Race to the Poles

On December 14th, 1911, explorer Roald Amundsen and four other Norwegian men dragged along by fifty-two sleigh dogs, having braved freezing temperatures and crossed the unending ice sheets under the everlasting summer sun of the Antarctic, reached the Southern Pole of our planet. Amundsen and his crew were the first men to ever set foot on the South Pole, beating out his rival, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott, who reached their shared goal a month later only to find that the Norwegian flag had already been planted.

The British Empire, with its tremendous resources and cutting-edge scientific innovations, had been beaten to the punch by the small, relatively poor, and only recently independent Norway. So how did the small Scandinavian nation best one of the world's superpowers?

The answer lies in the exciting, adventurous, and often brutal history of Norway's arctic exploration.

A Brief History of Early Polar Exploration

The first written record we have of an explorer venturing to the far northern extremities of our world was penned by a Greek man named Pytheas, who in the 4th century B.C. sailed past England and to an island he called Thule, possibly one of the Shetlands, Northern Scotland, or possibly even Iceland. We know for certain that Irish monks, called the Papirs, visited Iceland more than a thousand years later, in the 8th century, but it wasn’t until the Vikings took to the sea with their longboats that Europeans started truly exploring the lands north of the Arctic Circle. The Norsemen established trade routes spreading all over the White Sea, building settlements in Greenland and North America.

One of many hypothetical maps of the Northeast Passage. Courtesy of Geographicus Rare Antique Maps — One of many hypothetical maps of the Northeast Passage. Courtesy of **Geographicus** **Rare** **Antique** **Maps**

As the age of the Vikings began to wane, many of their discoveries faded into obscurity, leading to a long period of inactivity in Arctic exploration. It was not until the 16th century, during what is known as the Age of Discovery, that Europeans would set their sights on the icy seas - this time the British and Dutch leading the way.

Much like for the Vikings, the main allure of Arctic exploration was economic, but unlike the Norsemen, the British and Dutch were not looking for lands to settle (at least not at such inhospitable latitudes) rather they were trying to find a shortcut. Specifically the fabled Northeast passage, an alternative route to the Far East through the icy seas of Siberia, avoiding the long and dangerous journey through the Spanish-controlled seas of South Africa and South America. But finding, and then traversing, the Northeast passage would turn out to be far from an easy feat. Expedition after expedition returned home unsuccessful. A few new discoveries such as Spitsbergen and Bear Island were made, both found by Dutch navigator Willem Barentsz, but the much-desired passage remained elusive. Threatened by the increased foreign presence in seas near their lands, the Russian closed access to the potential passage in 1619 and took over efforts to uncover the route. While advancements were made by the Russians, including proving that there was indeed a passage that could be sailed, they never managed to actually sail through. Eventually, the restrictions eased, allowing foreigners to sail the Siberian seas again. It is a testament to the route’s adversity that it would only finally be conquered in 1879 by Swedish explorer Adolf Erick - more than three centuries after the first attempt.

The Northeast Passage was not the only maritime route to capture the imagination of European sailors and traders, and soon after the first attempt at the Siberian route, British sailors attempted to bypass the Southern routes by sailing north of the Americas, through Canada’s Northwest Passage. As treacherous as the seas north of Asia were, the Northwest passage was worse. The history of this route is one synonymous with danger and death, with hundreds of sailors either sinking to the depths of the seas or finding their end in the cold of the frozen winter. It wasn’t until the 1900s that this passage was finally conquered. It was a tiny ship manned by only six sailors who managed to first weave through the icy seas, commanded by an enrapturing Norwegian explorer called Roald Amundsen. But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. First, we need to talk about another titanic figure of Norwegian - and global - Arctic Exploration, a man whose heroic undertaking would inspire a generation of polar explorers around the world, whose approach revolutionized arctic explorations, and whose advice anyone mad enough to try and attempt to conquer the poles would be wise to head…

Fridtjof Nansen

Born in 1861, Nansen’s youth was one dominated by sports, achieving great success in cross-country skiing and skating. He was also a lover of adventure, often wandering out in the Norwegian wilderness on week-long expeditions. When it came time to choose his studies at university he opted for zoology. During the course of his studies, his professor proposed he joined the sealer ship Viking to study arctic zoology. The ship sailed between Greenland and Svalbard looking for seal herds. During this time the idea for what would become Nansen’s first great expedition began to form: crossing the Greenland icecap. After the journey, though, he returned to Norway where he would resume a quiet career in the sciences for six years. But the thought of crossing Greenland did not leave him and once he submitted his doctoral thesis in 1887, he began to plan the expedition.

