by Lynne Cox
Dr. Cook was a rare physician. He had already had some polar experience. Cook had accompanied Robert Peary on Peary’s 1891–92 polar expedition in northern Greenland. Peary’s initial objective was to be the first man to reach the North Pole, but during a storm en route to Greenland, Peary’s right leg was snapped just above the ankle by a tiller attached to the rudder when the ship slammed into ice. Cook set the leg and cared for Peary until he could walk again. The expedition members lived through the winter in a hut on McCormick Bay on the west coast of Greenland.
During that time Dr. Cook immersed himself in the lives of Greenlandic Inuit and focused on how they survived in a polar environment. Cook studied their physiology, their specially designed clothes—the anoraks, hooded parkas, and boots they made from fur that kept the Inuit warm in subzero temperatures in winter. He examined the way they designed their sledges, and he observed the way they worked their dog teams to pull the sledges. He also learned the Greenlandic Inuit language, sampled their food, and studied their customs. All of this experience Cook brought to the Belgica expedition.
The Belgica sailed south along the coast of South America from Rio to the Strait of Magellan. The area was relatively unexplored, and de Gerlache slowed the Belgica to enable the scientists to collect flora and fauna, gather species, and make meteorological observations. Cook took the opportunity to observe and care for some of the Ona and Yahgan Indians in the Tierra del Fuego region who lived a traditional life of fishing and hunting. With Dr. Cook, Amundsen attended to a group of very sick children at a mission and saw the effects of disease that had been transmitted by settlers to the region. Amundsen noted: “It will not be long before the Indians will only be a legend here. The evil of civilization has reached them and it won’t stop until the very last one has been wiped out” (Belgica Diary, 61). This experience for Amundsen profoundly affected the way he would think about his own expedition.
The Belgica sailed south across the stormy and rough Drake Passage toward the South Shetland Islands and then across the Bransfield Strait. The ship slowed once it reached the west coast of Graham Land, the dog-tail-shaped Antarctic Peninsula, which was still partially unmapped. De Gerlache and his crew spent time charting the coast. They discovered the Gerlache Channel and passed through it into the Pacific Ocean.
De Gerlache’s original plan had been to have the majority of the crew sail back to South America once the summer research was completed. He planned to stay with a small group of men, including Amundsen, and winter on South Victoria Land, while Georges Lecointe, his second in command, sailed toward Australia and conducted oceanic research. Once he reached southern Australia, Lecointe and the crew would replenish the ship’s provisions. But things did not go as planned. Winter came more quickly than expected. De Gerlache decided to keep the crew together and they sailed south toward Antarctica. One afternoon, Amundsen came out to relieve the commander for the watch and discovered that they were battling a gale. Snow was blowing across the decks, and the visibility was dropping to zero. Icebergs were all around. De Gerlache showed one nearby to Amundsen and explained that all during his watch he had been keeping the Belgica in the lee of the iceberg because it was protecting them from the strong wind and huge swells. The iceberg had kept them from being pushed off course. De Gerlache told Amundsen to continue doing this. Amundsen followed the orders and passed them on to the next man on watch.
In the morning, Amundsen noticed that the ship wasn’t rolling in the swells as it had the night before. He went up to the bridge and discovered that the Belgica was floating in a small bay encircled completely by enormous icebergs.
Unable to see the iceberg in the darkness and the snowstorm, or to use a compass, the sailor hadn’t noticed until morning that the Belgica had been pushed through an opening between two enormous icebergs. Amundsen believed it was a miracle they weren’t heaved by large waves into the icebergs and smashed to pieces. They had escaped death, but the danger had not diminished. They managed to get themselves out and began sailing with the Antarctic sea ice on their westward side.
