The south pole, p.1
The South Pole, page 1
part #1 of Bipolar Series
Bipolar
THE STORY OF ROALD AMUNDSEN
Volume I: The South Pole
Frank McLynn
© Frank McLynn
Frank McLynn has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This edition published in 2019 by Sharpe Books.
Table of Contents
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Editor’s introduction
CHAPTER ONE: ANTARCTICA AND ENDLESS NIGHT
CHAPTER TWO: MARKING TIME
CHAPTER THREE: THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE
CHAPTER FOUR: ENTER THE ABORIGINALS
CHAPTER FIVE: MARKING TIME AGAIN
CHAPTER SIX: THE RETURN OF DR COOK
CHAPTER SEVEN: ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
CHAPTER EIGHT: AMUNDSEN GOES SOUTH
CHAPTER NINE: THE BAY OF WHALES
CHAPTER TEN: The Pole
CHAPTER ELEVEN: AFTERMATH
CHAPTER TWELVE: WORLD WAR
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Amundsen, Gustav, ‘Busken’ (1868 -1932), Roald’s brother
Amundsen, Jens Antonio, ‘Tonni’ (1866 -1930), Roald’s brother
Amundsen, Leon (1870-1934), Roald’s brother
Amundsen, Roald (1872-1928), polar explorer
Astrup, Eivind (1871-1895), Arctic explorer
Balchen, Bernt (1899-1973), Norwegian aviator
Beck, Andreas (1864-1914), Norwegian navigator
Bennett, Floyd (1890-1928), American aviator
Bennett, Kristine Elisabeth (1886-1982), Amundsen’s mistress
Bjaaland, Olav (1873-1961), Antarctic explorer
Borchgrevink, Carsten (1864-1934), Norwegian polar explorer
Byrd, Richard (1888-1957), American polar explorer
Campbell, Victor (1875-1956), British naval officer and explorer
Castberg, Sigrid (1887-1958), Amundsen’s mistress
Christophersen, Don Pedro (1845-1930), Norwegian-born Argentine businessman and landowner
Cook, Frederick (1865-1940), physician and polar explorer
Dahl, Odd (1898-1994), Norwegian aviator and physicist
Davis, John King (1884-1967), Australian explorer and navigator
Dietrichson, Leif (1890-1928), Norwegian aviator
Doxrud, Christian (1881-1935), Norwegian sailor
Ellsworth, Lincoln (1880-1951), American multimillionaire and polar explorer
Evans, Edward (1880-1957), British admiral (later 1st Baron Mountevans)
Filchner, Wilhelm (1877-1957), German explorer
Gade, Fredrik Herman (1871-1943), Norwegian lawyer and diplomat
Gerlache, Adrien de (1866-1934), Belgian naval officer
Gjertsen, Hjalmar (1885-1958), second-in-command on Fram
Gran, Tryggve (1888-1980), Norwegian explorer and aviator
Hagenbeck, Carl (1844-1913), wild animal merchant
Hannsen, Helmer (1870-1956), polar explorer
Hansen, Godfred (1876-1937), naval officer, second-in-command on Gjoa
Hassel, Sverre (1876-1928), Norwegian explorer
Heiberg, Axel (1848-1932), Norwegian diplomat and financier
Helland-Hansen, Bjorn (1877-1957), Norwegian oceanographer
Johansen, Hjalmar (1867-1913), polar explorer
Keedick, Lee (1880-1959), American lecture manager and agent
Keltie, J. Scott (1840-1927), Scottish geographer
Knudsen, Gunnar (1848-1928), Norwegian politician
Kutchin, Alexander (1888-1913), Russian oceanographer
Lecointe, Georges (1869-1929), Belgian second-in-command on Belgica
Levick, George (1876-1956), British naval surgeon, zoologist and explorer
Lindstrom, Adolf (1866-1939), cook and polar explorer
Lund, Anton (1864-1945), Arctic explorer
Magids, Bess, aka Berger Elizabeth Patricia (1894-1971), Amundsen’s fiancée and later Alaskan politician
Markham, Sir Clements (1830-1916), secretary (later president) of the Royal Geographical Society
Mawson, Douglas (1882-1958), Australian explorer of the Antarctic
