Roald Amundsen (1872 - 1928) was a Norwegian explorer who led the first expedition to reach the geographic South Pole, arriving on 14 December 1911. [1] He had earlier completed the first successful navigation of the Northwest Passage, and in 1926 he took part in the first verified flight over the North Pole, in the airship Norge. [2] He disappeared in June 1928 over the Arctic Ocean while searching for a missing airship crew.
Early life
Amundsen was born on 16 July 1872 in Borge, Norway, into a family of shipowners and captains. He abandoned medical studies after his mother's death and turned to the sea, preparing himself for polar work by skiing, sailing and studying the methods of earlier expeditions. [1]
He gained his first polar experience as first mate on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897-99, whose ship Belgica became trapped in the ice and whose crew became the first to overwinter in Antarctica. [2]
The Northwest Passage
In 1903 Amundsen sailed from Oslo in the small sloop Gjøa with a crew of six, intending to find the sea route through the Canadian Arctic that had defeated navigators for centuries. The expedition wintered twice at King William Island, where Amundsen made magnetic observations and learned from the local Netsilik Inuit the techniques of dog driving, igloo building and fur clothing that he used for the rest of his career. [1]
The Gjøa emerged into the Beaufort Sea and reached Nome, Alaska, in 1906, completing the first transit of the Northwest Passage by ship.
The South Pole
Amundsen had planned to drift across the North Pole in Fridtjof Nansen's ship Fram, but on learning that the Pole had reportedly been reached he turned south without announcing his change of plan. The Fram reached the Bay of Whales in the Ross Ice Shelf in January 1911, and the party established a base named Framheim. [2]
Setting out on 19 October 1911 with four companions, four sledges and fifty-two dogs, Amundsen ascended the Axel Heiberg Glacier to the polar plateau and reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911. The team returned to base intact in late January 1912. Robert Falcon Scott's British party arrived at the Pole a month later and died on the return march. [1]
Arctic aviation and disappearance
After the First World War Amundsen attempted a drift across the Arctic Ocean in the ship Maud, and then turned to aircraft. A 1925 flying-boat attempt with Lincoln Ellsworth reached 87°44' north before being forced down. [2]
In May 1926 Amundsen, Ellsworth and the Italian engineer Umberto Nobile crossed the Arctic Ocean from Spitsbergen to Alaska in the airship Norge, passing over the North Pole; because earlier claims by Frederick Cook and Robert Peary remain disputed, this is often counted as the first verified attainment of the Pole. A bitter public dispute with Nobile followed over credit for the flight. [3]
On 18 June 1928 Amundsen took off from Tromsø in a French flying boat to search for Nobile, whose airship Italia had crashed on the return from a later polar flight. The aircraft disappeared over the Barents Sea; wreckage was later found, but Amundsen's body was never recovered. [1]
Legacy
Amundsen is the only explorer to have reached both geographic poles and to have navigated both the Northwest and Northeast Passages. [3] His honours included the Hubbard Medal, the Royal Geographical Society's Patron's Medal and the United States Congressional Gold Medal. The Amundsen Sea, the Amundsen Gulf and the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station are named after him.