They were slammed by another gale blowing from the north, and the Belgica was in danger of being smashed into a wall of sea ice and frozen and imprisoned in ice. They were unprepared for the winter, lacking the clothes, equipment, or supplies to sustain the entire crew through an Antarctic winter as they drifted around uncharted polar seas. Years later, reflecting upon his life’s experience, Amundsen wrote:
The instinct of any navigator accustomed to the Polar sea would have been to use every effort to get away to the north and into the open sea. This we could have done. But at this juncture my two superior officers saw an opening in the ice field to the south of us and decided to ride before the storm into the opening. They could not have made a greater mistake. I saw and understood fully the great danger they exposed the whole expedition to, but I was not asked for my opinion, and discipline required me to keep silent. (My Life as an Explorer, 25–26)
Amundsen’s feelings were completely opposite when he was twenty-five. He couldn’t understand why the scientists were afraid, why they didn’t want to push farther south and explore uncharted waters.
De Gerlache and Lecointe discussed their options. They decided they needed to push farther south even if it meant being locked in the ice through the entire winter. They had no way of knowing the toll this decision would take upon them and their crew.
In the deep blackness of the Antarctic winter, the crew slept for up to twenty hours a day, and when they awoke they fought a constant battle with deep depression. Two men went insane. Another died from heart failure. The entire crew came down with scurvy.
They were not getting vitamin C in their diet. Their bodies were unable to synthesize collagen, the main component of cartilage, ligaments, tendons, bones, and teeth. It is important for strengthening the blood vessels and skin. Because of this, the crew got dark purple spots on their bodies, mostly on their legs. Their eyes became sunken into their heads, their noses and gums bled; they had nonstop diarrhea, suffered from depression, and then, when made immobile, they could have died. Cook knew the symptoms of scurvy from his previous expeditions with Robert Peary in the Arctic. Cook had discovered that the reason the Eskimo—which means “people who eat raw meat”—didn’t get scurvy was because the raw meat they ate contained enough vitamin C to prevent it. Cook and Amundsen spent long hours on the ice in bitter cold, hunting for crab-eater and Weddell seals and emperor penguins to feed raw to the crew. Amundsen wrote on July 11, 1898:
The commander, Lecointe and Arctowski are very ill but they are not yet in danger. The penguin the doctor and I caught yesterday was eaten today. I ate my piece raw and it tasted excellent. I ate my piece raw of course in order to get the energy from the meat directly. It also improves the circulation of the blood. Lecointe, who felt very ill this morning, put his papers in order and explained them to me. He looks very ill but according to the doctor he is not yet in danger. His legs and face are swollen. In ten days’ time the sun will return and if we last until then everything will be okay. (Belgica Diary, 118)
Amundsen listened to Dr. Cook, and he remained active, skied when he could, ate the raw meat, and sat by a warm fire on the ship to combat the effects of the darkness and its impact on his psyche.
They worked together, sometimes with another crew member, dragging the heavy wooden sledges miles across the uneven ice and snow, and over hummocks up to twelve feet high, searching for seals and penguins. When they managed to find the animals, and kill them for food and for their fur, they loaded the heavy seals and penguins onto the sledges and then had to drag them back to the ship. They were completely exhausted by their efforts.
But Dr. Cook was in tune with the environment, and he was ingenious. He observed the penguins and noticed that they were highly efficient in the way they slid across the ice on their bellies. Cook came up with the idea of attaching penguin skin to the underside of the sledge runners; these enabled the sledges to glide much more easi
ly across the ice.
De Gerlache was completely repelled at the thought of eating raw meat and ordered the crew not to eat any either. The effects of scurvy took over the crew. They all took to their bunks.
Dr. Cook and Amundsen attended to them, and Amundsen admired Cook all the more; he would one day emulate him. Amundsen wrote,
He [Dr. Cook], of all the ship’s company, was the one man of unfaltering courage, unfailing hope, endless cheerfulness, and unwearied kindness. When anyone was sick, he was at his bedside to comfort him; when anyone was disheartened, he was there to encourage and inspire. (My Life as an Explorer, 30)
Still, in spite of Dr. Cook and Amundsen’s care, the crew, without a change in diet, became weaker. De Gerlache and Lecointe were immobilized in their bunks and made out their wills.
On Sunday, November 13, 1898, de Gerlache called a meeting. Amundsen, as third in command, believed that he would be put in charge of the expedition if something happened to de Gerlache and Lecointe. What Amundsen didn’t know was that de Gerlache had signed a contract with his sponsors, the Geographical Society in Brussels, and, if something happened to him or to Lecointe, a Belgian sailor, the fourth in line to command, would take over.