Nansen, Alexander (1862-1945), Norwegian lawyer, brother of Fritjof
Nansen, Fritjof (1861-1930), polar explorer and statesman
Nilsen, Thorvald (1881-1940), Norwegian naval officer
Olonkin, Gennadi (1898-1960), Russian telegraphist and explorer
Omdal, Oskar (1895-1927), Norwegian aviator
Peary, Robert (1856-1920), American Arctic explorer
Prestrud, Kristian (1881-1927), Norwegian naval officer and explorer
Riiser-Larsen, Hjalmar (1890-1965), pioneer aviator and Arctic explorer
Ristvedt, Peder (1873-1955), Norwegian explorer
Ronne, Martin (1861-1932), Norwegian sailmaker and explorer
Schulte-Frohlinde, Julius (1894-1968), German architect
Scott, Robert Falcon (1868-1912), British Antarctic explorer
Shackleton, Sir Ernest (1874-1922), Antarctic explorer
Stubberud, Jorgen (1883-1980), Norwegian carpenter and explorer
Sundbek, Knut (1883-1967), Swedish engineer
Sverdrup, Harald (1888-1957), Norwegian oceanographer
Sverdrup Otto (1854-1930), Arctic explorer
Thommesen, Rolf (1879-1939), Norwegian journalist
Tonnesen, Emmanuel (1893-1972), Norwegian sailor
Vogt, Benjamin (1863-1947), Norwegian politician
Wiik, Gustav (1878-1906), Arctic explorer
Wisting, Oscar (1871-1936), polar explorer
Zappfe, Fritz (1869-1956), Norwegian chemist
Editor’s introduction
It was my good fortune to inherit a considerable fortune and so to be able to indulge my mania for collection. As a collector, my special interest is in unpublished manuscripts bearing on polar exploration, not just the papers of the big names but the letters, journals, diaries and memoirs of the “small fry” also; those unsung actors without whom the great exploits could never be achieved. In Amundsen’s case I managed to buy up not just a fistful of his own correspondence but unpublished memoirs by three men very close to him, Frederick Cook, Helmer Hanssen and Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen. I was not able to obtain similar materials from Olav Bjaaland, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting and Fritjof Nansen, which would have given us an even clearer picture of Amundsen – indeed in some of these cases the owners of the relevant estates refused to divulge whether there were any such records – but I venture to suggest that what I have collected gives us a reasonably clear picture of the great man. I am fortunate also to be bilingual – my father was English and my mother Norwegian – so translating the Norwegian records was not particularly difficult for me. I have endeavoured to render these into a fluent and readable English version, sometimes using modern expressions to convey the flavour of certain Norwegian expressions for which no mot juste, if I can so express it, is available in English.
While seeking to avoid jarring anachronism, I have endeavoured to make the journals “reader-friendly” by, for example, referring throughout to Oslo rather than the city’s original name Christiania and making other similar adjustments. But I have also tried to reproduce the idiom of the age. For example, nowadays “Inuit” is everywhere the preferred term but I have retained “Eskimo” as this was the usage of Amundsen and his friends, and to “modernise” the term in line with the political correctness of the twenty-first century would introduce a jarring, unreal effect. In each case I have not reproduced the entire memoir but only those parts with a direct bearing on Amundsen. I hope the reader will agree that I have thereby achieved a biography by other means.
