The Unrelenting Drive
If Hjalmar Johansen sounded extremely critical of Roald Amundsen’s sled dogs during the first depot run of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition, it may be that, in actuality, he was criticizing not Amundsen’s dogs but Amundsen’s handling of those dogs. For, Johansen had expressed his philosophy about working with dogs earlier on the ship, during the voyage south. In his December 18, 1910, diary entry, he had stressed the crucial aspect of timing when dealing out punishment, the importance of judicious penalties, and the relationship necessary to foster with a dog – although, to him, that relationship still included the beating of the dog. He himself had arguably trained his own dogs to the best degree. Many of the dogs who had been under his care on the ship later were adopted by the other men to lead them to the South Pole itself, as will be seen. And, yet, in Amundsen’s book The South Pole, written after the expedition, Amundsen said of Johansen’s team only this: “there is not much to be said about his dogs. The most remarkable of them is Camilla. She is an excellent mother, and brings up her children very well; she usually has a whole army of them, too” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 309).
Perhaps that first depot run and Johansen’s scathing criticism about Amundsen’s dogs portended difficulties to come. For this second depot run would prove to be as different from the first one as night is from day, as fire is from ice.
The second depot run began on February 22, 1911, only 1 week after the first depot party had returned. This time, 8 men with 42 dogs and 7 sleds trudged through the heavy snow. The men were Amundsen, Johansen, Oscar Wisting, Sverre Hassel, Helmer Hanssen, Kristian Prestrud, Jørgen Stubberud, and Olav Bjaaland (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b; Hassel 2011). Prestrud again led on skis with no sled or dogs, while the other seven men drove their sleds with their dog teams. There were 6 dogs pulling each sled, at a weight of 300 kg per six dogs (Johansen Expedition Diary). Pulled by the dogs were 1440 kg of dog pemmican, 116 kg of people pemmican, 86.6 kg of bread, 36.6 kg of chocolate, and 22 kg of dehydrated milk (Hassel 2011). The dogs included the following: “The Three Musketeers” Ola, Jens, and Rasmus, plus Lasse, Odin, and Tor, on Amundsen’s sled team; Mylius, Ring, and Helge on Hanssen’s team; Samson on Johansen’s team; Lurven on Wisting’s team; and Ulven on Stubberud’s team. According to Bjaaland’s diary entry that day, the dogs did a fine job of pulling, although his sled load, he felt, was much too heavy, and therefore he was left behind everyone else; his dogs, he stated, most definitely worked as hard as they could, but they were much smaller than the rest (Bjaaland 2011). Johansen also commented on Bjaaland’s plight, saying that the dogs were tired that day and that Bjaaland was the farthest in back, arriving an hour after everyone else (Johansen Expedition Diary). At camp that night, the dogs were fed only a small ration – half a kilo of cold pemmican – while the men ate seal soup boiled with pemmican and drank hot chocolate from their thermoses (Bjaaland 2011; Hassel 2011).
As they slowly trudged on the following day, Johansen reported difficulties, in that he felt his team of dogs was the least powerful for this type of heavy driving, and he ended up toward the back of the convoy, along with Amundsen and his sled, trying unsuccessfully to get the attention of the other men ahead to stop (Johansen expedition diary). They did not see or hear him, he complained, as “they screamed at the dogs” and went ahead. 1 Johansen did not have his best dogs with him, and he was feeling the difference. Uroa, one of his champions who had gone on the first depot tour with him, was now unfortunately laid up injured at home due to a fight that had occurred in the dog tent the night before the party’s departure. Skalpen, too, who had been on the first depot tour, was now home due to a sore leg. Johansen had had to borrow Samson from Prestrud, and he felt his entire sled team was not up to the task.
For his part, Prestrud could not understand why the men were arriving at their campsites at different times, and Johansen had to explain that not all the dogs were equal to each other in their strengths and capabilities, and therefore not all the men’s speeds would be the same; most importantly, part of the job for the men was to do the best work possible with the lesser dogs and work within the overall timeframe. Prestrud was loose and free, skiing ahead while the other men were loaded down and driving their sleds. And Johansen, analyzing all aspects of the tour, complained of the tent sharing organization of the men and their awkward food preparation and meal taking in the tents (Johansen Expedition Diary). Amundsen, meanwhile, was preoccupied, and there were many moments of silence between all the men. Frustration can be read between the lines of the men’s diary entries over those first few days of the second depot tour.
