A Hero Returns

Good morning, my dear Lindstrøm. Have you any coffee for us?

 

 

 

“OUR FACES SHONE in rivalry with the sun,” Amundsen wrote as his ship neared the port of Hobart, Tasmania, “and soon the Fram, too, began to shine.” The men scrubbed the decks with soap and water, washed the sails and tidied everything to make a good impression when they docked. They exchanged their worn and filthy work clothes for their “shore clothes,” which had been packed away for “a two years’ rest,” and “razors and scissors had a rich harvest.” Amundsen recorded that “even Lindstrøm, who had up to that date held the position among the land party of being its heaviest, fattest, and blackest member, showed unmistakable signs of having been in close contact with water.” As a motor launch putt-putted alongside, the men donned matching Burberry caps and snapped to attention. A brisk old man called up “Want a pilot, captain?” startling them with the sound of a new voice. The old pilot clambered up onto Fram’s deck and glanced around in perplexed silence for a while before exclaiming “I should never have imagined things were so clean and bright on board a Polar ship. Nor should I have thought from the look of you that you had come from Antarctica. You look as if you had had nothing but a good time.”

They eagerly chatted and shared news with the pilot, but Amundsen remained tight-lipped about their exploits. The Tasmanian pilot declined his invitation to remain for breakfast: “Presumably he was afraid of being treated to dog’s flesh or similar original dishes,” Amundsen surmised. The Fram was led through Storm Bay to the quiet town of Hobart, which was then surrounded by dry meadows and woods. Although the region was suffering from a heavy drought, the gently undulating terrain was an “unmixed delight.” It wasn’t ocean, ice or rock, and therefore held considerable novelty. “The Custom-house officers were easily convinced that we had no contraband goods,” Amundsen reported, as he and his men disembarked with the secret of their voyage held close. It was March 7, 1912, and there was still no news of Scott’s expedition. Amundsen knew that it would have been nearly impossible for Scott to have beat them in the race back to civilization; he and his men were indeed the first humans to have reached the South Pole.

He booked into the Orient Hotel. Dressed more shabbily than the other patrons and completely silent about his exploits, he recorded tersely in his diary that he was “treated as a tramp” and “given a miserable little room.” The next day, he visited the Norwegian consul and the telegram office and sent off coded messages to King Haakon, Nansen and Leon. Then he tried to relax while rebuffing the advances of local reporters, hungry for a scoop. Boats cruised out to the Fram to snoop, but his men also revealed nothing.

Amundsen believed that silence would be his key to success; he remembered well how his news had been stolen in Alaska after his Northwest Passage voyage, and he had made great efforts to avoid any financial loss this time. Earlier, he had announced to Nansen and others that the Fram would be putting into Lyttelton, New Zealand, after their voyage, even though he planned on Tasmania all along. No doubt the cable operators and reporters in Lyttelton were primed and waiting to profit from Amundsen’s valuable news, but no one was waiting in Hobart. Although the local reporters knew something was up, they couldn’t get the story, and Leon telegrammed his brother in Hobart, instructing him to cable his story directly to the Daily Chronicle in London and the New York Times in the United States. These papers had agreed to pay 2,000 British pounds for the exclusive rights (the equivalent of roughly several hundred thousand U.S. dollars today). On Friday, March 8, 1912, the papers’ front pages featured a photo of Amundsen, looking jaunty in a dark hat and with a well-coiffed moustache, next to the headline “The South Pole Discovered: Norwegian Explorer Reaches Coveted Goal.” These were accompanied by a map of the polar region and articles such as “Amundsen’s Career of Adventure,” “Amundsen vs. Scott: Mystery of Yesterday’s Press Messages” and “How the News Came to The Daily Chronicle.” The news was republished in Norwegian newspapers, and others around the world followed. Although Amundsen and his men could now relax and begin to enjoy their celebrity, he still didn’t give away too much information—Leon had sold the announcement of the feat, not the details. The feature rights still had to be guarded. For the next week, the Fram was deluged with visitors and well-wishers who wanted to see the famous ship, shake hands with the heroes of the day and perhaps get more information out of them. What was it like at the South Pole?

