Roald Amundsen in his garden at Bundefjord with his dog, Rex, before his south-polar expedition. Fram, borrowed from the Norwegian state, is anchored in the background. Photograph by Anders Wilse, 1910.
Fram, 1910–1912
Neither Scott nor Shackleton came from a ‘cold-climate’ background, which was a disadvantage on both a personal and technical level. More insidious was the varying degree to which they took the superiority of established British naval methods for granted, superficially absorbing foreign equipment improvements but not the underlying advances in approach. Their insular aversion to using sledge dogs was a prime example, compounded by the error of substituting ponies without well-proved reason. Shackleton at least learned that these were mistakes, though only fully so after Amundsen’s success: Scott repeated them and paid a heavy price. It is ironic, however, that he and Shackleton – not Amundsen – saw that the future lay with motorised transport, ineffective as their pioneering attempts to use it were.
As a Norwegian, Amundsen came from a different tradition and a country that in around 1900 had a population of under two million – one tenth of Britain’s. Here, individualistic merchant seafaring and whaling, untainted by British social contempt for ‘trade’, were a dominant commercial expression of a sub-arctic climate and a circumscribed, clannish, non-industrial and certainly non-imperial society. No less patriotic than Scott or Shackleton, Amundsen had a very different and modern example before him. This was Dr Fridtjof Nansen, who had shown how someone from such a culture might become a figure of world repute through Arctic discovery and thereby enhance the prestige of their small nation. From the beginning, Amundsen made this his goal, by becoming a professional polar explorer in a way that Scott, Shackleton and most of their forebears were not. His success lay in methodical analysis and adoption of relevant experience and skills from whatever source, meticulous planning, and a reliance on hand-picked small teams rather than large, heterogeneous and heavily resourced parties.
Roald Amundsen was born on 16 July 1872 near Christiania, which became Norway’s capital, Oslo, after her independence from Sweden in 1905. He grew up on the forested edge of the city but spent much of his childhood alongside his cousins on their adjoining country homes near the port of Sarpsborg. His father and uncles were shipowners and masters there, though his father died when he was 14, in 1886. The following year he was enthralled by Sir John Franklin’s accounts of his overland expeditions of 1819–1822 in the North American Arctic, and in 1888 was even more inspired by the Norwegian first crossing of the Greenland ice cap. This was led by Nansen, a marine biologist and already an explorer of note, and laid the foundations of Norway’s success in polar discovery, using a small, lightly equipped and fast-moving party, on skis and with much improved sledges of Nansen’s design. Scott took Nansen sledges on both the Discovery and Terra Nova expeditions. Thereafter, Amundsen devoted himself to the energetic improvement of his own skiing, including arduous and later risky treks in Norway.
Dr Fridtjof Nansen at Cape Flora, Franz Josef archipelago, having attained a furthest point north, June 1896. Nansen was a much-consulted authority on polar expeditions by both Amundsen and Scott. Photograph by Frederick Jackson.
Like Shackleton, he was a poor scholar but on matriculation in 1890 he followed his mother’s wishes and began to train as a doctor. Exploration, however, strengthened its hold on his interests. In February 1893 he attended a lecture by Eivind Astrup, who had been with the indefatigable American Robert Peary on his second Greenland expedition in 1891–1892, and who recounted their experience of learning polar techniques from Inuit, especially driving sledge dogs and building igloos. The use of dogs was itself then barely known in Norway and the idea that ‘primitives’ like Inuit might have something to teach Europeans was also novel. Amundsen, however, had an open and retentive mind and a great capacity to grasp and build on essentials.
Amundsen regretted the deliberate killing of his dogs, even though they were key to his success: ‘It was my only dark memory from down there, that my lovely animals were destroyed.’
His future crystallised that year. Early in June he failed his exams, just before seeing Nansen in his new ship Fram (‘Forward’) sail on his greatest expedition to drift with the pack ice across the Arctic Ocean and make an epic sledge assault on the North Pole. Soon afterwards, in September 1893, Amundsen lost his mother. They had not been close and, with a useful inheritance, he abandoned medicine to pursue his own direction. He immediately attempted to join a Norwegian expedition to Spitsbergen and made enquiries about the British one under Jackson to Franz Josef Land. The latter was to be Nansen’s fortuitous salvation when he miraculously emerged on foot in Franz Josef Land in 1896, being fortunate in finding the Jackson-Harmsworth party there. The Fram reappeared independently and equally unscathed in Norway a week after him.