On February 24, the temperature reached −18° Celsius, and the men and dogs adapted, working against gale and snowdrift (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b). But the next day heralded better weather and snow conditions, allowing the caravan to travel at full speed. Johansen was still disappointed with his team, which caused him to drive behind everyone else that day, but he felt he was making progress nonetheless (Johansen Expedition Diary). Bjaaland, in his diary, shed additional light on this matter, saying that the dogs ran along very well, covering 18 nautical miles, and that Johansen was behind everyone else, pushing and beating his dogs, as they were exhausted (Bjaaland 2011). The following day was more of the same – he wrote – driving relentlessly and whipping the dogs ahead. It seems that the dogs were receiving beatings from all sides.
Amundsen, too, seemed to begin to feel sorry for the dogs, writing on the 27th that it was difficult to get the dogs going in the morning and that they were suffering from stiffening legs (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b). It was on that day that the party reached their first depot previously laid at 80°. On the following day, after having traveled 9 h, Amundsen reported that the dogs were getting sore legs. Johansen reported the same, adding that it was due to the type of snow and ice on which they were running (Johansen Expedition Diary). The foot soreness in Amundsen’s dogs increased over the next few days. Amundsen himself was experiencing discomfort in his damp boots and discomfort of quite another kind in quite a different area – as he would later disclose, an anal hemorrhoidal sore had begun to bother him as well on this trip, and it was making the rough going even rougher. “My dogs were very difficult to drive forward today,” wrote Amundsen in his diary on March 2 (Amundsen expedition diary b), the ninth day of the depot run. 2 His struggles were also noted by Bjaaland, who wrote of the terrible time that both Amundsen and his sled dogs were having on this day (Bjaaland 2011).
On March 3, in −41 ° C weather, the caravan reached 81° South latitude and established their second depot for the South Pole march which would take place after the winter. According to Amundsen, the surface had been a gradual incline the entire way, and several of the dogs were becoming difficult to move along. They were extremely exhausted, he noted, and “it seems they are not getting enough food with their half kilo pemmican a day.” 3 Half a kilo was not an adequate amount of sustenance for this type of work and for this much energy spent by the dogs. Hassel reiterated this point in his diary, saying that the dogs were absolutely worn down from painful paws, extreme toil, and unusually small portions of food that came to only 0.5 kg per day. A meticulous individual, Amundsen would usually take a clue from this type of evidence and act accordingly; however, he merely noted the food deficiency in his diary and continued to feed the dogs very little.
Prior to arriving at this second depot, Bjaaland had taken onto his sled some of the weight from Amundsen’s sled load and was now feeling the results. In spite of the fact that Amundsen had been continually whipping his dogs with all the strength he could muster, he could not get the dogs to work with him and so had to unload 50 kilos of his supplies onto Bjaaland’s sled, adding to the already heavy load that the ski champion – and his dogs – could barely manage (Bjaaland 2011). A picture now begins to take shape of Amundsen’s cold, hungry, and sore-footed dogs, being forced to march at the end of a whip. Their inabilities – or his inability to work with them – were being felt by the other teams. Surely Amundsen’s own anal ailment was contributing to this hard time as well. His dogs – Odin, Lasse, Tor, Ola, Jens, and Rasmus – were most likely even more miserable than he was.
Once the men had established their second depot at 81°, they split into two parties – Hassel, Bjaaland, and Stubberud prepared to return home, while Amundsen, Johansen, Prestrud, Wisting, and Hanssen prepared to continue to 83° South latitude, where Amundsen hoped to lay another – third – depot. They had all traveled 16 nautical miles on this day of March 3 alone (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b).
March 4 was an all-too-brief respite for the dogs, as the two parties prepared to go their separate ways. The temperature had further dipped to −43° Celsius (Johansen Expedition Diary).