After managing to secure funding through a Danish merchant, Nansen and five other companions set sail for artic isle. His plan was unusual compared to previous attempts, as rather than starting on the populated west coast he set out from the mostly inhabited east coast. This was not due to logistical reasons but rather the belief that starting on the west coast, where the settlements and ships were, would tempt them into turning back when things got tough. If they began the voyage from the east the only way out of Greenland would be by crossing it. They could only move forward. Nansen was a meticulous thinker, planning out every little detail of the trip. His pragmatic and practical outlook can be seen in his choice of companions. There were no other scientists or thrill-seeking members of the nobility in his party. The crew was composed of farmers, woodsmen, and sailors, hard men who were physically fit and well-versed in the hardship the northern island would bring. But as all who attempted to conquer the arctic would tell you, no level of preparation can avoid the mischievous whims of mother nature.

Members of the expedition with their Kayaks.

The plan was for the sealer ship Jason to bring them to the eastern shore, but drifting pack ice made it impossible for the large ship to reach the coast. The Jason waited for a month to find a better opportunity but no such opportunity ever materialized. Sick of the wait and concerned that the expedition might be called off, Nansen decided to sail the 20km left to the shore by the significantly smaller and much more maneuverable rowboat. The six men split into two rowboats and the small vessels were hoisted into the freezing water.

It quickly became obvious that even with the added mobility of the rowboats making it to shore would be impossible, forcing the group to camp on an ice sheet and wait for better conditions. The weather took a turn for the worse and the group had to wait a few days before they could try again. The ice sheet they had camped on had also slowly begun drifting southwards. After surviving the violent storm, the weather finally improved allowing the crew to attempt another crossing. This time they were successful and were finally able to make camp ashore. But their troubles were far from over. The new main issue now was the fact that they had drifted 380 km south of where the Jason had left them. They decided to sail upwards, hugging the coast as to avoid the troublesome ice sheets. Rather than returning to the point they originally planned to start the trek from, Nansen chose to start 110 km south of the intended destination, on a bay called Umivik. 25 days after the intended start date, and with over 800km traveled at sea, the crossing of Greenland could start in proper.

The trip was treacherous, dangerous hidden crevasses and dreadful weather threatening the safety of the crew. But this were these were dangers that Nansen had prepared for. Outside of having to ration their food due to the unexpected prolongation of the voyage, there were no unforeseen surprises and the expedition managed to achieve the goal they had set out. On September 26th the group stood on the shore of the Ameralik Fjord on the western coast of Greenland, having successfully completed the first-ever crossing of the island. A week later they reached Godthaab, a Danish town on the western coast, where the crew would have to wait seven months before spring would allow for a ship to depart. After the grueling journey, Nansen would take a break from polar exploration, but it would not be the last expedition he would partake in. Having learned the lesson from this trip the next time he would travel the arctic he would do so in a ship of his own design, better equipped for the northern conditions.

Fram! (Forward!)

Abandoning the Arctic Exploration Ship Jeanetteby James Gale Tyler — Abandoning the Arctic Exploration Ship Jeanette by James Gale Tyler

In 1884 a wreckage was found on an ice floe off the coast of Julianehåb (modern-day Qaqortoq), a small town in south-western Greenland, caught the attention of explorers and scientists from around the world. The ship was the Jeannette, an American ship that had set out to reach the north pole in 1979. Shipwrecks were a common enough occurrence in the world of polar exploration, so what made this one so special? The key reason for the fascination with the wreckage was to do the location the wreckage was found. The ship had been abandoned after it was crushed by shifting ice floes 300 miles from the Siberian coast near Henrietta island in the East Siberian Sea. Norwegian meteorologist Henrik Mohn, reading about the ship’s discovery put forwards a theory of an east-to-west current that crossed the polar sea. While not a ground-breaking or revolutionary theory, it did catch the attention of a young Norwegian scientist with a thirst for adventure, who at the time was planning his first great adventure through the impassible interior of Greenland.