 

 

Before the five conquerors had departed the South Pole on December 17, 1911, they had set up a spare tent there and with some humour named it “Polheim,” “home of the pole.” A Norwegian flag hung limply from the tent’s central pole. Inside the tent were notes for Scott and King Haakon and some superfluous equipment. In case they should not make it back, Amundsen asked Scott to forward his letter to the Norwegian king as additional proof that he had reached the pole. Amundsen debated whether or not to leave a few cans of extra fuel oil, but in the end he decided to take them with him, just in case. He and his men then staged a photo shoot. The classic image shows four men arrayed in front of Polheim, dressed in their bulky furs with their hats off, staring up at the flag, while in the background the sunset is hand-painted a mesmerizing red, orange and yellow. The picture is a snapshot taken by Bjaaland with his personal Kodak camera, as are many of the other images that survive from the final stages of the expedition. Amundsen’s official camera broke down, and without Bjaaland’s portable snapshots there would be no photographic record of the momentous journey.

The return from the South Pole had been gruelling but uneventful. The five exhausted men harnessed the remaining dogs to two sleds. The dogs had a rough time on the thirty-nine-day retreat, and five more succumbed to the bitter cold, a disheartening and somewhat melancholy series of deaths, since the men had to kill them as the animals became too weak to go on. About one of his favourite dogs, Amundsen recorded that it “had been latterly showing marked signs of shortness of breath, and finally this became so painful to the animal that we decided to put an end to him. Thus brave Fridtjof ended his career.” The expedition nevertheless covered an impressive average distance of 36 kilometres each day, for a total of about 3,000 kilometres since leaving Framheim. They returned to Framheim on January 25, one day earlier than Amundsen had estimated.

Amundsen, Hassel, Hanssen, Wisting and Bjaaland arrived at what would have been nighttime to find the camp at Framheim silent. Despite their exhaustion, they scrambled out of their equipment and banged open the door, awakening Lindstrøm, Johansen, Stubberud and Prestrud. “Good morning my dear Lindstrøm, have you any coffee for us?” Amundsen asked. Lindstrøm’s “hotcakes and heavenly coffee” were followed by tumblers of celebratory schnapps, poured all round in liberal quantities. Amundsen then announced, “Yes, we’ve been there, the whole thing went like a dream.” Hanssen later wrote that “that gathering around the breakfast table at Framheim after the end of the trip belongs to the moments in one’s life one never forgets.”

Prestrud then related the story of his expedition with Johansen and Stubberud to King Edward VII Land—how they had narrowly beaten a Japanese expedition to explore this part of Antarctica. He also said that they had seen the Fram offshore the day before, but the ship had been driven away by pack ice. The famous ship came in again the next day, hooting its horn in celebration when its crew spied the unfurled Norwegian flags at Framheim announcing the return of the Polar Party. The meeting on the Fram was “a great, jubilant reunion.” Amundsen learned what the men on the Fram had been doing for the past year while he and the Polar Party were marooned in Antarctica: they had completed the first oceanographic survey of the South Atlantic from Africa to South America. By the end of the voyage, the Fram had sailed over 54,000 nautical miles, a distance equal to more than two and a half times around the world. They were broke when they returned to Argentina the previous year, in need of supplies and repairs, and Peter Christophersen had taken responsibility for the ship and crew there. His support in refitting the ship and providing money and supplies enabled them not only to undertake the oceanographic voyage, which lent the expedition an air of scientific legitimacy, but also to return to Antarctica and pick up the Polar Party.

Once reunited, the crew did not waste time at Framheim. They were in a great hurry to rush back to civilization with the news, and transferred only the remaining thirty-nine dogs and a small portion of the most expensive equipment to the Fram. After two days of hauling goods out to where the ship was anchored, they were ready to leave Antarctica. Lindstrøm cleaned Framheim as best he could, so that “it was shining like a new pin,” Amundsen noted. “We won’t be accused of untidiness or dirt if anyone should happen to go there and look.” As they cast off on January 30, the men watched from the deck as Framheim receded in the freezing fog. It was their last view of the bleak shores where they had lived for over a year, and where so much drama and hardship had changed their lives. None of them ever returned to the Great Southern Continent.