The men separated completely on the morning of March 5, with the return party members retracing their steps on their way north and the depot party continuing south. Before they left, Amundsen gave one of his dogs to the return party to take home with them, as the dog had developed a serious open wound under his left shoulder, presumably from the harness rubbing against it. “I had to send one of my dogs – Odin – home” wrote Amundsen in his diary, adding that “I have only five dogs left” and that those dogs left were emaciated and weak “but we must go forward now.” 4 Sverre Hassel was given charge of taking Odin home (Hassel 2011). Johansen reported that Odin “had to be carried away on the sledge.” 5
It was the dogs pulling Hanssen’s sled, the lead dog team, who next had a big scare. As the leading three dogs were capably pulling the sled with its load, they suddenly disappeared out of sight. The dogs had fallen through a bottomless crevasse, which had been invisible until they were right upon it. The three leaders were the twins Mylius and Ring and Helge – all three strong and smart dogs whose loss would have been a devastating blow to Amundsen, Hanssen, and the expedition. Fortunately, their reins and harnesses remained intact, and the dogs did not completely fall into the bottomless pit. Mylius, Ring, and Helge were held up only by their traces. In the giant scale of vastness of this Antarctic ice fissure, they were merely hanging by a thread. Once the other dogs had seen their three comrades fall away, they had immediately stopped and dug into the snow. So, fortunately, no other dogs went in after the first three had taken the unexpected plunge (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b; Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 235). The three leaders were immediately pulled up by the men, out of the crevasse and onto the solid ice. It was a close call. One may wonder what these three lead dogs must have felt, suspended in midair and swinging back and forth over sheer nothingness.
The next day, the dogs made another desperate trudge through the snow. Even Johansen commiserated with them: “The poor dogs must be whipped forward” 6 he wrote on the 6th. Something strange was happening around this time. One of Amundsen’s dogs – big, fine-looking Tor – was howling as he ran. He howled in pain as he worked. This was not something a Polar dog would normally do, thought Amundsen, and perhaps it unnerved Amundsen a bit (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 238). There were also other signs among his dogs that indicated that things were not well. They were appearing to become alarmingly skinnier and were steadily losing strength, he noted in his diary on March 7. 7 “The boss’s dogs are the worst,” wrote Johansen that same day. 8 They would no longer respond to any more whippings or beatings; they lay inert, and it was difficult to get them moving again. As a result of their current condition and because each step of the way was now literally an uphill battle, Amundsen decided to abort the march to 83° and to establish their third depot at 82° instead. “Our dogs, especially mine, looked miserable – terribly emaciated,” he later wrote in his book The South Pole about his decision to shorten the tour. “It was clear that they could only reach 82° S. at the farthest. Even then the homeward journey would be a near thing” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 236).
And yet, Amundsen did not let up on the actual driving of the dogs. The men and sled dogs reached their 82° destination on the following day of March 8, after covering a distance of 12 nautical miles, and the dogs appeared visibly exhausted and famished. Amundsen wrote that the dogs by this time were suffering from hunger to the point of consuming each other’s excrement (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b). Unfortunately, unlike on the ship, this time the excrement was not enough.
By now, it had become apparent to everyone involved that Amundsen’s team was undergoing extreme tribulation. The silent desperation can almost be heard in the diary entries written over the course of those days. His dogs were suffering.
The day of March 9 was spent building the third depot, depositing the supplies in it and marking it carefully. This work day for the men also allowed the dogs a chance to rest. On the following day of the 10th, the depot party was ready to return home. Most likely due to his poor performance, Amundsen left his sled at the depot, where it was stored with the food and supplies. He gave his five suffering dogs to Hanssen and Wisting, who divided them among themselves. In his diary, Amundsen stated that the reason for this was because it would make things easier for the return home and that it was a good safety net to keep a sledge stored at the depot, in case they needed it on their upcoming journey (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b). Perhaps this was a case of rationalizing on Amundsen’s part. But he did speak more frankly and state the obvious in his book The South Pole: “I saw the impossibility of getting it [the sled] home with my team” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 239). Hanssen and Wisting, therefore, had Lasse, Tor, Ola, Jens, and Rasmus to hitch onto their sleds, although they let some of them go loose. Now they had eight dogs and nine dogs, respectively, instead of six dogs each, although, as Amundsen said in his book, “they got no assistance from these bags of bones, only trouble” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 239). Johansen, meanwhile, looked forward to getting the dogs back to their 80° depot, where they could feed them properly (Johansen Expedition Diary).