After the success of his first expedition, Nansen had enjoyed a very warm welcome back in Norway, as forty thousand people crowded the streets of Christiania (modern-day Oslo) to see and cheer on the returning party. He was granted an honorary position at the Royal Frederick University, as well as awards from both the Norwegian and English Geographical Societies. During this period he also married. His wife, Eva Sars, was a famous classical singer. But marital bliss and professional accolades were not enough to keep Nansen from adventure, and on February 1890 he announced the plans for his next expedition. This time Nansen had set a loftier goal in mind: the north pole. The wreckage of the Jeannette and Dr. Mohn’s theory, which had rummaged around in his head since he’d read about it six years prior, was the key to his next voyage. Nansen believed that the reason why previous expeditions to the Poles had failed was that they had unbeknownst worked against the current, trying to approach it from the west. His plan work with the current, not against it. The plan was to sail to the East Siberian Sea, let the ship be enveloped by an ice floe, and drift atop it until they reached the North Pole, or somewhere close to its proximity. Many experienced polar explorers dismissed the idea, calling it foolish and self-destructive, but Nansen remained steadfast to his plan. The Norwegian government, alongside many private citizens, was convinced by his proposal and soon Nansen had the money to start preparing for the expedition.

Sketch from the baptismal ceremony at the launch of Fram.

If the voyage to the pole was to be successful, Nansen needed the right ship. It needed to be small and maneuverable, to be able to swerve through the icebergs and ice floes of the polar sea which had plagued his previous expedition, but at the same time, it needed to house and feed a crew of twelve for multiple years. Most important of all, the ship needed to be lifted up by the pack ice rather than pushed below, the cause of death for innumerable artic vessels including the Jeanette. Since no such ship existed, he decided to build it. He hired Colin Archer, and alongside his longtime friend and adventuring companion Otto Sverdrup, the three men got to planning. After various models were drawn up and re-drawn, they finally agreed upon the blueprint. It would be larger than Nansen wanted, ensuring the comfort of the crew, a little less nimble and quite slow, but it would be an incredibly tough ship. In October of 1892, the ship was christened by Nansen’s wife, and it was to be called the Fram, which in English translates to ‘Forward’. A little less than a year later after, on the 24th of June 1893, the ship left the port of Christiania, headed for the East Siberian Sea, the location the USS Jeannette had crashed, the location from which they would begin their drift towards the north pole.

They reached their destination on September 22nd, locked into a piece of pack ice, and waited for the drift. After a somewhat unpredictable start, the ice not following the predicted trajectory - even floating southwards at times - the drift began to go according to theory. The celebrations did not last long, as according to Nansen’s calculations the ship would reach the North Pole in five years, longer than he had expected. Privately, he started to plan an alternative path to the pole, splitting from the crew and the ship and carrying on with kayaks and sled dogs. He announced the plan to the rest of the party, stating that when they would reach 83°N, he and Hjalmar Johansen (an expert dog driver) would separate from the expedition and head towards the pole, while the ship would continue the drift under Otto Sverdrup. Later critics would frown upon Nansen abandoning his ship, although technically Nansen was not the captain, the role instead having been taken up by Otto - the more capable sailor of the two - while Nansen was in charge of the scientific aspects of the expedition.

The Fram Locked in Pack Ice (Nighttime).

The ship reached 83° on January 1895, but after two failed starts Nansen and Johansen finally left the ship on the 14th of March. Nansen gave himself 50 days to reach the North Pole, covering over 660km of shifting pack ice in freezing temperatures. The first week went well, the duo gaining more ground than they had expected, but as the surfaces grew more and more uneven their pace began to slow. As the progress continued to lag, Nansen began to wonder if the Pole was achievable. On April 7th he decided it was time to turn back, the road ahead far too treacherous to be traversed with their fairly rudimentary equipment. He recorded the latitude at 86°13′6″, beating the previous record by nearly three degrees. The road back was even more hazardous than their journey upwards, as they lost their position making it much harder to find their destination of Franz Josef Island (from which they planned to sail to Spitsbergen in the Svalbard archipelago), had to deal with ice floes breaking up under the hotter of the approaching summer, and even had to fend off an attack from a walrus. On the 17th of June, while they repaired one of the kayaks after the aforementioned walrus attack, Nansen thought he heard some human voices far in the distance. He left to investigate and soon spotted an approaching figure. The two look at each other in disbelief, until the man asked: ‘You’re Nansen, aren't you?’. The man turned out to be the British Explorer Fredrick Jackson, the leader of an expedition to Franz Josef Island. After their own polar equivalent of ‘Dr. Livingstone, I presume?’, Nansen and Johansen left with Jackson’s supply ship and headed back to Norway. A week after their return to Norway, the Fram was sighted, and the two groups met again in Tromsø. There they learned that the ship had not reached the pole, nor had it beat Nansen’s recorded northernmost latitude of 86°13′6″. Despite their failure to reach the pole, the crew was welcomed home by the largest crowd that Christiania had ever seen and was greeted by the king himself, who hosted the explorers and their families at his palace for several days.

