1912 (16 page)

The changing face of the Bay of Whales (1902–1912). Map inspired by a lantern slide used in Edgeworth David's 1914 Royal Geographical Society lecture ‘Antarctica and some of its problems' (
LS
/333).

Roald Amundsen and the Norwegian Bid for the South Pole, 1910–1912

Nobody except a demented scientist would want to melt ice on the tops of mountains, and even if he did, who cared what the temperature was?

W
ILLIAM
E
RNEST
B
OWMAN
(1911–1985)

In the lead-up to 1912 Roald Amundsen was already something of a household name. Born in 1872, the Norwegian was obsessed with polar travel from an early age. Reading stories of the doomed Franklin expedition, and later inspired by Fridtjof Nansen's crossing of Greenland in 1888, he was keen to emulate his heroes. But Amundsen, born into a family of shipowners, was devoted to his mother, who from all accounts had a strong personality and was intent on her fourth son becoming a doctor. Amundsen's heart wasn't in it, but he dutifully enrolled at university as a medical student. Barely attending lectures, he received terrible grades and it looked likely he would be asked to leave, when his mother unexpectedly died. At twenty-one Amundsen was suddenly able to escape his obligations, and he promptly went off to sea.

The Norwegian soon had the opportunity to develop as a polar explorer, becoming first mate on the
Belgica
expedition of
1897 to 1899. Under de Gerlache, Amundsen gained valuable leadership skills during the long Antarctic winter dark. It was a turning point. Amundsen's efforts were subsequently highly praised and his standing soared, allowing him to attempt what his hero Franklin had failed to achieve: to find the Northwest Passage.

Busily raising money from numerous sources, Amundsen was aware that a new route was not in itself enough to open the wallets of the wealthy. He needed scientific credibility and support to give the trip cachet. Just as Shackleton had realised that scientific results would help justify his travels, Amundsen worked hard to get recognition from learned societies. No one had reached the North Magnetic Pole since Ross, seven decades before. Had it remained in the same location or moved, as many supposed? Here was a hook to justify the jaunt. Funding continued to prove difficult to source, but there was enough interest for Amundsen to muster a team and start gathering supplies for a two-year trip.

Careers and lives had been lost in the quest for the Northwest Passage. It was a formidable task for any explorer. Most had tried using large ice-breakers to punch a path through the sea ice. Amundsen had neither the resources nor the enthusiasm for such an approach, and instead settled on a different strategy.

Outside the impressive Fram Museum in Oslo, in a dry dock, sits a low, narrow wooden trawler. The
Gjøa
is one of the world's great exploration vessels—but it is largely ignored by visitors today, who walk by to the viewpoint of the local fjord. Amundsen, however, saw this doughty ship offered an alternative method to those tried before. It was capable of taking seven men and enough supplies to survive at least one winter in the ice. More importantly, the
Gjøa
could hug the coast and work through the shallows: crucial for finding a way through the sea ice.

He consulted widely with scientific groups and individuals: Nansen wrote an exhaustive book of instructions on
what measurements to make at sea and why, which Amundsen diligently studied; for guidance on magnetism and navigational equipment Amundsen travelled to Hamburg and spent time with the great German scientist Georg von Neumayer. Amundsen was not above asking fellow adventurers for advice, either, writing to Frederick George Jackson about the Burberry waterproof linen he had used in the Arctic.

Funding remained tight. So much so that, his boat stocked with supplies and scientific equipment, Amundsen left Europe in 1903 with creditors chasing him to the quayside. No one was to hear from him for three years.

Setting off towards Baffin Bay, the ship made the long journey past the myriad islands that straddle the Canadian Arctic. Taking advantage of the shallows, the
Gjøa
pushed on until it could go no further, then spent the winter months locked in sea ice. The time was not wasted: on 26 April 1904 Amundsen became the first to reach the position of Ross's North Magnetic Pole, and found it had indeed moved. The scientific community would later scramble to understand these new findings—but for now they remained unknown. Cut off from the rest of the world, Amundsen would not finish the journey that so many others had failed to complete until 1906.

When news broke of his success in negotiating the Northwest Passage, Amundsen stepped onto the international stage. At only thirty-four he had ploughed the first new route into the Pacific since Magellan and Drake worked their way around the opposite end of the Americas. Yet the trip had not been as lucrative as he hoped. An American military officer had intercepted Amundsen's telegram to Nansen reporting his success. The American had enthusiastically let the rest of the world know before the exclusive could be delivered to newspapers willing to pay for it; and, once the cat was out of the bag, editors were not interested in paying for old news. Amundsen had also hoped to
claim the British government prize of £20,000 offered in 1745 to discover a sea route for the Northwest Passage. Nansen made enquires but found it had been awarded to those searching for Franklin. Amundsen felt cheated but learned a valuable lesson: secrecy was the key to future success.

The Royal Geographic Society remained enthusiastic about Amundsen's success. Its secretary, Scott Keltie, wrote to Amundsen and suggested that if ‘things are properly managed you ought to make a considerable sum' from articles, lectures and a book on his journey. Keltie proposed bringing the
Gjøa
up the River Thames to London—which, after Amundsen ‘practically circumnavigating America…would produce a very great effect upon the British public'. The Norwegian was impatient to get back and rejected the advice, travelling straight to Europe and leaving the
Gjøa
to make its way home under another captain.