Amundsen’s applications came to nothing but showed that he recognised the essential requirements. Over the next few years he became both an experienced mountain skier and a seaman, through embarking on a series of voyages on sealers. In 1895 he gained his mate’s certificate and the following year volunteered to be an unpaid second mate on de Gerlache’s private Belgian Antarctic expedition in the Belgica. This sailed in June 1897 and, after its long imprisonment in the southern ice, returned in 1899. It was a voyage on which Amundsen learnt a great deal about the behaviour of men under prolonged stress, and (at second-hand) more about Greenland Inuit practice. The voyage’s American doctor, Frederick Cook, had been with Peary in Greenland. He and Amundsen found common interests in perfecting equipment and techniques, while others (including de Gerlache) became depressed and in some cases insane under the constant threat that the ship, an old sealer, would be crushed beneath them. Cook was also a believer in the power of fresh meat to ward off scurvy – a point proved when one man died from the disease after refusing to eat seal or penguin.
A Norwegian ensign, possibly from the Fram, flown at the South Pole. Symbolically, for a newly independent country, it was an important statement to the world.
On returning home, Amundsen went back to sea to earn a master’s certificate and in 1900 bought the 47-ton sloop Gjøa, with which he made a sealing voyage to the Barents Sea to gain experience in polar navigation. He had then already formed a plan to be the first man to sail completely through the North-West Passage and re-establish the shifting position of the North Magnetic Pole, having also learned that a scientific rationale was the only way to gain financial backing for exploration. In fact, for technical reasons, he missed the Magnetic Pole by some 48km (30 miles). However, the transit of the Passage with a party of six in the Gjøa, which took from 1903 to 1906, was otherwise a triumphant success. In particular, he established good relations with the Inuit and gained a huge amount of knowledge from them about everything polar, from the virtues of native fur clothing to the building of igloos and the driving of sledge dogs. In this, one of his seaman companions, Helmer Hanssen, became an expert. The long voyage also established him as a successful leader and a figure to be reckoned with internationally in the polar field.
The sledge compass used by Amundsen to reach the South Pole. His team spent two days taking position measurements to ensure there was no dispute of their success.
In February 1907 Amundsen was at the Royal Geographical Society in London with Nansen, as Norway’s resident minister there, to lecture on the Gjøa voyage. Shackleton was also present on his own business. He had just secured Beardmore’s backing for the Nimrod voyage, which was announced the next day, and was about to find out that Scott was already thinking of a new Antarctic voyage.
Amundsen himself had also come to London to ask Nansen for the loan of Fram for a new expedition. Peary had so far failed to reach the North Pole on several land-based attempts. Amundsen’s aim now, starting in 1910, was to pass through the Bering Strait from San Francisco and drift for four or five years with the ice as Nansen had done, with the aim of being the first there. Nansen eventually agreed and,
though fundraising proved a major difficulty, all was progressing when in early September 1909 news broke that both Cook – Amundsen’s old shipmate – and then Peary (on his sixth attempt) had independently achieved the North Pole. The former claimed to have done so in April 1908, the latter on 6 April 1909. Peary immediately challenged Cook’s claim, which was later discounted, though his own has also been doubted.
For Amundsen, however, it did not matter. He would not be the first and that left only one course. By the time Scott’s proposal for what would be his last expedition was announced in The Times on 13 September 1909, Amundsen had already visited Copenhagen, ostensibly to meet Cook, but also to order sufficient dogs and Inuit furs there from northern Greenland, with the South Pole now his prime objective. Given that all his backing – including the Norwegian government – was for a northern voyage, he told no one of his change of plan, including those who sailed with him, until it was unavoidable. When he finally announced his intentions from Madeira, Fram’s last port of call before the Ross Sea, he also explained the change as an addition rather than an alternative to his northern project. Fram had to sail round Cape Horn to Alaska and his South Polar assault was to be a diversion on the way. As for Scott, when he had visited Norway in March 1910 and sought a meeting, Amundsen deliberately avoided him and they never met in person.