This was Nansen’s last great expedition, dedicating the rest of his life to the pursuit of the sciences and, later on, diplomacy and humanitarianism (which eventually led to his winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in helping refugees). While he never did conquer the pole, the first Fram expedition and his efforts to brave the northern extremity of our planet cemented his place in polar exploration. The expedition also showed that the North Pole was encapsulated by a constantly shifting sheet of ice, which until then wasn’t known (a popular theory of the time being that there was an open sea beyond the initial wall of ice). The expedition also drastically changed the way polar travel was undertaken: prior to Nansen arctic exploration was a stately affair with big ships and large crews braving the polar sea, but the Norwegian showed that a small, professional crew would get more done and at a much lower cost. Arguably though, Nansen’s greatest contribution to the exploration of our planet’s furthest reaches was as a source of inspiration, to thousands of brave young men around the globe reading of his exploits and dreaming of one day bracing the frozen seas themselves. For the rest of his life, he would be considered a sort of Polar Oracle, aspirant adventurers coming to him seeking advice on their own journey to the polar extremities. One such advice seeker, another young enterprising Norwegian man, would arguably achieve more in the field of polar exploration than any other.

Roald Amundsen

Two years after Nansen and his crew returned from their voyage to the pole, 25-year-old Roald Amundsen boarded the Belgica, a Belgian ship set to travel to the other far end of the world: Antartica. As he took those steps on the gangway to the ship, one can imagine the sense of excitement and thrill at the prospect of setting out on an adventure he’d dreamed of from his childhood. Born to a wealthy family of ship magnates, Amundsen developed a fascination with polar explorers at a very early age, reading reports of the grand adventures far above the Artict Cricle. This passion flourished as he began reading the diaries of John Franklin, a British explorer who attempted to discover the Northwest Passage. Unlike Nansen, Amundsen never showed any proclivity towards the sciences, or any schoolastic endeavor for that matter. His studies were often and happily relegated behind anything which related to his passion for polar exploration. As a teenager, he would sleep with his window open during the cold Norwegian nights to train for the extreme temperature of the poles, often partaking in multi-day hikes through the nearby mountains with his friends. As he grew older he was forced to put his passion to the side, as his mother was completely against this reckless passion of his, wanting him to be a doctor instead. He studied medicine until 1893 when his mother died. After her passing he dropped out of school and found a job as a sailor. After sailing the world for two years and earning his Second Mates Certificate of Competency, he joined the Belgian Antarctic Expedition.

Unbeknownst to the crew who boarded the Belgica, the Belgian Antarctic Expedition would become a landmark of Antarctic exploration. The plan was to be the first scientific mission to the southern end of the world, but fate would have it remembered for quite a different reason. Either by choice or mistake (the true motivation is still highly debated), on February the 28th the ship became locked in the sea ice off Alexander Island, unable to move. The crew tried desperately to free the ship but their attempts were fruitless. As the days went on, growing shorter and shorter, they readied to weather the deadly Antarctic winter. The ship was poorly equipped, limited and unvaried food supplies quickly becoming a major issue. The expedition was so ill prepared for the unexpected sojourn they hadn't even prepared enough warm clothing for everyone. Both issues were eases as the crew began hunting penguins and seals for meat and furrs. The meat of the animals, though, was unpleasant enough that commander Adrien de Gerlache tried to have it banned. Eventually he rescinded the order as the crews hunger led to increasingly aggressive demands. The days kept growing shorter until, on the 23rd of July, the perpetual darkness of the polar night set in. The long night brought with it a bout of scurvy, which debilitated both the commander and the captain, leaving Amundsen and the ship’s doctor Fredrick Cook (who would, years later, claim to have finally conquered the North Pole), in charge. Cook believed that the penguin and seal meat was the key to solving the scurvy epidemic, and as luck would have it the animal’s raw meat contained enough vitamin-C to solve the crisis (at the time it was not known that scurvy was caused by vitamin-C depletion). The total darkness led men to the brink of madness, some of psychological scars lasting a lifetime, but the crew managed to endure. After several months of hardship and various attempts at leaving the ice, they finally set sail through an artificial channel courtesy of hard work, sweat, and dynamite. They departed on the 15th of February, completely escaping the icy sea a month later on the 14th of March. Decades after the expedition's end, historians would deem this expedition was the beginning of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