On the return journey northward, the men skied along with the sleds rather than sitting on them, as the dogs were so weak they could not pull the men along with the necessary camping supplies. “The dogs are bad,” wrote Johansen on the 10th, as by now they were truly hurting. 9 The shortened caravan of men and dogs reached their previous tent site that night and found a case of dog pemmican awaiting them there, which they fed to the hungry dogs. It helped, but it was not enough.
They had traveled nearly 30 miles that day of March 10. And the temperature was −25 °F. The weather was a cloying damp cold that siphoned the energy out of Amundsen’s dogs. That night, they curled up together in one mass quite pathetically, shivering in the merciless cold, not able to sleep. “It was pitiful to see them,” wrote Amundsen in his book. “In the morning they had to be lifted up and put on their feet; they had not strength enough to raise themselves” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 240).
Despite this, once on their feet, the dogs rallied somewhat, forcing themselves to go on, warming up as they ran. The men and dogs left their tent site on the 11th, traveling 20 nautical miles that day. Their next day’s journey was made in bitter cold; but they arrived at their second depot previously laid at 81° and took from it 35 units of dog pemmican to feed to the dogs. The party then continued on its way north (Amundsen Expedition Diary). According to Johansen, the dogs were finding it harder and harder to walk (Johansen Expedition Diary).
Unfortunately, at that time, the expedition members were met by a blizzard that stopped them cold in their tracks for 2 days. In fact, they could not even see their tracks from the thickly falling snow and dense fog (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b). The men bided their time eating and pipe smoking, while the dogs ate their pemmican, which, it would be safe to say, was still not sufficient (Johansen Expedition Diary). When the men woke up on the morning of March 15, the Ides of March, they found their whips, lashings, and harnesses had been eaten by the starving dogs (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b). What was more, their sleds and skis had been buried under the newly fallen snow and, more alarmingly, so had some of the dogs, who simply were beyond the care or ability to free themselves from the frozen elements.
One dog in particular would not get up, and while the others rose after some coaxing, he remained in his dormant position and quietly whimpered. It was evident that he was in too much pain and could not go on. It was also apparent now that they had to kill him. The dog was Tor; Tor, who had worked his heart out for Amundsen; Tor, who had howled as he ran; Tor, who had never stopped pulling.
With no guns taken on this depot tour, the only weapon they had was an axe (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 242). “Had to beat one of my dogs – Tor – to death, as he could not stand on his legs,” Amundsen told his diary. 10 Evidently, he had not thought this depot tour would require such mortal exertion from his dogs and so had not brought any gun with which to put a poor animal out of his or her misery.
“Before we left this morning, we had to dig up the dogs and the sleds and give Tor a blow to the forehead, to end its quiet agony,” wrote Johansen. “It was finished.” 11 The men placed Tor’s body on Wisting’s sled and took it to the next camp, at 80° 30′. There, they proceeded to cut open Tor’s body, at which time they saw that his chest was completely filled with inflammation. Amundsen dutifully recorded this in his diary (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b). Tor had literally worked himself to death. And he had self-destructed – to a degree that even his body was not fit to feed to the other dogs. “Tor should have been used for food this evening, but it turned out that it was full of matter in the chest and we could not let the others eat it,” wrote Johansen. 12 The “abscess in his chest” had made Tor inedible (Amundsen 1912; vol. 1: 243). Therefore, on the following day, Tor received the burial he deserved – in an empty provision case which served as his coffin, buried by his human companions in the Antarctic ice.
Johansen pointed out in his diary entry on the 15th, the day that Tor died, that three other dogs may also die along the way – Jens, Ola, and Lurven. That night, part of his prophecy came to pass. Lurven, Wisting’s hearty dog, became the second dog to die on this depot tour. He died working in harness. Johansen had previously described him, during the ship’s voyage, as a dog with whom to contend, a giant in comparison to Johansen’s smaller dogs Skalpen and Hellik. Amundsen announced the death of Lurven in his diary the following evening, saying that this was yet another dog lost and that there would be more to follow and citing the cold weather and the physical exertion as the sources of these deaths (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b).
Big, strong, powerful Lurven had been pulling his sled when he suddenly fell in his tracks, instantly dead as he hit the snow-covered ground. Lurven had died after helping pull the men and supplies 15.5 nautical miles that day – quite a distance in the cold and murky conditions. “He was one of those dogs who had to work their hardest the whole time,” said Amundsen; “he never thought of shirking for a moment; he pulled and pulled until he died” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 242).
