Everything about Roald Amundsen totally explained
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (
July 16,
1872 –
c. June 18,
1928) was a
Norwegian explorer of
polar regions. He led the first
Antarctic expedition to the
South Pole between 1910 and 1912. He was also the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is known as the first to traverse the
Northwest Passage. He disappeared in June 1928 while taking part in a
rescue mission. With
Douglas Mawson,
Robert Falcon Scott, and
Ernest Shackleton, Amundsen was a key expedition leader during the
Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Early life
Amundsen was born to a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in
Borge, between the towns
Fredrikstad and
Sarpsborg. His father was
Jens Amundsen. The fourth son in the family, his mother chose to keep him out of the maritime industry of the family and pressured him to a
doctor, a promise that Amundsen kept until his mother died when he was aged 21, quitting university for a life at sea. Amundsen had hidden a lifelong desire inspired by
Fridtjof Nansen's crossing of
Greenland in 1888 and the doomed
Franklin expedition. As a result, he decided on a life of exploration.
Polar treks
Belgian Antarctic Expedition 1897–99
He was a member of the
Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897–99) as second mate. This expedition was led by
Adrien de Gerlache, using the ship the
Belgica, became the first expedition to
winter in
Antarctica. The
Belgica, whether by mistake or design, became locked in the sea ice at 70°30'S off Alexander Land, west of the Antarctic Peninsula. The crew then endured a winter for which the expedition was poorly prepared. By Amundsen's own estimation, the doctor for the expedition,
American Frederick Cook, probably saved the crew from
scurvy by hunting for animals and feeding the crew fresh meat, an important lesson for Amundsen's future expeditions.
Northwest Passage
In 1903, Amundsen led the first expedition to successfully traverse the
Northwest Passage between the
Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans (something explorers had been attempting since the days of
Christopher Columbus,
John Cabot,
Jacques Cartier, and
Henry Hudson), with six others in a 47 ton steel seal hunting vessel,
Gjøa. Amundsen had the ship outfitted with a small, gas engine. They travelled via
Baffin Bay,
Lancaster and
Peel Sounds, and
James Ross and
Rae Straits and spent two winters near
King William Island in what is today
Gjoa Haven,
Nunavut,
Canada. At sea, Amundsen alerted his men that they'd be heading to Antarctica in addition to sending a telegram to Scott notifying him simply:
"BEG TO INFORM YOU FRAM PROCEEDING ANTARCTIC--AMUNDSEN." The expedition arrived at the eastern edge of
Ross Ice Shelf at a large inlet called the
Bay of Whales on
January 14 1911 where Amundsen located his base camp and named it
Framheim. Further, Admundsen eschewed the heavy
wool clothing worn on earlier Antarctic attempts in favour of
Eskimo-style skins.
Using skis and dog sleds for transportation Amundsen and his men created supply depots at 80°, 81° and 82° South, along a line directly south to the Pole.
Amundsen also planned to kill some of his dogs on the way and use them as a source for fresh meat. After a premature attempt to set out on
8 September,
1911 the Pole team consisting of
Olav Bjaaland,
Helmer Hanssen,
Sverre Hassel,
Oscar Wisting and Amundsen himself departed on
19 October,
1911. They took four sledges and 52 dogs. Using a route along the previously unknown
Axel Heiberg Glacier they arrived at the edge of the Polar Plateau on
November 21 after a four-day climb. On
14 December 1911, the team of five, with 16 dogs, arrived at the Pole (90°00'S). They arrived 35 days before
Scott's group. Amundsen named their South Pole camp
Polheim, "Home on the Pole". Amundsen renamed the
Antarctic Plateau as
King Haakon VII's Plateau. They left a small tent and letter stating their accomplishment, in case they didn't return safely to Framheim. The team returned to Framheim on
January 25,
1912 with 11 dogs. Amundsen's success was publicly announced on
7 March,
1912, when he arrived at Hobart, Australia.
Amundsen's expedition benefited from careful preparation, good equipment, appropriate clothing, a simple primary task (Amundsen did no surveying on his route south and is known to have taken only two photographs), an understanding of dogs and their handling, and the effective use of skis. In contrast to the misfortunes of Scott's team, the Amundsen's trek proved rather smooth and uneventful.
In Amundsen's own words:
» "I may say that this is the greatest factor -- the way in which the expedition is equipped -- the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order -- luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck."
:::--from
The South Pole, by Roald Amundsen.http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Nlc_amundsen.jpg
Later life
In
1918 Amundsen began an expedition with a new ship
Maud, which was to last until 1925.
Maud sailed West to East through the
Northeast Passage, now called the
Northern Route (1918-1920). Amundsen planned to freeze the
Maud into the polar ice cap and drift towards the North Pole (as Nansen had done with the
Fram), but in this he wasn't successful. However, the scientific results of the expedition, mainly the work of
Harald Sverdrup, were of considerable value.
In
1925, accompanied by
Lincoln Ellsworth, pilot
Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen and three other team members, Amundsen took two
aircraft, the N-24 and N-25 to 87° 44' north. It was the northernmost latitude reached by plane up to that time. The planes landed a few miles apart without radio contact, yet the crews managed to reunite. One of the aircraft, the N-24 was damaged. Amundsen and his crew worked for over three weeks to clean up an airstrip to take off from ice. They shovelled 600 tons of ice on 1 lb (400 g) of daily food rations. In the end six crew members were packed into the N-25. In a remarkable feat, Riiser-Larsen took off and barely became airborne over the cracking ice. They returned triumphant when everyone thought they'd been lost for ever.
In
1926, Amundsen, Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen, Wisting and Italian aeronautical engineer
Umberto Nobile made the first crossing of the Arctic in the airship
Norge designed by Nobile. They left
Spitsbergen on
May 11,
1926 and landed in
Alaska two days later. The three previous claims to have arrived at the North Pole – by
Frederick Cook in
1908,
Robert Peary in
1909, and
Richard E. Byrd in
1926 (just a few days before the
Norge) – are all disputed, as being either of dubious accuracy or outright fraud. Some of those disputing these earlier claims therefore consider the crew of the
Norge to be the first verified explorers to have reached the North Pole. If the
Norge expedition was actually the first to the North Pole, Amundsen and Wisting would therefore be the first persons to attain each geographical pole.
Disappearance and death
Amundsen
disappeared on
June 18,
1928 while flying on a
rescue mission with Norwegian pilot Leif Dietrichson, French pilot Rene Guilbaud, and three more Frenchmen, looking for missing members of
Nobile's crew, whose new airship the
Italia had crashed while returning from the North Pole. Afterwards, a
pontoon from the French
Latham 47 flying-boat he was in, improvised into a life raft, was found near the
Tromsø coast. It is believed that the plane crashed in fog in the
Barents Sea, and that Amundsen was killed in the crash, or died shortly afterwards. His body was never found. The search for Amundsen was called off in September by the Norwegian Government. In
2003 it was suggested that the plane went down northwest of
Bjørnøya (Bear Island).
Legacy==
A number of places have been named after him:
The following ships are named after him:
The Canadian Coast Guard named an icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, whose mission is to perform scientific research in the waters of the Arctic.
The Norwegian Navy is building a class of Aegis frigates, the second of which, is the HNoMS Roald Amundsen (completed 2006).
The German brig Roald Amundsen.
Other tributes include:
Writer Roald Dahl was named after Amundsen.
Nobel Laureate, Chemist and Poet Roald Hoffmann was named after Amundsen.
The Amundsen Trail, Staten Island, New York
Amundsen High School, Chicago, IllinoisFurther Information
Get more info on 'Roald Amundsen'.
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