While the journey of the Belgica was not a complete failure, as it did manage to collect quite a bit of scientific data, it was far from a success story. Bad planning and incompetent leadership had resulted in a near-catastrophic scenario. It was a lesson that a young Amundsen would take to heart. Another side effect of the expedition was the boost in Amundsen’s popularity back home in Norway, as many saw him and Cook as the true heroes of the expedition. Nansen himself, learning of the young Norwegian’s achievements took note of him. The harrowing experience of the Antarctic winter did not dissuade Amundsen from planning a new expedition, although this time he would lead it himself. His goal would be what that which had taken the life of his childhood hero nearly half a century before: the Northwest passage.

Since Sir John Franklin attempt to discover the passage it had been both discovered and crossed, though never by sea alone. Amundsen planned to do just that. Fifty years before Franklin had attempted to sail through it with two large ships and one-hundred twenty-nine men, both factors which contributed to the catastrophic end. Amundsen planned to travel with six men on a small fishing ship. He reached out to Nansen, who approved of the journey and was forthcoming with advice on both expeditionary and financial matters. Not wanting to fall deep into debts to finance the expedition, Amundsen spent his entire inheritance on the trip, most of which went towards the purchase of a small sloop called the Gjøa. When it became clear he could not finance the whole thing himself, he reached out to investors. By the time the expedition was ready to sail in June 1903, he was so indebted that an investor threatened to stop the expedition until a payment was made. Amundsen would not have it, so he readied his crew and sneaked away before the backer could go through with his threat. While Nansen did his best to appease the enraged investors, both Amundsen’s career and financial future now depended on the success of his expedition.

What makes the Northwest passage such an indomitable sea route comes down to two factors. First, the myriads of islands, sounds, and channels that make up the northernmost Canadian shore create a complex labyrinth of waterways. By the time Amundsen’s expedition started the path had been mostly charted (in great part due to the rescue efforts to find John Franklin’s ships), but it was still far from a straightforward route. The second factor which makes it so impassible is the bane of all polar expeditions: pack ice. Ice floes are dangerous in the best of times, but in the Northwest passage, with its limited navigability, they easily transform into an impenetrable death trap. Proof of the difficulty of the path can be seen in the fact that still today, even with much of the pack ice having melted, the passage is still hardly navigable.

The Gjøa’s small and agile hull was able to avoid the traps which had brought so many others to fail. It is a testament to Amundsen’s planning and preparedness that the voyage itself was fairly unremarkable, the adventurers facing few troubles that their captain had not prepared for. The highlight of the trip was their stay on King William Island, where they arrived on October 3rd. The ship could have continued the expedition, finishing the trip in one season, but they chose to stay to collect scientific data. While Amundsen wasn’t scientifically inclined, his friendship with Nansen had greatly increased his interest in the subject, and while he was not suited to its study he persevered in its collection. They stayed on the island for two years, accumulating a treasure trove of scientific information, especially in regard to the earth's magnetic north pole. But the true importance of their stay on the island came a month after they had moored the ship when a group of native Inuits arrived. The two groups made peaceful contact and would stay friendly for the rest of the Gjøa’s stay. Amundsen learned much from the Inuits, from dog sledding to ice fishing and kayaking. He began to use their clothing and some of their tools. When they left the island in 1905 Amundsen was a much more experienced and competent polar explorer, in no small part thanks to his relationship with the local Inuit tribe. On the 17th of August, the Gjøa dropped its anchor on Cape Colbourne, completing the Northwest Passage. The ship had to stop for another winter before it could return home, but during this time Amundsen managed to travel overland to the Canadian town of Eagle where he telegraphed news of his success back home. Alongside the congratulations on his expedition came some unexpected news: Norway had become fully independent and had a new king (up until then Norway and Sweden had been entwined in a personal union). He sent another telegraph to his new king, stating that this was a great achievement for Norway and he hoped he could do more for the fledgling nation in the future.