Inspired by his time living with the Inuit during the Gjøa North-West Passage expedition, 1903–1906, Amundsen used wolf-fur jackets and trousers in the Antarctic. They suited his use of skis and dog-drawn sledges.
Amundsen sailed in Fram on 9 August 1910 from Kristiansand, after an extensive Atlantic work-up cruise, with 97 top-class Inuit dogs and two expert Norwegian drivers among his crew, one being Hanssen. Every detail of his programme, equipment and supplies had been minutely prepared for the expected conditions and nearly all his men were individually recruited for their relevant skills and ability to operate as a team under his unquestioned leadership. His intention was to set up a base where he and nine men could winter, on the Barrier in Shackleton’s Bay of Whales, sending Fram away on an oceanographic cruise based on Buenos Aires. Most would then make a rapid, depot-based dog and ski march to the Pole at the end of 1911. All would be collected again early in 1912 to head for the Arctic. Unsurprisingly perhaps, Amundsen first delayed and then never did fulfil his original northern plan.
Leon Amundsen’s telegraph informing Scott of the decision to turn south for Antarctica. It was met with dismay by many, and was described as ‘the greatest geographical impertinence ever committed’ by Scott’s geologist, Raymond Priestley.
The first Scott was to hear of this was on 13 October 1910 in Melbourne, where his new expedition had just arrived. Amundsen had overestimated the interest the British press would show in his change of direction: it passed little noticed as too incredible to be taken seriously. Consequently, nothing had been reported in Australia to explain the cryptic telegram Scott received there from Amundsen’s brother, Leon: ‘Beg leave to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic. Amundsen.’ The Norwegians had started their voyage two months after Scott but that was Scott’s sole advantage.
Terra Nova, 1910–12
Scott’s return from the south in September 1904 saw his advancement both to Captain and Companion of the Royal Victorian Order. His publication of The Voyage of the ‘Discovery’ in 1905 was also a literary and financial success, although criticism of the expedition’s home organisation and of the scientific results cast a lingering shadow. Overall, the expedition established him as a public figure, but its achievements were modest and, taken with his lack of charisma, did not ignite the popular enthusiasm that later greeted Shackleton.
In an era of rapid naval advance, with prospects of war already visible, Scott’s long absence had also put him behind-hand as a conventional sea officer. He was nevertheless given some promising short-term battleship commands and, though one involved a minor collision for which he was cleared of blame, was making favourable progress by the time he took up a staff job under the Second Sea Lord in 1909.
By 1906, however, he was again contemplating the lure of Antarctic achievement; hence his exaction of Shackleton’s promise not to stray on to what he considered ‘his’ territory – the South Victoria Land side of the Ross Sea. He wisely said nothing to the Navy but gained the private help of Lieutenant Michael Barne from Discovery, whose own proposal for a Weddell Sea party had just withered under the disapproval of the First Sea Lord, Admiral Fisher. Lieutenant ‘Teddy’ Evans also volunteered to join him again and he recruited his Discovery engineer, Commander Skelton, who put in a huge amount of work to develop a tracked motor-sledge unit. It was on this idea of Skelton’s, aired on Discovery and for which Barne helped obtain backing, that Scott now pinned his hopes of reaching the Pole. The rationale was to be technical as well as scientific.
Ponting recalled: ‘The Terra Nova imprisoned in the ice, with her canvas hanging idly, or clewed-up in picturesque folds, formed a striking picture.’ Photograph by Herbert Ponting, December 1910.
Scott’s silk sledging flag embroidered with his family crest of a stag’s head and the motto: ‘Ready Aye Ready’ was flown at the South Pole on 18 January 1912.