On his return Amundsen began planning his next sojourn into polar waters, a scientific exploration of the Arctic. He was to follow in Nansen's footsteps and finish what the great man had started: to drift across the Arctic in the
Fram
and claim the North Geographic Pole. Complementing the ship's crew, an expedition team of nine men was brought together. Included was Hjalmar Johansen, who had made the attempt on the North Pole with Nansen. On getting home, Johansen had struggled as a captain in the army and as a family man, regularly finding solace in alcohol. On 24 November 1908 he applied to join Amundsen on his venture. Nansen strongly supported his application and the deal was done, though Johansen was not Amundsen's first choice.

Two months later Amundsen made a pilgrimage to the RGS and received its blessing for the trip. When challenged, he agreed the sole objective of reaching furthest north had in the past led to
an unnecessary waste of money and life. Publicly, the main object of the expedition would be a scientific study of the polar ocean.

And yet it was implicitly understood that capturing a pole was popular and financially lucrative. Amundsen was not a scientist, though he understood the value of science in making expeditions happen. The RGS secretary was very supportive. On 28 July 1909 Keltie wrote to Leon Amundsen—Roald's brother, who was managing the expedition—and encouraged him to negotiate with the British papers. The
Daily Mail
and
The Times
, in particular, would be ‘disposed to give a very handsome price should your brother actually get to the Pole'.

But the events of September 1909 changed all this. With the news that Cook and Peary were claiming the same goal, Amundsen was in a conundrum. He had secured money for an attempt on the north, but the pole had apparently been taken and his backers were getting antsy. On 9 October Keltie commented that it would be hard to get ‘any very big price' after the ‘Peary–Cook business'. In spite of this, Amundsen wrote to his friend Cook in early September, congratulating him on his success but informing him he was not able to join the American's European tour of triumph. He needed time to think.

After Peary's announcement on 7 September, Amundsen assiduously avoided sending the new claimant a letter of compliment. ‘Peary's behaviour fills me with the deepest anger and I want to proclaim publicly that Dr Cook is the most reliable Arctic traveller I know and it is simply unreasonable to doubt him and believe Peary,' he recorded. Amundsen caught the next train to Copenhagen, to see Cook. With one claim he might have been able to justify a trip north, at least on scientific grounds; but with two, Amundsen needed advice. And who better to offer it than his old confidant?

Precisely when Roald Amundsen changed his mind about heading north is unclear. Years later Cook wrote in his controversial memoirs that he had suggested Amundsen go for the South Geographic Pole when the two met in Copenhagen. Amundsen was more circumspect, but there is no doubt something happened in Denmark to change the Norwegian's mind. There was a flurry of letters to expedition members after Amundsen met Cook, informing them that the expedition would not depart until July the following year. No specific reason was given.

One geographic record remained to be claimed: the South Geographic Pole. Amundsen had to keep quiet. He was all too aware of what had happened in London to Arctowski, after the Belgian's rumoured 1907 plans for an assault on the Antarctic. As far as anyone outside Amundsen's immediate circle was concerned, the Norwegian explorer was intending to take the
Fram
south around Tierra del Fuego, then north up the American west coast, to enter the Arctic through the Bering Strait. The route would avoid Nansen's troubled path and allow a better starting point for the
Fram
, from the Siberian coast, for the approach on the pole.

Amundsen's preparations might have seemed odd to the more careful observer. For a start, the explorer had 120 Greenland dogs, and he insisted on these being sent to Norway rather than picking them up en route, in Alaska; the dogs would have to suffer the tropical heat twice. Then there was the wooden hut he was taking. If Amundsen was intending to spend the time on the
Fram
, designed to keep a large team in relative comfort, he did not need a base on the ice. If he needed to ski—as Nansen had done—he would not require a hut. It was all a bit strange, and some of his team questioned what was going on. They were fobbed off with excuses.

Outside Norway the scientific equipment Amundsen was ordering gave a hint of the change in plan. In early 1910 he
wrote to Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition headquarters and asked for supplier details of their hypsometers. Up to this point the correspondence had mainly been about fabrics; this enquiry was entirely different. Hypsometers are an elegantly simple device for measuring height above sea level. Traditionally, bouts of rheumatism had been used as an indirect measure; hypsometers are altogether more scientific. These contraptions are made up of a small metal column tightly fitted over a metal bowl filled with snow, which is melted and then boiled by a small spirit burner. A thermometer set within the device gives the temperature of the boiling water. Because atmospheric pressure changes with height, the boiling temperature of water also changes, making it possible to calculate altitude. The higher you are, the lower the atmospheric pressure and the lower the boiling water temperature. For every gain in altitude of twenty-five metres, the boiling temperature drops 0.1°C. It is not altogether reliable, and
Hints to Travellers
suggests that to minimise errors ‘at least four or five readings should be taken, at half-minute intervals.'

Hypsometers were the principal way of measuring altitude on expeditions in mountainous areas, alongside increasingly accurate barometers. There was no need to determine altitude on the Arctic sea ice, and Shackleton may have known, or at least suspected, something was afoot. But no one said anything publicly. It was a sensitive time: Britain had supported Norway's separation from Sweden, in 1905. Nansen, instrumental in the dissolution, had been dispatched to Britain as Norway's first independent ambassador, serving between 1906 and 1908. Amundsen's incursion in Antarctica could easily be regarded as an insult to a country that had encouraged the young nation's self-determination.