Scientific Observatory in King William Island.

The crew of the Gjøa celebrating Christmas.

Even before returning to Christiania after his successful voyage through the Northwest Passage, Amundsen had already started thinking about the next expedition. He sold the Gjøa to the Norwegian American community of San Francisco, the little sloop would not do for where he had set his goal next. The crew returned to Christiania in November 1906 and Amundsen started quietly planning his next adventure. A year later he approached Nansen and asked him permission to use the Fram. Technically the ship belonged to the government, as it had financed its construction, but everyone knew who it really belonged to. In the time between Nansen’s Polar expedition and Amundsen’s request the ship had set sail on another voyage, this time led by Nansen’s good friend Otto Sverdrup. Despite its recent usage, it was still in excellent condition. Having given up on dreams of another polar voyage, Nansen granted Amundsen’s request. A year later in 1908, Amundsen declared his intentions to the public: he would finish what Nansen had started years before and conquer the North Pole.

The Fram Returning from it’s Second Expedition.

The announcement was met with enthusiasm by the government and Norwegian people, with the newly appointed King Haakon VII donating a large sum alongside an equally large sum from the Norwegian Parliament. Having learned from past experiences, especially aboard the Belgica, Amundsen chose his crew carefully, going for hardy, practical men over better-educated but less handy candidates. He also knew how important mental fortitude was, as the hardship of the winter in Antarctica and the lives the endless night took with it were not easily forgotten. As the crew came together, the ship was being retrofitted, some of the older pieces of technology were replaced with newer, more effective machinery. While Amundsen did not take any scientists along it did not mean he had no scientific ambitions, but rather he planned on collecting information that would then be analyzed back home. Unlike his previous bumpy experience planning for an expedition, things went smoothly. The first obstacle appeared in 1909, and it was a big one. Two American explorers, his old cremate Fredrick Cook and Robert Peary, made separate claims of having reached the North Pole. This was a blow to Amundsen, who knew well that when it came to Polar exploration what really mattered was being first. Without the prospect of conquering the pole, he knew both public interest and funding would quickly dry up. While both Cook’s and Peary’s claims came under criticism, Peary especially rabid in his discrediting of Cook’s achievement (as if his claims were true Cook would have beaten him to the punch), it wasn’t enough to keep Amundsen’s eyes on the North Pole. Very quietly, speaking about it only to his brother and his first officer, Amundsen began to change his plans. The goal drifted southwards to the other extremity of the globe. The main reason for the secrecy was that another expedition had already set its sights on Antarctica, the British Terra Nova Expedition led by Captain Robert Scott. Amundsen feared that a change of plans would result in the government pulling the plug on the voyage, not wanting to step on the toes of the vast and powerful British Empire.

Potrait of Robert Falcon Scott by Henry Maull and John Fox

Another eminent figure of polar expeditions, Robert Falcon Scott was an officer of the British Royal Navy. Between 1901–1904 he garnered fame in adventurers’ circles and in the public eye by leading the Discovery expedition, the first British Antarctic expedition in half a century. It was a very successful voyage, bringing back plenty of new and exciting scientific findings. It also threw Britain’s hat in the race to the South Pole, which it followed up with a first proper attempt at reaching the southernmost point in 1907 with the Nimrod expedition, led by Ernest Shackleton who had been a member of the crew during the Discovery expedition. Scott, who had his own ambition for the Pole and wasn’t particularly pleased with his old subordinate attempt to claim it for himself (especially since he was using a route first discovered by Scott), began to prepare an expedition just in case the Nimrod make it to his goal. On the 23rd of March 1909, Shackleton reached New Zealand and reported by cable that he reached a latitude of 88° 23' S, less than 100 miles from the South Pole. Pleased that his goal still stood and aware that competing ventures were being planned up, Scott moved quickly, and the expedition departed a year later, leaving Cardiff on the 15th of June 1910.

On the 9th of September of that year, Scott received a cable message he did not expect. Sent by Amundsen, it stated that the Fram’s expedition would be taking a ‘detour’ to the South Pole before continuing with its original plan to sail to the North. The news must have come as a shock since it was well known the Norwegian was sailing north, Scott had even lent him some equipment so they could make some measurements while they were on opposite sides of the earth. The news was not well received. With both men determined to be the first to claim the South Pole, the race was on.