Markham was still influential, though no longer in power at the RGS, and Scott’s other major ally was his new wife, Kathleen Bruce. She was a talented sculptress with emancipated views and a bohemian lifestyle, whom he met in early 1906 through his sister, Ettie Ellison-Macartney. Kathleen was more worldly and outwardly confident than Scott, whom she nonetheless came to regard as the hero she sought to be the father of her son and whose success became her mission: he in turn idolised her and found in her a confidante for all his uncertainties. She was handsome, charismatic and well-connected, including among senior naval men. They married on 2 September 1908 and were soon expecting their only son, Peter, born on 14 September 1909. Between these events, Scott’s last staff appointment was obtained partly through his wife’s intervention and he took it up on 24 March. This was the same day he heard that Shackleton had reached within 160km (100 miles) of the South Pole – dishonourably in Scott’s view, since he had broken his promise not to use McMurdo Sound.
In September 1909, with Shackleton’s success boosting British interest, came the news of Cook and Peary’s claims to have reached the North Pole. German and Japanese expeditions south were also in prospect and on 13th – almost exactly when Amundsen suddenly switched his route – Scott announced he would head south in 1910. ‘The main object of the expedition,’ he wrote, ‘is to reach the South Pole and secure for the British Empire the honour of this achievement.’ Shackleton’s own immediate plans to return came to nothing but he assured Scott there would be no clash of interests.
It is sad we have been forestalled by the Norwegians, but I am glad that we have done it by good British manhaulage. That is the traditional British sledging method…
Henry Bowers, at the Pole, 17 January 1912
Scott’s preparations this time combined aspects of both the Discovery and Nimrod voyages. Again there was a naval backbone but he had to raise the funding himself, which eventually amounted to around £50,000. Shortening his deadline to fit the southern seasons from August to 1 June 1910 gave him nine months rather than Shackleton’s seven.
The ponies, seen here with Captain Oates on board Terra Nova, were a vital part of the plan to reach the South Pole. Despite proving inadequate, they exceeded expectations. Photograph by Herbert Ponting, December 1910.
It was a formidable task as the final money was only raised in Australia and New Zealand, but there was patriotic support at home from sponsors, who gave supplies and equipment, contributions from schools for dogs and ponies, and a £20,000 grant from the government.
Discovery was unavailable, now being a Hudson’s Bay Company ship. Scott instead chose the old Terra Nova, the 700-ton Scottish steam-auxiliary built in 1884, which the Admiralty had resold for whaling. Scott bought her back in a run-down state and Evans did wonders conve
rting her but the conditions on board were to be as crowded, overloaded, unpleasant and dangerous as on Nimrod. She nearly foundered in a Southern Ocean storm before reaching McMurdo Sound due to failure to renew her emergency pump and the fact that, after New Zealand, there was no engineer officer on board. Because Skelton now outranked him, albeit as a specialist engineer, Evans did not want him included. Scott therefore had to choose, and ditched Skelton. Considering he was carrying the motor-traction units the latter had built, this turned out to be unfortunate.
Wilson, Scott’s indispensable spiritual support, had long agreed to come as artist and head of the strong scientific team, which included Raymond Priestley, the geologist from Nimrod, who was picked up in New Zealand. Other Discovery hands included Crean, Lashly, and the burly Welsh Petty Officer Edgar Evans. Scott was also besieged by some 8,000 volunteers of all sorts. Markham played a hand in his agreement to take the Royal Indian Marine lieutenant Henry Bowers, known as ‘Birdie’ for his aquiline features. Money also talked: the well-off but unpretentiously spartan cavalryman, Captain Lawrence Oates of the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons, had been badly wounded in the Boer War and, bored with peacetime service, he volunteered, offering £1,000 for a place. Scott, failing to learn from Shackleton’s experience, intended to take Manchurian ponies. Since Oates knew a great deal about horses he got his place, but what Scott then failed to do was to send Oates to buy them. This was left to Cecil Meares, a rather mysterious Russian expert, reputedly with spying connections, and the only experienced British dog driver to be taken. Nansen had prevailed on Scott to include some dogs, despite his lack of faith in them, and Meares made an epic journey of his own to Siberia to buy 33 good ones – a third of the number taken by Amundsen. He was almost casually told to pick up some ponies as well, though he knew nothing about them. Oates immediately saw that the 20 specimens he shipped 8,000 miles from Mukden to New Zealand were mostly overpriced ‘crocks’, and one died en route.
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