The month-long voyage from Antarctica to Hobart was a slow-going churn through high seas and storms. All of the crew just wanted the voyage to be done. During the miserable trip, Amundsen spent hours each day in his cabin, writing his story for the papers and preparing his correspondence, telegrams, articles and speeches for the media storm he knew lay ahead. He had gone so long without speaking English that the work proved more difficult than he had imagined. He enlisted Captain Nilsen, a fluent English speaker, to help with the writing and polishing of his speeches.

 

 

The Fram remained in Hobart for two weeks while routine work was done on its propeller and engine. Amundsen was busy with publicity. Interest in the “Great International Polar Race” had been building for several months in anticipation of either Amundsen’s or Scott’s triumphant return. Because they had obtained exclusive regional rights to the story from both Scott and Amundsen, the London Times, Daily Chronicle and New York Times each devoted plenty of ink to publicizing the race and the racers before any news arrived, and enlisted famous people such as Robert Peary and Ernest Shackleton to give them quotes. Nansen himself, in the February 1912 issue of Scribner’s Magazine, compared and contrasted the parties and their chances of success. “If we compare their chances of reaching the South Pole I think that both expeditions have their special advantages. . . . The success of an expedition depends now, as it did before, chiefly on the man.” While rumours flew around London that Scott had reached the South Pole first, Shackleton felt that Amundsen and his party would emerge victorious because “Norwegians can live on the smell of a bone.”

The March 8 New York Times special report on Amundsen’s victory certainly took advantage of the newspaper’s exclusive rights. In a bold proclamation at the head of the article, the newspaper announced its intention to prosecute anyone who violated its copyright. A large spread, the article featured maps and images to enliven a text, written by Shackleton, that offered nothing new but a promise that the details would appear in the paper “probably tomorrow.” The newspaper also ran an article on how “Tasmanians fail[ed] to induce him to discuss exploit before his story reach[ed] the world.” Apparently “Amundsen was attacked by reporters” in Hobart but maintained his “impenetrable reserve.” It was big news, and the newspaper had paid a lot of money for the story, so it squeezed as much as it could from the event.

Meanwhile, Leon was working on his brother’s behalf in Norway, answering correspondence, arranging deals and handling a flood of incoming donations. He met politicians and newspaper reporters and spoke for Amundsen on the world stage. In particular he was beginning negotiations with lecture agents to promote his brother’s inevitably lucrative tour of Britain, Europe and America. Without the help of Leon and Nansen, two tireless supporters, there was no way Amundsen could have managed the financial and diplomatic logistics of the Fram expedition. Even Shackleton, who had an intense rivalry with and dislike of Scott, was working to help Amundsen, being instrumental in arranging Amundsen’s publishing deals in London. Publishers in Britain and the United States, the largest markets, were vying for the rights to his as yet untitled, unwritten and untranslated book. The New York Times reported on March 17, just days before Amundsen left Tasmania, “Large offers have been cabled to him at Hobart, Tasmania, since the thrilling narrative in the New York Times and London Chronicle.”

