The Feast After the Massacre
Eighteen dogs and five men awoke from a night of violent storms – and, most likely, from unrelenting memories of merciless massacre – to a morning of threatening weather at their Butcher’s Shop campsite on November 22, 1911. The Norwegian Antarctic Expedition’s South Pole party had made it to 85° 36′ South on the previous day and was now perched on the edge of the Polar plateau of Antarctica. Fresh in their minds was the killing of 23–24 good sled dogs on the previous evening shortly after the party’s arrival. And fresh on the snow before them were the bodies of those fallen comrades. Today and tomorrow were meant to be rest days in which both men and surviving dogs would fuel themselves and regain their energy after the grueling climb of the last 4 days. Roald Amundsen’s mind was set to the serious business of relaxing and eating. Feeding would be their primary activity. He expected all expedition members – humans and canines – to partake (Amundsen Expedition Diary).
Yesterday, this great explorer had been startled at the gun shots that took his dogs’ lives. And his men had been saddened to prematurely send their companions off to their early graves. Even the surviving dogs had been reticent, some of them turning their noses up at eating the innards offered to them, as if instinctively knowing in their guts that this sustenance came from deep within their friends – literally the bowels of their bodies. Today, Amundsen was determined that his party would be nourished by those whom it had killed. His plan had worked perfectly thus far. He had even beat his own target of killing the dogs at 86°, committing the deed instead at 85° 36′.
And, so, the men set themselves upon the assignment of skinning the dogs they had killed and preparing them for supper – and breakfast, and lunch, and dinner. In fact, the men would spend 4 days here chomping down on their filleted companions. They would spend as many days eating the dogs as the dogs had spent pulling the men up to this high plateau. The 2 days of rest would turn into four, due to the angry weather. And those four would be spent feasting on those who had brought them to this lofty point.
“Here in the morning skinned 10 dogs, carved them and served them,” wrote Amundsen in his diary that day. “They seem to taste marvelous to the survivors. We humans have not been overly disdainful either. We have had the most delicate dog cutlets for dinner. I myself ate 5, but had to stop as there were no more left. My comrades without doubt found the repast just as tasty. Since then we have allowed ourselves an extra ration in the form of oatmeal cooked from biscuit crumbs – our favorite dish.” 1
Of the 24 dogs killed, 10 were skinned and prepared for eating, while 14 were stored in a depot the men built for the return trip. “14 unskinned dogs are left here in a depot,” explained Amundsen in his diary, adding that he was also leaving in the depot “everything redundant.” 2 And so, like excess supplies, the 14 dogs who had been a part of the expedition team were now treated as extra provisions, just in case the men needed them. Less than half of the dogs killed at Butcher’s Shop would actually be consumed – despite the fact that the consuming of them was the reason given for killing them. In actuality, only ten were eaten.
Each of the men told their diaries the story of how they ate their dogs (the only exception is Helmer Hanssen, whose diary, it seems, has not been located). Their statements are a mixture of perceived pragmatism and culinary commentary.
Hassel wrote of skinning ten of the dogs and carving them up, then having dog chops for dinner on the night of the 22nd (Hassel 2011). The dog chops, he said, were quite tough, but tasted superb. As there was no way for the men to flame-broil or grill the dog meat, they ended up boiling the meat in a pot; and as they did not bring any salt with them, they used pemmican for seasoning.
Of the ten dogs skinned and prepared for cooking, two were eaten by the men. These two unfortunate souls were Samson and Rex. Samson was Kristian Prestrud’s dog who had helped Hjalmar Johansen’s team during the second and third depot tours, once to replace Uroa who had been in a fight, and the other time after Hellik and Emil had fallen into an ice crevasse. Like his biblical namesake, Samson was strong and had helped the men many a time when hard pulling was needed. Now, as they ate him, some of the men found him not too much to their liking – too tough was his meat, they said. It seemed that, once again, Samson was true to his name, and in death had lived up to his reputation of being powerful and tough. Rex had originally been Amundsen’s dog on the ship Fram, had worked with Kristian Prestrud’s team after reaching Antarctica, and had most recently been working on Oscar Wisting’s sled team during this actual trek to the South Pole.
