Friday, 29 July 1910

Amundsen

Sverre Hassel. Each of the Fram's crew was photographed just before departure in 1910. [1]

Daugaard-Jensen had collected dogs from a number of Greenland trading stations, and selected them personally in the spring, offering twice the usual price; the Danish authorities showed their high opinion of Amundsen by offering to ship all 101 dogs without charge. Ninety-nine were delivered alive to a small island off Kristiansand, to be looked after there by Lindstrøm and Sverre Hassel, a customs official and dog-driver who had been with Sverdrup on the second voyage of the Fram. Amundsen, knowing of Hassel's expertise with dogs, had been trying for some time to persuade Hassel to come with him, and finally Hassel agreed to come as far as San Francisco.

The dogs, wrote Gjertsen, "had the time of their lives with lovely horsemeat, lying and lazing in the sun, swimming expeditions to the mainland, and fighting to the death." [2]


Notes:

[1] Galleri NOR, Nasjonalbiblioteket.
[2] Lt. H.F. Gjertsen, diary, 29 July 1910, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.292.