Amundsen parted ways with his ship and shipmates on March 20. He briefly toured Australia, giving a series of lectures while he had the world’s undivided attention; he was broke and desperately needed some cash. Meanwhile, the Fram weighed anchor and cruised east from Hobart en route to Argentina. After nearly a month and a half of sailing, the ship rounded Cape Horn and headed north along the east coast of South America and up the Rio de la Plata, arriving in Buenos Aires on May 21. Amundsen, travelling to the city on a commercial steamer, soon met the Fram and his crew. One member was conspicuously absent. Amundsen had sent Johansen home on a separate cargo boat after he began drinking heavily and quarrelling with his shipmates in Hobart. His behaviour was an embarrassment and could result in bad publicity. Amundsen had never forgiven Johansen for his challenge the previous fall, and his “disgraceful” conduct in Hobart solidified Amundsen’s determination to exclude him from any public celebrations in Norway. A bitter and disillusioned man, Johansen committed suicide not long after, in January 1913. Some observers blamed Amundsen for the tragedy, claiming the humiliation of not being included in the Polar Party drove Johansen to his death. But he had been in decline for the many years between returning from his adventures with Nansen and his South Pole expedition with Amundsen. Before leaving for the South Pole, he had failed in the army, abandoned his wife and child and fallen into a rootless and alcohol-fuelled life. The world he returned to in Norway in 1912 was similar to the one he had left, and none of the other men who were excluded from the Polar Party experienced similar problems.

 

 

In Buenos Aires, their elderly patron, Christophersen, who had been such indispensable help in outfitting the Fram, was excited and pleased to welcome the famous ship and its now equally famous captain and crew in their moment of triumph. “This is just like a fairy tale,” he said. With the support of the Norwegian community in Buenos Aires, Christophersen organized a celebratory banquet for the crew with congratulatory speeches and many toasts. Amundsen was also honoured in an audience with the Argentine president and senior government officials. Until now, he had felt that everyone had abandoned him and his project after Peary’s discovery of the North Pole, and that only King Haakon, Nansen and Christophersen were resolute in their support. He had been frustrated and hurt by what he felt was tepid support from his own government, and now learned that the Norwegian parliament had wanted to order the Fram home before he reached Antarctica but were unable to do so only because the Fram was not carrying wireless communication technology. He must have smiled when he heard the news. Yet here was Christophersen, a private citizen living in a foreign land, taking on the role that Amundsen felt should have belonged to his country, showering him with praise and giving him financial support as well. Amundsen truly was grateful and remembered to thank Christophersen profusely decades later, when he wrote his autobiography, claiming that “his timely aid with funds, sound advice, and personal good offices more than once saved the expedition from failure.”

Christophersen again ordered the Fram repaired and refitted at his expense, to make the ship seaworthy enough to continue with its original expedition, the north polar drift. In the letter he had written announcing his change of destination from North Pole to South Pole, Amundsen had promised Nansen and the Norwegian public that the race to the South Pole was merely a detour and that he would resume his original expedition once the southern race was over. Several of his men, including Hanssen, Lindsrøm and Wisting, agreed to accompany him north. But they would all have to wait while the Fram was reprovisioned. Amundsen retreated to one of Chistophersen’s estates to finish writing his book while most of his crew sailed home to Norway on commercial ships. He was now dutifully, but slowly, working toward the original goal.

In the meantime, Amundsen’s publishers and lecture agents were persuading him to strike while the iron was hot rather than once again disappear into the Arctic wastes for an unknown number of years. Now was the time to capitalize on his years of work and investment, while the European and American publics were eager to see and hear from the man who had won the great international polar race. So Amundsen announced a change of plan: after finishing his book he would then embark on a multi-continent lecture tour before resuming the north polar drift the following year, in the summer of 1913.

 

 

On April 1, 1912, while the Fram was en route to Buenos Aires, Scott’s ship the Terra Nova arrived in New Zealand from Antarctica. It brought the news that Amundsen had definitely beaten Scott to the South Pole but that Scott remained in Antarctica. It was believed that he would be exploring the southern continent for another season and would return the next year, when the ice would again allow the Terra Nova to sail into McMurdo Sound. In fact Scott was already dead by this time, but it would be another year before that news electrified the world. Editorials in the British newspapers still held hope that Amundsen had been beaten by Scott, some claiming in a huff that even if Amundsen had been the first to the South Pole, Scott “planned much scientific exploration while Amundsen was to make only the dash for the Pole” and similar sentiments. Amundsen suspected that something terrible had happened for Scott to have failed to return from the interior of Antarctica in time to catch the Terra Nova before it sailed; there were ominous rumours of scurvy and poor ice conditions, which did not bode well. But he knew he had to get on the lecture circuit while he still had the field to himself and was still heralded as a hero for his accomplishment. If indeed tragedy had struck the Scott expedition, Amundsen knew he had only until the next sailing season in Antarctica before that sensational news would overshadow his accomplishment.2