Hassel’s diary entry on the following day of the 23rd shows that the men sampled dog chops from Rex on that day, abandoning the tougher meat of Samson for the more tender meat of Rex. The next day, Rex’s hindquarters were eaten, which Hassel found to be delicious. And the following day of the 25th, another dog meat dinner was served to the men. This reflects four consecutive days of dog-eating (Hassel 2011).
Oscar Wisting, who performed as butcher – as well as chef – for Amundsen, relayed in his diary entries a sense of gratitude for the dog flesh consumed over those 4 days at Butcher’s Shop (Wisting 2011). He also echoed some of what Hassel had stated regarding Samson’s toughness and Rex’s relative tenderness. On November 22nd, Wisting wrote of skinning a couple of the dogs that had been slaughtered on the previous day of the 21st, and serving Samson as the midday meal, whose chops were boiled in a soup and seasoned with pemmican in lieu of salt, and who tasted quite good. The next day, the 23rd, Wisting wrote of having Rex for dinner, whose meat was preferred over Samson’s, and who tasted splendid. And on November 24th, he reported that the men ate Rex’s thighs for their dinner that night. Wisting made it a point to add that the dog meat was basically free food for both the surviving sled dogs and their friends the men – perhaps he meant free in the sense that it did not need to be transported, but had transported itself.
What is rather startling – and refreshingly honest – is what Oscar Wisting wrote in his diary on November 25th regarding the necessity – or lack thereof – of eating the dogs (Wisting 2011). The words that he committed to history in this diary entry, regarding the feeding of dogs to dogs and dogs to men, conveyed the meaning that this was not a necessity but rather a choice. The free food that had appeared in the form of dog meat was now the only thing that the dogs and the men were eating, he said. But it was not the only food they had – indeed, the men had an overabundance of food on this journey. They chose, however, to eat the dog meat. They ate the dog meat not because they needed to, but because of its health benefits and because it tasted good to them, wrote Wisting.
And, so, here it was stated as clearly as possible. The men did not need to eat the dogs, for they already had enough food on their sledges that the dogs had pulled for them. Rather they ate the dogs for the added health benefit of ingesting fresh meat, and because the dogs’ flesh tasted so good to them on this arduous snow trek to the South Pole. Possibly it was a safety net for Amundsen in terms of preventing scurvy, but, as Wisting said, the men had an excess of food that they could not even possibly eat during this tour, and, as Amundsen had previously said, the packaged food had been prepared with nutrition and health in mind during the long strenuous journey. Therefore, eating the dog meat was never a matter of life-and-death or a question of staving off starvation. It was, instead, a preference, a choice – a preferred taste.
Recall Amundsen’s November 22nd diary entry stating that he had had five helpings of dog steak as well as their regular meal of oatmeal on that day. In his book The South Pole, he also stated that the men’s pemmican, which was their “most important” staple, now “was practically left untouched, as for the time being dog had completely taken its place” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 2: 69). It seems that Amundsen was eating quite well during this outing, replacing his regular food – and sometimes adding to it – with dead dog meat. The 4 days spent at Butcher’s Shop were a virtual banquet buffet – a veritable feast on ice.
Olav Bjaaland shared in the gastronomically appreciative mood of the men once they had tasted dog meat, recording in his own diary on the 22nd the skinning and carving of the dogs – misreporting their number as 12 rather than 10 – and describing the eating of the dead dogs by their friends who were still alive (Bjaaland 2011). On the 24th, as the bad weather prevented the party from leaving Butcher’s Shop, Bjaaland wrote of the rest and repasts that both the men and dogs received that day, dining on Rex’s thighs, which were cooked in pemmican. He exclaimed that the men had enjoyed three delicious dinners courtesy of their good Greenland dogs and that he had to admit that the dogs tasted pretty good, although the meat’s texture was a bit tough, possibly due to its being undercooked.