Amundsen saw this contract for the first time that day. The contract read:
In the event that during the expedition I am no longer the commander of this ship and if Mr. Lecointe is unable to take over command then I will decide who succeeds me. My successor will be selected from among the Belgian officers or members of the scientific staff unless absolutely necessary to deviate from this rule. In the latter case command may be transferred to a seaman from a foreign country. Signed Adrien de Gerlache, Brussels, 19th March 1897. (Belgica Diary, 154–55)
Amundsen was furious. He was the only officer who had not seen or signed the contract. He felt that he had been treated unfairly because he was Norwegian, not Belgian, and that a less qualified Belgian officer would be selected over him if something happened to the commander and Lecointe.
The next morning I asked to talk to the commander. He asked me to wait a few days with what I had to say and I did. Today, Wednesday morning, I went to see him again and this time he received me. I said to him, “I wish to make my plans clear to you in a few words, Commander. Since learning of the contract between yourself and the Geographical Society I consider my position on this ship as no longer existing. For me this is no longer a Belgian Antarctic expedition, the Belgica is an ordinary ship, stuck fast in the ice. It is my duty to help the handful of people here on board. For that reason, commander, I will continue my work as if nothing has happened. I will do my duty as a human being.” (Belgica Diary, 155–56)
De Gerlache apologized for the contract, and
he could not see what I could see but admitted that it had been wrong to sign such a contract.… Finally he said that he saw no way of solving this matter now but later on he would do everything possible. I replied that I entirely agreed with this. Not much can be solved here in the ice pack. (Belgica Diary, 156)
De Gerlache answered Amundsen with a letter and wrote:
I did suggest to you during our interview at Brussels that you take part in the expedition as 2nd officer. You accepted and I believe that since that day I have treated you as second officer. It never occurred to me that the 3rd officer—be he Belgian—would have the right of command of the expedition above a 2nd officer and it is without doubt that this case is one of those that the authors of the contract include under “absolutely necessary.” (Belgica Diary, 158–59)
Amundsen accepted the letter, but the hard feelings did not go away. Despite that, Amundsen, as always, drew something from the situation. This experience would not be repeated on his future expeditions.
Amundsen caught three penguins and assisted Dr. Cook on his rounds attending to the sick captain and the crew. He fed them penguin and seal meat and had them sit half naked by a hot stove for a few hours each day to replace the solar radiation and help them recover from their depressed physical and psychological state.
De Gerlache finally agreed to Dr. Cook’s recommendation of eating raw meat. Amundsen and Dr. Cook gathered the few healthy men together and dug the seal meat out of the snowbanks around the Belgica. They chopped the meat into steaks, and sautéed it lightly in butter, being careful not to overcook it and destroy the vitamin C. They fed the seal steaks to the crew, and de Gerlache and Lecointe ate the meat as well. Their health improved. Their energy came back. The constant oppressive headaches de Gerlache and Lecointe had experienced began to fade, and as sunshine returned, the crew began to dream of sailing north.
Unfortunately, spring was slow in coming to Antarctica in January 1899. The ice did not break, and the temperatures were still below freezing. Faced with a new challenge, Dr. Cook developed the idea of digging the Belgica out. On January 9, 1899, Cook and the crew began to dig two trenches to open a channel for the Belgica to sail out of the ice.
They tried using explosives to burst their way free. The explosive charges weren’t strong enough, so they sawed and chopped their way through the trenches. The channels refroze, and so they returned and continued cutting and breaking the ice day and night. After more than a month’s work, on February 13, Amundsen felt the ship starting to move, and on February 14 the Belgica shed her icy shackles and broke free from where she had been trapped for a long winter. They sailed about one hundred yards and were stopped again by the ice. But the following day the channel reopened, and the Belgica sailed for another month through the ice pack and then north toward South America. The Belgica expedition lasted for thirteen months. It was the first time an expedition had spent an entire winter in Antarctica. The Belgica would sail back to the Strait of Magellan and nearly sink in a gale and almost hit a reef. The scientists returned with a wealth of information about Antarctica, and de Gerlache and his crew charted new lands and seas. Amundsen sailed home aboard a fast passenger ship to work on his next set of challenges to prepare him for his own journey of exploration.