These were very real losses, losses of intensely feeling living beings who were fully a part of this expedition. Yet, by this time, the men had lost all sense of “sentimental feeling” and had lost any sad feelings of loss (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 242). And, so, according to Amundsen, they did not mourn their fallen comrades. Instead of burying Lurven, they fed him to the other dogs. He was already dead, and the others were very hungry. Everything that remained of his body was sliced, diced, and distributed.
This feeding of Lurven was done on the following night of March 16, when the party had reached the next camp. They had traveled another 15 nautical miles (17 miles) that day in difficult conditions, with the dogs becoming slower and weaker. One of “The Three Musketeers,” Jens, had to be driven on Johansen’s sledge that day, as he could no longer walk on his own. 13 Both Johansen and Amundsen reported this in their diaries, with Amundsen adding that Jens “almost did not eat anything” that evening and would probably perish the following day. 14 Amundsen expanded on this in his book, although he changed the sled driver’s name from Johansen to Wisting: “On March 16 we advanced seventeen miles; temperature, −29.2°F. Jens, one of my gallant ‘Three Musketeers,’ had been given a ride all day on Wisting’s sledge; he was too weak to walk any longer” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 243). (The edit may have been done in light of the deterioration of Amundsen and Johansen’s relationship after this second depot trip.)
And so, upon reaching the camp site that night, with Jens riding on Johansen’s sled, Lurven was fed to the remaining dogs, and he “went like hot bread,” reported Johansen, 15 conjuring up images of Adolf Lindstrøm’s cooking specialty – hot cakes – back at base camp. The dogs also received pemmican, which they desperately needed.
While the starving dogs ate what was left of Lurven and while Tor’s painful howls became a distant echo, the men waited for the next shoe to drop – the next dog to expire.
In the middle of the night, there was a terrifying noise and a scuffle of motion. The men awoke to perceive the dogs fighting, and Wisting – always the go-to person, the quickest man on the spot – leapt from his bag to force the dogs to cease and desist. What he and the men found was disconcerting. In their severe hunger, the dogs had dug up poor Tor’s body and were now attempting to consume it. Johansen had known that the deceased dog’s abscess excluded it from serving as food for his friends. But the dogs were too hungry to care. Fortunately, Wisting put a stop to the desperate feast and lay Tor’s body back under the snow to rest in peace. Amundsen, however, could not let the ghastly vision go and would later write in his book that the association he made with the abscess-filled body at the time was “sauce hollandaise” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 243). Perhaps he believed that the sharing of this inner thought would create some comic relief for his readers, thus serving as a distraction from the gruesome reality.
Another one of “The Three Musketeers,” Rasmus, died suddenly the following day, March 17, during an excruciatingly cold, 18.5-nautical mile sledge push back to 80° South – the very first depot they had built. At the time, Rasmus had been pulling Wisting’s sled. He, too, had pulled until he had expired. The other Musketeer, Jens, remained sick and now also would not eat at all. He was still being given a ride on one of the sleds. Johansen reported that, in actuality, three dogs were riding on a sled that day – these would be Rasmus, who was now dead; Jens, who was still sick; and Ola, the third Musketeer who, sadly, by now, also was ill. The last of Amundsen’s dogs – Lassesen (or Lasse) – Amundsen’s favorite black beauty and indomitable spirit, had lagged behind, loose, all morning, and it was not until later in the day that the men realized that he was missing. Fear spread among the men for this magnificent dog as well. After advancing almost 22 miles, they reached camp and fed the remaining dogs a double ration of pemmican, in addition to a piece of blubber (Amundsen Expedition Diary a, b; Johansen Expedition Diary; Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 243–244).
They were now in a terribly uneven patch of ice that had degraded since their earlier march here southward. The blizzard had disrupted the area. On the next day, March 18, the remaining two surviving Musketeers – Ola and Jens, who had been riding on the sled – had to be put out of their misery. “Had to put an end to ‘Jens’ and ‘Ola’ along the way. They could not stand or eat,” Amundsen told his diary. 16 It was a sad occasion. “And with them the ‘Three Musketeers’ disappear from this history,” wrote Amundsen in his book (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 244).