But first we dove in to [eating] a good deal of dog meat. The truth is that we all prefer this to our favorite meal – pemmican. We cook [i.e., boil] it always, as we do not have any [way] to fry it. The dogs have recovered remarkably. The greed they first showed has now quite disappeared. Thick, fat, and satisfied, they wander around. The rest we have had here has been beneficial for us all – even though it is boring. 3
The 18 surviving dogs by now were feeding solely on their deceased teammates, as Amundsen had his men serve their friends’ bodies up to them for each meal. In addition, by remaining at Butcher’s Shop for an additional time, the remaining dogs were getting much-needed rest. One may wonder, though, if the dogs understood whom they were eating. Though reluctant at first, these 18 dogs – Mylius, Ring, Hai, Rap, Helge, Obersten (“The Colonel”), Majoren (“The Major”), Suggen, Arne, Per, Lasse (Lassesen), Rotta (“The Rat”), Nigger [sic], Svartflekken (“The Black Spot”), Kvæn (Kvajn), Frithjof, Fisken (“The Fish”), and Uroa (“Always Moving”) – were now feasting on their companions.
On the fourth day of feeding the dogs their deceased mates, the men partook in their carnivorous meal for the third consecutive day. “We have, as usual, together with the dogs, enjoyed dog meat,” wrote Amundsen on the 25th. “We are all excited about it.” 4
Hassel, in his diary on the 25th (Hassel 2011), briefly mentioned how the men chopped up the dead dogs into meat for the other dogs to eat, as well as into meat to make dinner for the men themselves.
Amundsen, on the other hand, went into great detail; in fact, he made quite an extensive production of the preparation and consuming process – especially in his The South Pole book, for his readers to digest. One cannot help but think of his ravenous attack on the raw meat hanging on the rigging of the Gjoa once he had successfully crossed the Northwest Passage. Could it be that a wolfing down of raw meat – the most basic way for a carnivorous creature to eat – was his natural reaction to triumph? In this case in Antarctica, that triumph was accessing the plateau, which most assuredly would lead him to securing the South Pole. There seems to be a goal-and-reward pattern at work here; unfortunately, this time, the raw meat at hand was his fellow expedition members who had pulled him to his success – it makes no difference that they were canine.
We occupied the forenoon [of the 22nd – the second day at Butcher’s Shop] in flaying a number of dogs. As I have said, all the survivors were not yet in a mood for dog’s flesh, and it therefore had to be served in the most enticing form. When flayed and cut up, it went down readily all along the line; even the most fastidious then overcame their scruples. But with the skin on we should not have been able to persuade them all to eat that morning; probably this distaste was due to the smell clinging to the skins, and I must admit that it was not appetizing. The meat itself, as it lay there cut up, looked well enough, in all conscience; no butcher’s shop could have exhibited a finer sight than we showed after flaying and cutting up ten dogs. Great masses of beautiful fresh, red meat, with quantities of the most tempting fat, lay spread over the snow.
This passage paints quite a graphic portrait of blood-red meat – the dogs’ carnal and incarnate forms – spread out over the white snow of the Antarctic, lush and vibrant red against pure white, on display to satisfy the men’s appetites. It was a virtual smorgasbord of dog meat, and Amundsen could hardly contain himself in describing it. The outer skin was a remnant of the living, breathing dog that neither men nor dogs wanted to touch or smell or eat. But the juicy meat underneath – to Amundsen, that was his just deserts – or just desserts.
The dogs went round and sniffed at it. Some helped themselves to a piece; others were digesting. We men had picked out what we thought was the youngest and tenderest one for ourselves. The whole arrangement was left to Wisting, both the selection and the preparation of the cutlets. His choice fell upon Rex, a beautiful little animal – one of his own dogs, by the way. With the skill of an expert, he hacked and cut away what he considered would be sufficient for a meal. I could not take my eyes off his work; the delicate little cutlets had an absolutely hypnotizing effect as they were spread out one by one over the snow. They recalled memories of old days, when no doubt a dog cutlet would have been less tempting than now – memories of dishes on which the cutlets were elegantly arranged side by side, with paper frills on the bones, and a neat pile of petits pois [i.e., small young peas] in the middle. Ah, my thoughts wandered still farther afield – but that does not concern us now, nor has it anything to do with the South Pole.
No, the eating of the dogs had nothing to do with discovering the South Pole. For it is clear by now that the men most probably still would have been victorious without eating their dogs. Yet this passage has everything to do with Amundsen the man, not just Amundsen the explorer. For this detailed passage, which is near titillating in its style and intent, portrays his lust for meat, and his association of meat with victory, with success, and with possession. It was so on the Northwest Passage, it was so at the great fêtes held in his honor, and it was so now on the path to the South Pole.
