Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
147
looked out over the Barrier, during our ascent. We now have suYcient indications to
enable us without hesitation to draw this land as continuous—Carmen Land.
Upon later consideration, Amundsen waZed on the reality of his sighting of land
on January 18. He reaYrmed his earlier observations of the mountain front arcing to the
northeast between 86° and 84° S, but restricted the name Carmen Land to that segment.
On Amundsen's published map, the sighting of the 18th is recorded as “Appearance of
Land.” Carmen Land is shown as a straight line of mountains trending northeast from
Mount Alice Wedel-Jarlsberg, although for some reason the name was not included on
this map (see Fig. 5.7). Subsequent maps of the period, however, did chart Carmen Land
(Fig. 5.8).
The party made it back to Framheim at 4:00 A.M. on January 25, having been gone
ninety-nine days and covered 1,860 miles. Creeping into the bunk room, they startled
their sleeping mates, who rose with warm congratulations, put on the coVee pot, and
whipped up a heaping stack of hotcakes. Fram had arrived on January 8, but weather
had forced her out into the Ross Sea. The day after the polar party returned, she sailed
back into the Bay of Whales, bringing the best possible news that the king had supported
Amundsen's change of plans and Fridtjof Nansen had concurred. Five days were all it
took to complete the packing of the Fram, and the expedition set sail for Hobart.
Although Amundsen returned to a hero's welcome in Norway, once the word of
Scott's tragedy reached the outside world, Amundsen's success was vilified by many in
Britain. He somehow had broken the rules of fair play. He had heartlessly killed his dogs.
He had been extremely lucky to find such a narrow passage through the mountains. He
had not undertaken any scientific investigations. He was less noble.
Of course, the rules of fair play when it came to planting the flag had always accorded
propriety to the one who gets there first. The British had been very good at planting flags
for centuries. The superiority of dogs for polar traversing was proven resoundingly, and
the key to the success was that the teams were driven by men of the north country, who
had been on skis since the time they could walk, and had years of experience handling
dogs. That the dogs were killed was calculated and impassive, but Amundsen's soft side
can be seen in his assigning the killing to the others in the party, and in his book South
Pole, when on numerous occasions he speaks of his admiration for the dogs.
To say that Amundsen was lucky to find the Axel Heiberg Glacier is true, but this un-
dercuts what is perhaps the most spectacular accomplishment in the annals of Antarctic
mountaineering. Finding the route through the Axel Heiberg icefalls and maneuvering
the dog teams through the maze were bold and required the utmost skill.
If one wants to argue that the lack of scientific investigation was a shortcoming of the
expedition, it may also be said that science was not part of the plan. The original proposal
of sailing the Fram into the Arctic Sea was for the purpose of oceanographic investiga-
tion, and the Fram did in fact conduct oceanographic measurements on its cruise back to
Buenos Aires in 1912. But the twenty-odd rock specimens that were returned were a pal-
try sampling of the new lands the Norwegians had discovered.
Moreover, the map that Amundsen produced was a sorry representation of the coun-
try he had surveyed (see Fig. 5.7). To be sure, the discovery that the Transantarctic Moun-