Amundsen must have felt sharply the fact that most of these casualties had been his own. He confided in his diary: “Have now only ‘Lasse’ left.” 17 But where was Lasse? Lasse, the fearless dog on the ship, could now quite possibly be dead, as he had not shown up for a full day. Johansen reiterated the sentiment, saying that Amundsen had “Only 1 dog left” 18 and even he had gone away. Johansen added that the other dogs did not want to eat any more dog flesh that day.
That night, Amundsen was “very sorry” for losing his “strongest and most willing beast” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 245). He must have felt the sharp bite of total loss, even losing his closest, most trusted friend among the loyal animals. The “beast,” however, proved to be stronger and more willing than Amundsen had thought, arriving alone at camp late that night and surprising everyone with his unexpected appearance. He caught up with the party looking better than he had when he had remained behind that morning, and it was Amundsen’s belief that Lasse “had dug up Thor [Tor] again, and finished him.” Of course, the veracity of this conjecture will never be known, but the fact presented by Amundsen in his book is that Lasse went on to perform remarkably well, pulling Wisting’s sled from that 80° campsite all the way home until they reached Framheim 4 days later.
The next day, March 19, was the beginning of the home stretch for the 5 men and by now 18 dogs. There was snowfall and it was “bitterly cold,” reported Johansen in his diary. 19 The men were able to feed the dogs the pemmican they had picked up from the 80° depot the previous day. The dogs pulled better that day than they had in the recent past, said Johansen. He added that the cutting up and sharing out of Rasmus, the first Musketeer to die, was postponed, as that exercise would probably “cost even more frostbitten fingers.” Safe to say, Johansen was happy to see the beginning of the end of this forsaken excursion.
The temperature gradually rose from −43° Celsius, the tracks became more visible, and the distance became shorter between the depot party and home. After leaving the 80° camp, the men found the fish marker flags that they had planted along the way back in February to mark their first depot. These markers now came in handy as food for the dogs, who performed admirably during the final stretch. “This 30-mile march was a big test for our tired animals, but they managed it excellently,” 20 wrote Amundsen in his diary (Amundsen expedition diary a). On March 22, 28 days after the men and dogs had first left their base camp, Framheim stood before them as a welcoming beacon.
The Price to Be Paid for the Gain
The return party of Bjaaland, Hassel, and Stubberud – the men who had split off from Amundsen’s group on March 5 – had also experienced challenges for the dogs on their march back home. From the very first day, they had severe problems. The cause seemed to have been hunger, combined with the cold. The men had not brought with them enough food for the dogs in these – or any – conditions. Bjaaland constantly reported fatigue, hunger, and visible weight loss in his dogs as they retraced their steps back to Framheim on March 6 through 8 (Bjaaland 2011). On March 10, he commented on how slowly they were traveling in the midst of a snow storm, which required following a compass while having to prod the dogs along with a tent pole (the tent pole was being used in lieu of a whip, which the dogs had eaten earlier in their hunger). In addition to the slow pace, the length of their marches, too, were foreshortened, as the dogs would halt and refuse to continue pulling into the wind. The men had to ski most of the way home, as, after the first day, the dogs could no longer pull them on the sledges (Johansen Expedition Diary). There simply was no food for them to fuel their physical efforts (Hassel 2011).
On March 11, Bjaaland observed the dogs’ remarkable observational abilities, which they retained despite their weakness and hunger. Although famished and weary beyond help, owing partially to the fact that they had not be given anything to eat in 2 days, the dogs knew that they were approaching the Great Ice Barrier, and as they gradually drew nearer to camp and saw the ice, their pace quickened and their demeanor brightened; they understood that they were close to home (Bjaaland 2011).
By now, besides Amundsen’s dog Odin, two other dogs also had to be driven on a sled. These two were Ulven (“The Wolf”) and another dog – both of them on Stubberud’s team. Sadly, immediately upon reaching Framheim, Ulven expired – the tour had been too much for him. Two days later, the other dog died. And the following week, Odin gave up his fight (Bjaaland 2011; Hassel 2011; Johansen Expedition Diary; Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 248).
Two other dogs – Mons and Busaren (Beiseren), both most likely from Hassel’s team – returned with extremely sore and weakened legs that left them completely incapacitated (Hassel 2011).
