning they woke to find the temperature had dropped to a breathtaking (literally) 70°F below freezing.
It was so cold that the liquid in their compasses froze solid. Two of the men suffered frostbitten heels.
And two of the dogs froze to death.
It was too dangerous to head any further south. The men returned to the Bay of Whales. But Amundsen was not the type to accept defeat for long.
And his second attempt met with success.
It’s often said that Amundsen was blessed with good conditions during his final onslaught to the Pole. That’s the kind of thing people who’ve never been to Antarctica might say. Trust me: any conditions in that part of the world are incredibly punishing.
But what Amundsen did was also very smart. He showed careful, considered judgement and incredible leadership. He bided his time. He waited for a break in the weather. He held his nerve, kept his ego in check and, when the moment came, he went for it.
All in.
Heart, soul, grit and determination.
Amundsen, his four companions and more than fifty of their dogs had then to deal with the harsh reality of their endeavour. With the constant threat of hidden crevasses in the ice, and ever steeper, more unforgiving terrain.
On 11 November, a mountain range rose into view across the horizon. Amundsen named these peaks after the Queen of Norway. But, royal or not, these mountains would have to be crossed.
With gritted teeth, the men went for it, urging their dogs onward and managing to carry their ton of provisions to an altitude of 10,000 feet.
Here they shot twenty-four of the dogs. The men skinned them and prepared the meat. It was depressing and unpleasant work. They called this area ‘the Butcher’s Shop’, but this was more than just butchery. They’d grown fond of these dogs, and had no desire to reward them with such a grisly end.
But the dogs were there for a reason: to aid and sustain the men. Amundsen and his team feasted on their meat. They needed all the strength they could get.
They had intended to rest for only two days. In the end they were forced to stay at the Butcher’s Shop for four. A terrible blizzard was blowing all around them, but they knew that each day they put off their final push to the Pole was a day lost.
A day’s less rations. A day closer to death.
They couldn’t hesitate any longer. It was now or never. The time had come to go for it – total commitment. Amundsen and his men stepped out into the ferocious white-out of the blizzard and relentlessly pushed south.
For ten days they forced themselves through the blinding snow. On, into the blind white. Every step was a risk. The icy plateau on which they found themselves was riddled with deadly crevasses, and the swirling fog reduced their visibility down to inches.
They named this the Devil’s Glacier.
But the Devil still had yet more dangerous terrain in store for them.
They found themselves on a vast sheet of thin ice. The ice itself resounded with a hollow echo when it was struck: there was a substantial gap beneath the sheet, and under that, a network of deadly deep crevasses.
Amundsen named this the Devil’s Ballroom. They skated across it nervously, then continued their dogged march south.
On 14 December 1911 they finally made it. An incredible feat of guts, obsessive planning and meticulous calculations, coupled with bold but smart decisions in the big moments.
They erected the Norwegian flag and pitched their tent – the same tent that, only a few weeks later, would give Scott of the Antarctic visual confirmation of his heroic failure.
And yet, when Amundsen later looked back on that moment, it was with a certain melancholy. ‘Never has a man achieved a goal so diametrically opposed to his wishes. The area around the North Pole – devil take it – had fascinated me since childhood, and now here I was at the South Pole. Could anything be more crazy?’
But maybe it’s not so crazy, after all. Our lives seldom follow the exact path we might expect, yet sometimes some things seem almost meant to be. And one fact had been abundantly clear for a long time: Roald Amundsen was always going to be the sort of man to achieve the extraordinary.
It just didn’t quite turn out how he had always expected.
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Amundsen’s hunger for adventure was not totally satiated by his conquest of the South Pole. As it always had, his heart led him back to the north. He continued his exploration of the Northwest Passage, and he became increasingly fascinated by air travel. So it was a natural development that he became part of a team that flew across the Arctic – and crucially the North Pole – for the first time.
And here’s the thing: all the previous claims to have reached the North Pole by land remain disputed to this day. We still don’t know whether Cook and Peary actually reached the Pole. But if – as many people think – they didn’t, then it would appear that Amundsen did indeed achieve the goal he’d dreamed of ever since childhood.
He was certainly part of the first undisputed team to cross that landmark.
And that just shows us the power of dreams and the often inevitable consequences of hard graft and true grit.
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Amundsen was not born a hero. Heroes never are. But he sure died as one. On 18 June 1928, an airship went down in the Arctic, returning from the North Pole. Amundsen was part of the rescue mission.
But the rescue mission never made it.
His plane crashed in the thick Arctic fog. Only bits of it were ever discovered, floating off the Norwegian coast.
Amundsen’s body was never found.
A nation mourned him. But it seems to me that maybe it was a fitting death for a man whose life had been devoted to adventure and the exploration of the forbidding extremes.
The frozen wastes of the polar regions had eventually claimed Amundsen’s body.
But not before the man had proved himself worthy of the title: the greatest Antarctic explorer of all time.