I was aroused from my musings by Wisting digging his axe into the snow as a sign that his work was done, after which he picked up the cutlets, and went into the tent. … we had food in abundance. We knew the dogs thought much the same: so long as we have enough to eat, let the weather go hang.
They had an abundance of food, for they had brought with them, and deposited in depots, enough to sustain them – and yet they feasted upon the dogs who had helped carry that very food up the glacier and through the mountains to this point, this Butcher’s Shop. Amundsen could not have been more clear or more graphic. The dogs as luscious slices of meat were exalted in his eyes and through his words. The picture he painted was one of his being completely mesmerized by the sight of all this mouth-watering raw meat – and he had at once forgotten what souls, what companions had formerly resided in this once-living flesh now on full display for his carnal satisfaction.Inside the tent Wisting was getting on well when we came in after making these observations. The pot was on, and to judge by the savoury smell, the preparations were already far advanced. The cutlets were not fried; we had neither frying-pan nor butter. … we found it far easier and quicker to boil them, and in this way we got excellent soup into the bargain. Wisting knew his business surprisingly well; he had put into the soup all those parts of the pemmican that contained most vegetables, and now he served us the finest fresh meat soup with vegetables in it. The clou [i.e., chief attraction] of the repast was the dish of cutlets. If we had entertained the slightest doubt of the quality of the meat, this vanished instantly on the first trial. The meat was excellent, quite excellent, and one cutlet after another disappeared with lightning-like rapidity. I must admit that they would have lost nothing by being a little more tender, but one must not expect too much of a dog. At this first meal I finished five cutlets myself, and looked in vain in the pot for more. Wisting appeared not to have reckoned on such a brisk demand.
“...one must not expect too much of a dog,” Amundsen said, referring to the texture of their meat. And yet he had expected – and received – the world from his dogs when they were alive. The irony of this statement must not have escaped him.
And Then There Were Eighteen
The decision had been made immediately after the butchering of the 24 dogs that the remaining 18 dogs would be divided into 3 teams of 6 dogs each. “We go from here with 3 sledges and provisions for humans for 60 days,” wrote Amundsen in his diary on the 22nd, their second day at Butcher’s Shop (Amundsen Expedition Diary) 5 . Those provisions included 277–3/4 pounds of dog pemmican, which would afford half a kilogram (1 pound 1–1/2 ounces) of food for each dog per day (Amundsen 1912, vol. 2: 67). Recall that, during the depot tours, Amundsen had commented that half a kilo of food was not enough for each dog, but he had stuck with this amount throughout the tours in Antarctica. The provisions also included full rations of food for the men. “To the Pole [we] use 3 [sledge] teams and 18 dogs,” continued Amundsen. “From the Pole 2 [sledge] teams and 16 dogs. Hassel’s sledge is left here.” 6 Thus, only three of the four sledges would be taken to the Pole, with Hassel’s sledge being the one selected to remain behind at Butcher’s Shop. Amundsen had also decreed that two more dogs would be killed at the Pole in order for the men to dispose of the third sledge at the Pole and return with only two sledges pulled by eight dogs each. His ultimate number, however, was 12 dogs for the return home, which meant that an additional four dogs would be killed along the way. The Butcher’s Shop was only the beginning of the bloodletting to shed the unwanted dogs and completely lighten the load for the victorious return from the Pole.
Hassel, the experienced dog driver, had become Hassel the dog executioner at Butcher’s Shop. By his own account, he had shot most of the dogs – although Amundsen said each man shot his own dogs. Now Hassel’s sledge was to be left at the plateau – he would not have his own sledge and dogs to drive to the Pole, which is somewhat ironic: Hassel had been hired on to this expedition for his exceptional dog driving skills, but now he had no dogs to drive. The only expedition member to mourn the butchering of the dogs, in his diary, Hassel was now bereft of a dog team. When it came to the final stretch to the Pole, he would cross it alone, without a team of dogs to drive.