Regarding these men and dogs being insufficiently equipped for the journey back home, Amundsen would later say: “It is true that they had run short of food and matches the last day, but if the worst came to the worst, they had the dogs” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 248). Presumably, then, from the apparent meaning of this statement, Amundsen would have expected the men to eat the dogs.
The news of the deaths of the three additional dogs, including Odin’s death, was given to Amundsen upon his return home to Framheim on March 22. He assessed these and the previous deaths in terms of gains and considered them to be the costs to be paid for the gains made on this depot trip. The loss of the dogs was a currency to be paid in exchange for the gain of the depots. He deemed the result of the second depot tour to be “brilliant,” with 620 kilos of weight having been transported to the three depots at 80°, 81°, and 82° South. “This tour has unfortunately cost 8 of our best dogs’ lives,” he wrote, attributing those deaths to unusually cold weather combined with extreme exertion. “It was especially my team that was affected,” he continued. “I had only ‘Lasse’ left when we came home.” 21
The other three teams had held out well. There was hardly anything wrong to be seen with Hanssen’s. Wisting’s team was looked upon as the strongest, but his dogs had got very thin; however, they did their work well. Wisting’s sledge had also been overloaded; it was even heavier than mine. Johansen’s animals had originally been regarded as the weakest, but they proved themselves very tough in the long-run. They were no racers, but always managed to scramble along somehow. Their motto was: “If we don’t get there to-day, we’ll get there to-morrow.” They all came home.
Yes, Johansen’s dogs had all come home; his smaller dogs had proven themselves able to endure, and Samson had proved his strength and lived up to his name. Hanssen’s dogs, too, had all returned alive, as had Hassel’s and Bjaaland’s. Only Wisting and Stubberud had suffered one and two casualties, respectively, in their teams. Prestrud, of course, did not have a team (a fact to consider when reviewing future events to unfold). It is especially ironic that Johansen’s team had done well, given Amundsen’s dismissal of Johansen’s dogs repeatedly, saying they did not amount to much. When all is said and done, could it be that Johansen’s words about Amundsen’s lack of ability to work with his dogs were true, that he was not a good sled driver, that he had driven his dogs to hunger and exhaustion and pain, and that even he, Amundsen himself, knew this, and so relinquished his team to the two better-suited professionals who could – relatively speaking – more humanely drive his dogs? Unfortunately, by the time he did turn his team over to the other men, it was too late for those very dogs. For, as we saw, all of his dogs, except Lasse, died off in agonizingly long and painful deaths, and even Lasse had to escape from Amundsen in order to save his own life, returning to work, and to the men, after a full day’s absence, most of which time they had not even realized that he had gone missing.
In a rare instance of self-analysis and admission of guilt, Amundsen himself proclaimed that perhaps he had pushed these poor animals too hard for his own gain, thus resulting in their painful demise. His confession in his book The South Pole is truly astounding, in which he speaks of how his five dogs “were completely worn out, poor beasts” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 1: 237–238):
This is the only dark memory of my stay in the South – the over-taxing of these fine animals – I had asked more of them than they were capable of doing. My consolation is that I did not spare myself either. To set this sledge, weighing nearly half a ton, in motion with tired-out dogs was no child’s play. … The whip had long ago lost its terrors. When I tried to use it, they only crowded together, and got their heads as much out of the way as they could; the body did not matter so much. Many a time, too, I failed altogether to get them to go, and had to have help. Then two of us shoved the sledge forward, while the third used the whip, shouting at the same time for all he was worth. How hard and unfeeling one gets under such conditions; how one’s whole nature may be changed! I am naturally fond of all animals, and try to avoid hurting them. There is none of the “sportsman’s” instinct in me; it would never occur to me to kill an animal – rats and flies excepted – unless it was to support life. I think I can say that in normal circumstances I loved my dogs, and the feeling was undoubtedly mutual. But the circumstances we were now in were not normal – or was it, perhaps, myself who was not normal? I have often thought since that such was really the case. The daily hard work and the object I would not give up had made me brutal, for brutal I was when I forced those five skeletons to haul that excessive load. I feel it yet when I think of Thor [Tor] – a big, fine, smooth-haired dog – uttering his plaintive howls on the march, a thing one never hears a dog do while working. I did not understand what it meant – would not understand, perhaps. On he had to go – on till he dropped. When we cut him open we found that his whole chest was one large abscess.