Amundsen’s change of plan was obviously widely panned in England, but it was also not well received back home. Nansen, who Amundsen had written to before announcing his plans to the rest of the world, was one of the few who did not chastise the choice and gave his blessing to the modified venture. All this did not matter to Amundsen, who’d already left his now hostile homeland. What did matter was the support of the crew. He only announced the change once they had reached the Portuguese island of Madera, far away from potential leaks to the news outlets, or worse, the Norwegian government. Luckily, the crew agreed to the new goal.

Now that the cat was out of the bag, all that mattered was getting to the Pole first. The Terra Nova arrived in Antarctica on the 4th of January 1911, setting up camp in McMurdo Sound on a cape Scott had spotted years before with the Discovery expedition. The Fram arrived on the 14th of January, setting up in the Bay of Whales. The area which Amundsen chose had been deemed unsuitable for landing by previous explorers, but after carefully considering their findings the Norwegian had figured out you could in fact land there. On the 3rd of February, the Terra Nova ship was unexpectedly spotted by Amundsen and his crew- the first direct contact between the two adversaries. The ship wasn’t manned by Scott, as he was back at the base preparing the camp, but rather by Victor Campbell, who was leading a scientific expedition east to King Edwards VII Land. According to Campbell’s account, Amundsen was cordial and welcoming, even offering to help the British set up a camp to research the area. Campbell politely declined and rushed back to Scott, informing him of the rival’s locations. Scott’s first impulse was to go down there and ‘have it out’ with the Norwegian but cooler tempers prevailed. If he was going to beat Amundsen he’d do so in the race southwards, not with his fists.

While the destination would be the same, Amundsen's and Scott’s journeys would differ considerably. First, there was the route. Amundsen’s base was closer to the Pole, around sixty miles closer to be precise, making his trip shorter, but as Scott was planning to continue down the same route Shackleton had taken with the Nimrod expedition, he had the advantage of knowing a good part of the route while Amundsen would tread unfamiliar ground. Their mode of transport would also differ: the Norwegians would use sled dogs and skies -the same methodology which Nansen had taken when heading to the North Pole and the one that Amundsen had practiced during his time in northern Canada. Scott instead broke from what had become the traditional approach, bringing motorized sleds (the first of their kind) and ponies alongside the more tried and tested sleds and dogs. Before the expedition, Scott had reached out to Nansen for advice, and he’d told him to bring along ski experts to teach the crew. Scott did bring an expert but the crew did not take to the skiing lessons, and when the proper expedition group departed south, the expert skier, a Norwegian man called Tryggve Gran, was left at the base camp. Both groups relied on depots containing food which were brought along the way on smaller trips before the march southwards, but Amundsen left more depots scattered throughout the trail and took every precaution to make sure they were visible, while Scott left depots less frequently and marked only by a single flag. Both teams completed all their preparatory journeys during the summer and settled in for the long night of winter. In Scott’s camp the men and the officers, which totaled sixty-five men, lived mostly separately, as Scott’s military experience had trained him to. Much of the winter was dedicated to scientific research and the officer even organized lectures on various topics. To the east, at the Fram’s camp, the situation was quite different. There were only nineteen men in their camp and there was no hint of the military structure of the British. Amundsen's experience aboard the Belgica had taught him the importance of keeping busy during the winter, but rather than scientific inquiry the Norwegians concentrated on bettering their equipment. During the winter they adapted the sleds to be better suited for the Antarctic climate, making them lighter. They also worked on boots, cooking equipment, skis, and tents. The cook, an experienced Polar explorer himself, made sure that the meals would be varied and give the travelers all the vitamins they needed. As the winter began to relent, both camps began to ready for their departure.

Stocking Up the Fuel Deposit in Framhaven.