In a small country like Norway, the curse, or the joy, of fame such as Amundsen achieved was that everyone looked to him as either the cause of or the solution to a great many of their problems—sometimes both. Amundsen was uncomfortable with the role. He wasn’t good at protocol and had to be constantly advised by Leon on what his public response should be to certain events and occurrences, such as the death or dishonour of old comrades, or business offers. Over the years, Leon managed his brother’s public response to many diplomatic scenarios, understanding that personal opinions and feelings were not what people wanted from a famous explorer; they expected him to be larger than life, to give diplomatic public commentary on a great many issues, providing quotable comments that were suitably lofty and respectable. The problem was that Amundsen’s opinions were often emotional and personal. He had to learn how to dissemble and provide morally elevated half-truths that gave the appearance of sincerity. His expeditions were merely one part of a large, ongoing business enterprise, and his public persona had to be managed with this in mind. It was a job for which Amundsen, unlike his compatriot Nansen, was not naturally suited, and this caused a certain frustration among his friends and family when he made missteps.

 

 

Amundsen remained in the blessed peace of Argentina until his book was largely written, as if by avoiding Norway he could avoid the annoying problems that awaited him there. His brother Gustav was again demanding money and defaulting on numerous loans, blaming it all on Roald, who apparently didn’t show him enough respect or give him enough money when he had returned from the Northwest Passage; Roald and Leon already supported Gustav’s wife and had to bail out his creditors as well. At one point in mid-1913, Gustav threatened to kill himself if Roald didn’t buy him a house. Perhaps Roald also feared confronting Sigrid Castberg, who had refused to obtain a divorce and marry him before he had left Norway two years earlier. His ardour for her had cooled during the years of hardship and strain in Antarctica. Maybe Johansen was on his mind—the erratic man descending into alcoholism might start writing embarrassing articles or giving interviews, undermining the deals he and Leon had arranged for exclusive rights.

But Amundsen could not hide in Buenos Aires forever. It had been nearly five months since he had announced his victory in Hobart. Reluctantly, he boarded a steamship and departed Argentina and the enthusiastic support of Christophersen, arriving anonymously in Christiania on July 31, just after his fortieth birthday. He had hardly spent any time at home before he was on the road again; he was a famous man, much in demand, even more so than he was after returning from his navigation of the Northwest Passage. The remaining months of 1912 were a whirlwind of public celebrations and events in Norway and around Europe. Amundsen had left anonymity behind long ago; the Norwegian parliament, having a change of heart now that he had succeeded, wanted to establish a professorship for him and vote him more money to undertake another Arctic expedition. He received notification from France that President Armand Fallieres would present him with the decoration of being made a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour in October, when he would be in Paris speaking to the Geographical Society there. Prince Roland Bonaparte heartily congratulated him: “Your expedition has been among the greatest ever conceived and carried out by one man.” The king of Sweden bestowed an award, the Norwegian parliament voted him a life annuity, and other citations followed. The lecture tour began in Gothenburg, then proceeded to Copenhagen, Berlin, Paris, Rouen, Rome and many other cities.

The excitement and novelty of talking about his accomplishments quickly wore off for Amundsen. As he had discovered after navigating the Northwest Passage, a lecture tour was work, not pleasure, and a type of work that he didn’t enjoy. He was not in control of his routine, he could not get exercise easily, he could not eat what he wanted: he was not a free man. But in those days the lecture tour was the only way, other than newspaper stories, to make money from a sensational feat. As one of his lecture agents put it, it was “the man” that people came to see, even when they already knew the story.

So Amundsen persevered, being shuttled about, met at train stations by committees, delivering the same talk night after night in a series of well-attended lectures. In mid-November he finally arrived in London for something he had been both dreaming of and dreading for months, perhaps years: his address before the famed Royal Geographic Society.