FRANCIS JAMESON, Bergen 2015
CHAPTER ONE: ANTARCTICA AND ENDLESS NIGHT
From the memoirs and journals of Dr Frederick A. Cook, 1897-1899
I am writing this memoir in 1938, ten years after the death of my dear friend Roald Amundsen. I wonder what he would have made of the world I am in now. We have a president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who is unlike any other in our entire history. In Europe it is the age of the dictators, again with regimes utterly unlike anything we have seen before. It is a new world, though scarcely a brave one. I have had an interesting life, though I am still bitter at having lost nearly a decade of it because of the actions of a lunatic (more on this later). But certainly the most privileged part of my life was the opportunity to be a close friend of one of the greatest explorers of the ages. And that prompts a reflection which I consider wry but others might deem eccentric. At the age of seventy-three I am myself a rarity since I count as a genuine explorer yet I have attained my biblical three score years and ten. I have become obsessed with how rare this is in my field and have researched the subject. The following explorers, some household names, others well known in their time but forgotten now, never reached the age of seventy, and most of them died much earlier than that. And so I give you: Cameron, Clapperton, Lander, Caillié, Andersson, Mauch, Barth, Laing, Dixon, Denham, Park, Speke, Burton, Livingstone, Stanley, Thomson and Johnston (in Africa); Cook, Dampier, Flinders, La Perouse, Tasman, Quiros, Drake, da Gama, Dias, Magellan and Vancouver (oceanic explorers); and Franklin, Nansen, Amundsen, Peary, Scott and Shackleton (in my own sphere of polar exploration). A morbid reflection perhaps, but at my age thoughts inevitably turn to death.
(There follows a long section on Cook’s early life, youth, medical training, Arctic exploration under the aegis of Robert Edwin Peary, and his other attainments from his birth in 1865.)
The chance f
When I saw an article in the New York Sun about a Belgian Antarctic expedition, I cabled to offer my services. Almost by return of telegraph I was curtly informed that all vacancies were filled and all expedition members already chosen. About a month later I suddenly got another telegram. It seemed that the Belgica had left Antwerp on schedule but had been forced to put into Ostend to make emergency repairs to its engine. While in port, the expedition’s physician suddenly got cold feet – I think literally – at the thought of what awaited him in Antarctica. Citing “family reasons”, he resigned. I then got a cable from a man named de Gerlache, offering me the position. I shipped out from New York on SS Coleridge in September. As it happened, I reached Rio de Janeiro long before the Belgica. It took another three weeks for her to arrive as she had been becalmed in mid-Atlantic. Fortunately, the Belgian minister took an interest in me and invited me up to his legation in the much cooler climate of Petropolis at 3,000 feet.
The minister entertained lavishly. His guests were mostly intelligent and interested in matters polar, but drew the line at actually going to Antarctica on the grounds that they could not do without cigars, fine wines and, above all, women. Finally, towards the end of October 1897 came word that the Belgica had docked in Rio. I left the fleshpots of Petropolis at once. But my first sight of Belgica was dispiriting. She looked like a toy ship, dwarfed by warships and ocean liners at anchor beside her. How could such a craft cross the turbulent seas to Antarctica, let alone thrive there? It so happened that the first person I encountered as I went up the gangway was Amundsen himself, though of course I did not know him then. He was 6’1” tall, with angular features, intense hooded eyes and a massive aquiline nose. What he lacked in good looks he amply made up for with that Roman quality, gravitas. We saluted and exchanged identities.
“Not the largest ship I’ve ever seen,” I remarked. “One hundred and ten feet long and twenty-six abeam.”
Amundsen rapped out a non-committal reply in that quasi-automaton voice he used to indicate he was master of his brief. It was hardly an auspicious beginning. As an American I valued, indeed overvalued, charm, and there was precious little of it here. I was soon to discover that Amundsen had far more impressive qualities than that overrated attribute, the prerogative of mashers, womanisers and con men throughout history.