After a false start in September, caused in no small part by Amundsen’s over-eagerness, on the 25th of October, the southern journey finally began. The group that would aim for the pole consisted of five men on four sleds dragged by fifty-two dogs. The explorers were greeted by woeful weather and fog, straying into a field of crevasses and narrowly avoiding a deadly start. They carried on the Ross Ice Shelf, a flat sheet of ice around the size of France and hundreds of meters thick. After the initial hick-up, the group kept to their ideal speed, and by the 17th of November, they had reached the end of the shelf. The next challenge was the Transantarctic Mountains, a treacherous and complex climb. Unlike Scott who was following an established route, Amundsen and his party were the first to attempt this path, adding further uncertainty and danger to the endeavor. He spent a few days searching for a possible route. Climbing up the foothills of the mountain chain, he found a glacier that seemed climbable. It took three days, but the men and their dogs all managed to reach the top, although of the 45 dogs who made it up only 18 would continue, while the rest would be killed and eaten. It was not a pleasant experience as the group had become close to their canine companions, but Amundsen knew that the meat could very well be the difference between life and death. After what he described as a sad and depressing event, the crew marched on, starting the final leg of the journey south. After a tract of unstable icy ground filled with crevasses, which they named the Devil’s Ballroom, on December 8th they crossed the longitude of 88° 23′ - the previous record set by Shackleton. On the 14th of December 1911, at around 3 pm, the explorers reached the South Pole. Amundsen later reflected on the irony of having achieved the diametrically opposite goal to his original one, as he had set out to reach the North Pole, and instead, he had reached the South. To make sure no confusion such as Cook’s and Peary’s in the north would occur, the explorers spent the next three days finding the exact point. When they found it, they made sure to leave enough unmistakable markers so that Scott couldn’t miss them. They set up a partiality-pitched tent, which they referred to as Polheim, leaving some equipment for the British and a letter addressed to King Haakon which he asked Scott to deliver.

Amundsen and his Crew Depart for the South Pole.

On the 25th of January 1912, they reached the Fram. The journey took 99 days, 10 less than they had planned. They loaded the expensive equipment and the remaining dogs on the boat, and after a farewell dinner in the hut they had constructed, the Fram departed from the Bay of Whales on the 30th of October. A five-week journey later, the Norwegians reached the shores of Australia, where telegraphs regarding their achievement were sent back home to his brother, Nansen, the King, and later, to the press. The initial reaction was overwhelmingly positive, with the King of England and Theodore Roosevelt sending their congratulations. Even the British press praised the achievement- if a little reluctantly. The Royal Geographic Society, on the other hand, was still hostile, though a little less openly so. When he addressed the society later that year, the president of the Society denigrated him by cheering for the dogs’ accomplishments rather than the adventurers. Shackleton was one of the few who did not partake in the mockery, claiming that Amundsen was possibly the greatest contemporary explorer. Despite the snub, the world viewed Amundsen and his achievement positively. That changed in February of the next year.

T news first reached Amundsen while he was in America on a long lecture tour across the country. Scott and his men had reached the South Pole on the 17th of January 1912, 35 days after the Norwegians, but had all perished in the journey home. The causes of the tragedy were many: the mechanical sleds had broken down, many of the ponies had died, and they started later (due to the mechanical sleds not handling the cold as well as the dogs) finding terrible weather through their march South. But the issues did not stop there: the depots had been arranged too distant from one another leading to hunger and a lack of resources between each crate, they had left with one man more than they had planned for - increasing the burden on their already scarce supplies. In the final stroke of ill luck, the rescue team turned back just before they reached the distressed men. Like many tragedies of this proportion, it was not a single element that led to it, but a combination of many. The British public was heartbroken by the news, and a new narrative about the polar race began to form: Scott had played fairly, like a true gentleman, and had died, while Amundsen had cheated and was only in it for the glory. When Scott’s writing ‘A Message to the Public’ came out the new line of thought grew stronger. Scott was a martyr, Amundsen a villain. Though the view was not shared by many of his fellow explorers, it followed the Norwegian for the rest of his life. Amundsen would continue on exploring, crossing the Northeast passage while attempting to drift (unsuccessfully) to the North Pole, eventually flying over the pole aboard an airship in 1926. In 1929 another airship, the Italia, crashed while flying over the pole. Umberto Nobile, the captain of the ship, had built and piloted the ship which Amundsen had used while flying over the North Pole. Amundsen joined the search party, flying aboard a Latham 47 seaplane. He never returned home.

His death cemented the end of an already waning heroic age of polar exploration, with both poles having reached and no new lofty goals to be conquered. In time the negative spin on Amundsen’s polar exploit would begin to fade, allowing for his brilliance and perseverance to be fully appreciated. Today the permanent American base on the South Pole honors both the Norwegian explorer and his British Rival with the name Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station.

Photos courtesy of the National Library of Norway.