Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ROALD AMUNDSEN
The Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen played a pivotal role in forging a proud sense of
Norwegian identity in the early 20th century.
Born into a family of shipowners and captains in 1872 at Borge, near Sarpsborg in
southern Norway, Amundsen sailed in 1897 to the Antarctic as first mate on the Belgian
Belgicaexpedition. Their ship froze fast in the ice and became - unintentionally - the first
expedition to overwinter in the Antarctic.
Amundsen then set his sights on the Northwest Passage and the study of the Magnetic
North Pole. The expedition, which set out from Oslo in June 1903, overwintered in a nat-
ural harbour on King William Island, which they named Gjøahavn. By August 1905 they
emerged into waters that had been charted from the west, becoming the first vessel to
navigate the Northwest Passage.
Amundsen dreamed of becoming the first man to reach the North Pole, but in April
1909 Robert Peary took that honour. In 1910 Amundsen headed instead for the South
Pole. In January 1911, Amundsen's ship dropped anchor at Roosevelt Island, 60km closer
to the South Pole than the base of Robert Falcon Scott'sTerra Novaexpedition. With four
companions and four 13-dog sleds, Amundsen reached the South Pole on 14 December
1911, beating Scott by a month and three days.
In 1925 Amundsen launched a failed attempt to fly over the North Pole. He tried again
the following year aboard the airshipNorge,this time with Lincoln Ellsworth, Hjalmar
Riiser-Larsen and Italian explorer Umberto Nobile. They left Spitsbergen on 11 May 1926
and, 16 hours later, dropped the Norwegian, US and Italian flags on the North Pole. On 14
May they landed triumphantly at Teller, Alaska, having flown 5456km in 72 hours - the
first ever flight between Europe and North America.
In May 1928 Nobile attempted another expedition in the airshipItaliaand, when it
crashed in the Arctic, Amundsen joined the rescue. Although Nobile and his crew were
subsequently rescued, Amundsen's last signals were received just three hours after take-
off from somewhere over the Barents Sea. His body has never been found.
The first Allied victory of WWII occurred in late May 1940 in Norway, when a British naval
force retook Narvik and won control over this strategic iron ore port. It fell again to the
Germans on 9 June.