I got to know the other senior members of the expedition. There was a Polish geologist, Henryk Arctowski, another Polish geologist named Antoine Dobrowolski, a Romanian zoologist, Emil Racovitza, and Emile Danco, a somewhat eccentric Belgian army officer who had paid to join the venture. But for the first few days on board I saw most of Georges Lecointe, the second-in-command. I was more impressed by him than by de Gerlache, though I later reappraised him downwards. It turned out that he had been over-promoted because he was a pet of King Leopold II. I was sucked into his orbit initially because of the extremely difficult week we spent in Rio before departure. It was clear that this crew would take some handling; they seemed particularly unruly and undisciplined. Two had resigned before the ship even left Ostend. Several more had been disciplined at Madeira. The Parisian cook, Lemonier, was a particularly troublesome customer, forever perceiving insults where none was intended and insisting he retrieve his “honour” by fistfights. But I noticed that no one ever stepped out of line with the 25-year-old mate Amundsen. There was something steely and formidable about him that made even the most fractious matelot steer clear of him. Some men can exude this natural authority. Unfortunately for me, I can’t. As I say, I saw little of Amundsen in the early weeks. I remember only one inconsequential exchange with him in Rio when I was seated opposite him at one of those banquets Brazilian oligarchs like to throw for interesting visitors to their country. He asked me how, as an American, I had been recruited.
“I got a cable out of the blue from Gerlache, written in French, which I don’t understand. Even the Frenchman I got to translate it called it ‘Tacitean’. Remember, I’d never heard of Gerlache. But he promised an Antarctic voyage, so I packed my bags and lit out for the southern hemisphere virtually overnight. Needless to say, my mother and sister made the most awful emotional fuss at the dockside.”
“I am fortunately saved from all such intrusions from the distaff side,” Amundsen said laconically.
“We had storms all the way down to Rio,” I continued. “You know, the one real bugbear about being a polar explorer is the weather you have to endure on the open seas before you get there.”
Amundsen shrugged. This was the first indication I got of a truth, later reinforced over and over again, that Amundsen was that very rare bird, a man totally without fear. And I don’t think it was mere stiff upper lip or a stoical pretence. If you watch someone closely, you can always detect that. No, this was someone genuinely fearless, almost as if that part of the brain that controls panic or terror had been surgically removed. Anyway, that brief conversation was it until we left Rio. On the way down to Montevideo we encountered even more ferocious storms. Amundsen and I were thrown together, sometimes almost literally by the waves. I found him very cold in manner. Yet if you could pierce the carapace there was dry humour and a profound intellect – not profound as academics would define it, but in the manner of Joseph Conrad’s heroes. In subtle ways we started to forge a bond. I confess I needed to lean on his dauntlessness, for there was further bad weather all the way down to the Straits of Magellan. The strait was tricky to navigate. The Belgica anchored each night to avoid the danger of running aground in the dark. In the extreme south of South America I again saw little of Amundsen. I took the opportunity to go horseback riding. I explored Gregory Bay, Elizabeth Island, Punta Arenas, Damon Island and the great glaciers on Tierra del Fuego. Most of this time Amundsen was busy helping de Gerlache with the troublesome crew. Five Belgians went ashore without leave at Punta Arenas, got drunk, and we had to enlist the Chilean police to roust them out of their brothels. De Gerlache dismissed them all on the spot. We had particular problems with cooks. Lemonier drew one knife too many and was sacked on the spot without pay. His replacement, a Swede, lasted just a few days before falling violently ill; he too had to be left behind. Our numbers seemed to shrink daily. Through the Madalena Straits to Ushaia we went and took on coal. Then headed for Lapataia, then Harberton, our last stop on the South American coast. Lecointe, I thought, in the light of his later enthusiasm for Latin American expeditions, had little regard for the local Indians, whom he thought very little distinguishable from animals. I remember he said to me once: “The sound of their language revolts me. It’s a positive insult to the ears. Like a man in the throes of violent seasickness, vomiting horribly.” I thought, on the contrary, that they were grand and magnificent creatures, truly “noble savages”. From that time on I never really felt the same about Lecointe, though Amundsen always professed the highest regard for him. Amundsen seemed unmoved by the much-bruited connection to that lamentable monarch, Leopold of the Belgians. Frankly, I thought Amundsen had a blind spot in this regard.
We saw our first iceberg on 19 January 1898. The mewing and screaming of albatrosses and petrels counterpointed the screaming of the wind in the rigging. I think it suddenly dawned on us that we were going into uncharted lands and could easily perish. We passed the South Shetlands and were between those islands and Graham Land. I was on deck with Amundsen and noticed a cloud pass over his face.
“Anything the matter?” I asked.
