"The Gjoa, Roald Amundsen's ship, being dragged up a timbered slide to its resting place in Golden Gate Park, July 1909. Photo by Fernando Cortez Ruggles." [1]Amundsen, on another lecture tour in America, wrote to his brother Leon back in Christiania, "On this side of Christmas I will have pocketed 1,000 dollars and that is at least something.... I intend to give Gjøa a thorough inspection to see if she might survive another trip.... Please keep quiet about all this." [2] It is not clear whether he had some other plan for the Gjøa or was simply hedging his bets in case he did not get the Fram.
Notes:
[1] "The Roald Amundsen Monument, Or The Ship That Isn't There", Western Neighborhoods Project. See also "100 years since 'Gjøa' arrived in San Francisco" and "Gjøa" for the ship's fate.
[2] Roald Amundsen, letter to Leon Amundsen, [date not given], quoted by Tor Bomann-Larsen in Roald Amundsen (Stroud, Gloucestershire : Sutton, c2006, c1995), p.66.
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