This statement is truly remarkable in that it seems to be the only time that Amundsen ever expressed guilt as a result of his actions toward the dogs. One wonders if these words were truly heartfelt, for if they were, might not he have discontinued this method of operation later during the actual trek to the Pole? Or perhaps they were added in his book for the benefit of the masses, to confess what was the obvious, and so discard it, or to assuage the reader’s feelings of guilt in reveling in the man’s success when it came at such a high cost to the animals – those creatures who had helped him. We may never know.
But the pointed question is, was this brutal urgency necessary, or was it for the sake of expediency – that is, to win the race against Robert Falcon Scott? Could Amundsen have accomplished as much in terms of successfully laying down the depots, without working his dogs to death, by taking a bit more time in getting the supplies there at a more reasonable pace? Or by carrying more food? Again, we may never know, but the distinction is that Amundsen drove his dogs to their deaths not because of the act of laying down depots but because of the manner in which he laid down those depots – that is, so quickly, so frugally, so brutally, and with such extraordinarily heavy loads.
The eight dogs who lost their lives during this second depot tour – a tour that paved the way to the South Pole and made its discovery possible – were Tor, a loyal and dedicated worker from Amundsen’s team; Rasmus, Jens, and Ola, the intrepid “Three Musketeers” in Amundsen’s team; Odin, a conscientious laborer in Amundsen’s team; Lurven, a hard worker, of Wisting’s team; Ulven, who worked until he could take no more, from Stubberud’s team; and another fearless worker from Stubberud’s team. Taking a cue from Amundsen’s words: So ends the history of these brave, selfless dogs, who burdened themselves with these men’s heavy work until their hearts literally burst.
Dog Chart: The Dogs Who Died on the Second Depot Tour in February–March 1911
Roald Amundsen’s Team – Five Deaths
Jens – Died
Ola – Died
Rasmus – Died
Tor – Died
Odin – Died
Lasse (Lassesen) – Only survivor
Hjalmar Johansen’s Team
Samson – Survived
Five other dogs – Survived
Helmer Hanssen’s Team
Mylius – Survived
Ring – Survived
Helge – Survived
Three other dogs – Survived
Oscar Wisting’s Team – One Death
Lurven – Died
Five other dogs – Survived
Jørgen Stubberud’s Team – Two Deaths
Ulven (“The Wolf”) – Died
Another dog – Died
Four other dogs – Survived
Sverre Hassel’s Team
Busaren (Beiseren) – Survived
Mons – Survived
Four other dogs – Survived
Olav Bjaaland’s Team
Six dogs – Survived
Deaths on the Second Depot Tour
Jens
Ola
Rasmus
Tor
Odin
Lurven
Ulven (“The Wolf”)
Another dog from Stubberud’s team
The 42 dogs are the sled dogs who helped establish the three main depots for the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition’s trek to the South Pole.
115 dogs set foot on the Antarctic continent as of February 3, 1911
8 dogs died working the second depot tour February 22, 1911, to March 22, 1911
= 107 dogs in Antarctica as of March 22, 1911
There were 107 dogs at Framheim as of March 22, 1911.
Notes on Original Material and Unpublished Sources
- 1.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 23 February 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 2.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 2 March 1911, NB Ms.8° 1196
- 3.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 3 March 1911, NB Ms.8° 1196
- 4.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 5 March 1911, NB Ms.8° 1196
- 5.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 5 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 6.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 6 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 7.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 7 March 1911, NB Ms.8° 1196
- 8.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 7 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 9.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 10 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 10.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 15 March 1911, NB Ms.8° 1196
- 11.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 15 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 12.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 15 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 13.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 16 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 14.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 16 March 1911, NB Ms.8° 1196
- 15.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 16 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 16.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 18 March 1911, NB Ms.8° 1196
- 17.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 18 March 1911, NB Ms.8° 1196
- 18.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 18 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 19.
F.H. Johansen Antarctic expedition diary, 19 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 2775:C:2
- 20.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 22 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 1549
- 21.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, 22 March 1911, NB Ms.4° 1549