Moreover, the supplies from Hassel’s sledge would have to be loaded onto the other three sledges. In his diary on that day of November 22nd, Hassel warned that the three sledges would thus become very heavy, with their weight equaling to as much as it had when they had departed from the depot at 82°, compounded by the fact that now only 6 dogs would be pulling the heavy load, rather than the 12 or 13 dogs as before (Hassel 2011). He also reported that the men would stay at Butcher’s Shop so as to rest up the remaining 18 dogs. There was some concern for the dogs that was exhibited here by Hassel, as well as an unspoken doubt whether it was a good decision to burden the surviving 18 dogs with such heavy loads, in effect increasing the weight of each sledge while decreasing the number of dogs pulling that sledge.
Hassel’s current situation – being dog-less – could have been the result of the crashing of Olav Bjaaland’s sledge into his which had occurred during one of the treacherously fast descents on the mountain. Bjaaland reported, on this same day, that his sledge was now repaired using the front part of Hassel’s sledge and that Hassel’s sledge would be retired (Bjaaland 2011). But could not Hassel have driven that third, repaired sledge, rather than Bjaaland? Hassel was the dog expert, not Bjaaland, who excelled instead at skiing. It seems a mystery why Amundsen stripped Hassel of a sledge and a team of dogs at this crucial point on the way to the Pole.
Perhaps Hassel’s concern about the heavy loads that the remaining 18 dogs would have to pull the rest of the way to the Pole caused Amundsen to make this entry in his diary on the following day of the 23rd: “At each degree we will add [i.e., lay] a depot – human food for 7 days and dog food for 6 days – a weight of 90 kg. This will quickly come to lighten our sledges.” 7 More likely, this decision was made by Amundsen to, yet again, speed up the travel so as to reach the South Pole before Robert Falcon Scott and his men did. This had been his modus operandi all along.
Interestingly, concern for the dogs was also shown by Bjaaland, who expressed in his diary entry of November 23rd that Amundsen’s change of route from the bay to the mountains had wasted 2 days and utterly exhausted the dogs (Bjaaland 2011). His comment of concern contained an inherent criticism of the final decision to veer away from the Great Ice Barrier bay toward which the party had originally steered. Had they taken the bay route, they most likely would have arrived at the plateau at the same time, while avoiding the exhausting climb up and down the mountains that had so taxed the dogs. Amundsen himself, on November 19th, had stated that it would have taken the same amount of time, although he did not state it would have been easier (Amundsen Expedition Diary). The mountain crossing had been arduous for the dogs and had been designed to be the last trek made by many of them, most of whom were then awarded the final reward of death. The strenuous climb was their last deed on earth. As for the surviving dogs, they needed to recover before the party could proceed any further.
According to Amundsen in his book The South Pole, the fourth – and final – day at Butcher’s Shop, although boring (as he had stated in his diary), was not completely depressing. Wisting, as usual, carefully crouched down in the driving snow, crafting, and cooking up the last batch of dog steaks the men would have from the ten skinned dogs; meanwhile, the living dogs congregated around him in a circle and watched the culinary process. “The dogs – the most important factor of all – had a thorough rest and were well fed,” wrote Amundsen. “They had undergone a remarkable change since our arrival at the Butcher’s Shop; they now wandered about, fat, sleek, and contented, and their former voracity had completely disappeared” (Amundsen 1912, vol. 2: 69).
The severe hunger they had experienced during the excruciating mountain climb had been satiated – through the lives taken from their friends. Their exhaustion, too, had now evaporated. The sled dogs were the most important factor of all. These 18 dogs whose lives Amundsen had spared were now ready to take him across the final stretch to his long dreamt-of goal of discovering the South Pole.
Dog Chart: The Dogs Who Were Eaten at Butcher’s Shop
- The Two Dogs Eaten by the Men at Butcher’s Shop Were:
Samson – from Olav Bjaaland’s team
Rex – from Oscar Wisting’s team
Notes on Original Material and Unpublished Sources
- 1.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, November 22, 1911, NB Ms.8° 1249
- 2.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, November 22, 1911, NB Ms.8° 1249
- 3.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, November 24, 1911, NB Ms.8° 1249
- 4.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, November 25, 1911, NB Ms.8° 1249
- 5.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, November 22, 1911, NB Ms.8° 1249
- 6.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, November 22, 1911, NB Ms.8° 1249
- 7.
R. Amundsen Antarctic expedition diary, November 23, 1911, NB Ms.8° 1249