CHAPTER 7
Leaving Norway
Amundsen returned to Norway and completed his skipper’s license. He began coordinating an expedition to the Arctic. He wanted to be the first to sail through the Northwest Passage; his objective was also to study the North Magnetic Pole. The North Magnetic Pole had the greatest influence on navigation in the Arctic regions. Knowing the North Magnetic Pole’s position would allow sailors in any part of the world to get a better fix on their own position.
On June 1, 1831, Sir James Clark Ross, from Britain, had first discovered the North Magnetic Pole on Cape Adelaide on the Boothia Peninsula in Canada in his attempt to find the Northwest Passage. Clark and his crew nearly died of starvation.
Amundsen contacted Fridtjof Nansen, who by then had earned a doctorate and had become a world-renowned scientist. Nansen had done groundbreaking work on neurology and aerodynamics and was considered one of the fathers of oceanography. Wisely, Amundsen asked Nansen for his help, and Nansen not only endorsed Amundsen, but he also made contacts for him. Perhaps this was because Nansen had learned through his own studies and his collaborations with other scientists around the world the need to support others; there was also a strong friendship, a mentorship, between Nansen and Amundsen.
Amundsen needed to learn how to accurately measure the North Magnetic Pole and use new scientific instruments. He contacted the director of the British Observatory at Kew and asked for permission to study there but was refused, so he continued moving forward and contacted the director of the meteorological observatory in Christiania. Amundsen asked the director to introduce him to Geheimrath George von Neumayer, the director of Deutsche Seewarte at Hamburg, one of the most respected men studying magnetism at that time. Amundsen’s chances of meeting Neumayer were slim, and his funding was very limited, but he believed that he had to meet him.
Neumayer agreed to meet, and Amundsen was escorted into his office. He was so nervous that his heart was pounding in his chest. He was
taken by the gentleness in the elderly man’s eyes, and he quickly gave Neumayer his background and explained that he wanted to learn how to make magnetic observations. Neumayer sensed that there was more to the story, and he encouraged Amundsen to explain. When Amundsen told Neumayer that he wanted to find the Northwest Passage and study the location of the North Magnetic Pole, the elderly man stood up and threw his arms around Amundsen and told him that his work would benefit all of mankind.
Neumayer took Amundsen under his wing for the next three months and taught him about the theory and practice of magnetic observation. Neumayer invited him to dine with him, and Amundsen was appreciative of Neumayer’s kindness; he made a point of being at the observatory every day and learning all he could with great enthusiasm. After he completed his studies, Neumayer helped him gain access to the observatories in Wilhelmshaven and Potsdam.
Amundsen returned to Norway, raised money, purchased the Gjøa, the ship he would use in the Northwest Passage attempt, and spent a year training in the waters off Norway and Greenland and collecting data for Dr. Nansen as a way to thank him for his help. Before he set off on the Northwest Passage expedition, he wrote to Nansen and asked him what kind of research he would like Amundsen to do. Nansen was considered a leader in the field of oceanography, and in the early 1900s very little was known about the currents in the Arctic Ocean.
Happily, Fridtjof Nansen gave Amundsen a small black hardback notebook with sixty-five pages of what he thought Amundsen needed to know for the expedition and how he could help Nansen with his research. Nansen drew illustrations that depicted the instruments for water, snow, ice, and plankton sampling as well as the thermometer for taking water temperatures. Nansen gave Amundsen specific directions on the depths to take the measurements and the types of observations Amundsen could make for him, such as measuring currents and ocean ridges. Nansen was especially interested in the currents in the Barents Sea, Murman Sea, and the Gulf Stream and North Cape currents. He had a theory about the currents in the Kara Sea, but he wasn’t sure if they were correct, and he was also very interested in the currents in the sea around Spitsbergen.
