Saturday, 6 February 1909

Amundsen

The Fram in front of Akershus castle in 1908. Photo: Anders Beer Wilse. [1]

The Storting, by a vote of 87 to 34, agreed to let Amundsen have the Fram and the 75,000 kroner to refit her.

A few days later, Amundsen wrote to Keltie, "I have not yet got all the money I want, but I must go on nevertheless." [2]


Notes:

[1] GalleriNOR, Norske Folkemuseum, Nasjonalbiblioteket.
[2] Roald Amundsen, letter to Scott Keltie, 13 February, 1909, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.203.

January 1909

Amundsen

Olav Bjaaland, photographed in 1910 just before the Fram's departure for the south, by Anders Beer Wilse. [1]

At the end of January, on his way to lecture at the RGS on his coming Arctic expedition, Amundsen changed trains at Lübeck in northern Germany, and happened to meet in the station restaurant a Norwegian ski team going to Chamonix.

"Do you know," one of them said as they chatted, "it would be fun to be with you at the North Pole." "Indeed!" Amundsen replied. "Well, if you really mean it, I think it could be arranged. Just look me up in Christiania when you get home from Chamonix. But -- think it over carefully. It won't only be fun." [2]

This was was not as casual as might appear, for the man was Olav Bjaaland, from Morgedal in Telemark, one of the best skiers in Norway, who had won the Nordic combined ski-jump and cross-country competition at Holmenkollen a few years earlier. Now thirty-five, he was a farmer and a skilled carpenter, and could make both violins and skis; he was travelling abroad for the very first time, and saw Amundsen's expedition as a chance for a bit of adventure. He did look up Amundsen on his return, and by February he had joined the expedition.


Notes:

[1] GalleriNOR, Nasjonalbiblioteket.
[2] Olav Bjaaland, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.214.

Saturday, 26 December 1908

Scott

Towards the end of the year, the second version of the motor sledge was ready. Contemplating Norway for the snow trials, Scott wrote to Nansen for advice, qualifying that "the real conditions required cannot be obtained outside the Polar circle." [1] Nansen replied that "[on] one of the big glaciers ... of course you may have almost exactly Inland Ice conditions." [2]


Notes:

[1] R.F. Scott, letter to Fridtjof Nansen, [1908], quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.244.
[2] Fridtfjof Nansen, letter to R.F. Scott, 26 December, 1908, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.244.

Saturday, 28 November 1908

Amundsen

After the initial enthusiastic donations to the expedition, Amundsen found it hard going raising money. An old friend, F. Herman Gade, now also Norwegian consul in Chicago, wrote to offer help. "My dear friend," Amundsen replied gratefully and somewhat bitterly, "if you with your contacts can manage anything in that direction you will do me a greater service than I can possibly explain. Attitudes here are miserably mean and parochial, and disproportionately hard work is needed to drum up the necessary means." [1]


Notes:

[1] Roald Amundsen, letter to Herman Gade, 28 November 1908, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.209.

Monday, 24 November 1908

Amundsen

F. Hjalmar Johansen, ca.1897. [1]

Applications to join Amundsen's expedition began to come in. One was from Hjalmar Johansen, a name that was already familiar to Amundsen.

"I have studied your plan," wrote Johansen, "with the greatest interest, which I in some ways am already familiar with as I took part in the first Fram expedition with Nansen." Having spent the previous winter in Spitsbergen, he said, "[I] realised that I am still not altogether unqualified for such work," giving an account of his experience and ending, "in other respects I refer you to Professor Nansen." [1]

Johansen had joined Nansen's Arctic expedition in 1893, and being an expert dog driver accompanied Nansen on his dash for the Pole, reaching the celebrated Farthest North of 86° 13.6' N before retreating to Franz Josef Land, but after his return to Norway, Johansen had fallen on hard times, exacerbated by alcoholism and a poor business sense. Nansen had helped his old comrade to find work on various expeditions in the Arctic, and now pressed Amundsen to take him.


Notes:

[1] "Holder foredrag om polfarer Hjalmar Johansen", telemark.no.
[2] Hjalmar Johansen, letter to Roald Amundsen, 24 November, 1908, quoted by Tor Bomann-Larsen in Roald Amundsen (Stroud, Gloucestershire : Sutton, c2006, c1995), p.70.

Tuesday, 10 November 1908

Amundsen

At a gala at the Geographical Society in Christiania, Amundsen presented his plans for his expedition to the Arctic. "Many people," he said, believe that a Polar Expedition is merely an unnecessary waste of money and life. With the concept of Polar Exploration they generally associate the thought of a record; to reach the Pole or Furthest North. And in that case, I must declare myself in agreement. But I want to make it absolutely clear that this -- the assault on the Pole, will not be the aim of the expedition. The main object is a scientific study of the Polar Sea itself."

"With Fram fitted out for 7 years," he went on, "and with a good crew, I propose to leave Norway at the beginning of 1910. My course will run round Cape Horn to San Francisco, where we will coal and provision. Thence, our course will be set for Point Barrow, America's Northernmost promontory. The last news will be sent home from there, before the voyage itself starts. On departing from Point Barrow, it is my intention to continue with the smallest possible crew. A course will be set in a North-North-West direction, where we will seek the most favourable point from which to force a way further to the North. When that has been found, we will try and get on as far as possible, and prepare for a drift of 4 to 5 years over the Polar Sea .... [From] the moment the vessel has been frozen into the ice, the observations begin with which I hope to solve some of the hitherto unsolvable mysteries." [1]

Nansen said that what drove men to explore the Polar regions was "the power of the unknown over the human spirit. As ideas have cleared with the ages, so has this power extended its might, and driven Man willy-nilly onwards along the path of progress."

"It drives us into Nature's hidden powers and secrets, down to the immeasurably little world of the microscopic, and out into the unprobed expanses of the Universe.... [It] gives us no peace until we know this planet on which we live, from the greatest depth of the ocean to the highest layers of the atmosphere. This Power runs like a strand through the whole history of polar exploration. In spite of all declarations of possible profit in one way or another, it was that which, in our hearts, has always driven us back there again, despite all setbacks and suffering." [2]

The next day, King Haakon and Queen Maud opened the subscription list with 20,000 kroner.


Notes:

[1] Aftenposten, 11 November, 1908, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.206-207.
[2] Aftenposten, 11 November, 1908, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.207.

Wednesday, 2 September 1908

Scott

Kathleen and Robert Scott [1]

In a widely-reported function at the Chapel Royal, Hampton Court Palace, Scott married Kathleen Bruce.

"Huge crowds gathered as Captain and Mrs Scott left by motor car for London and then France," the Daily Mirror wrote. "The marriage," noted the Times, "will make no difference to Capt. Scott's future plans with regard to Antarctic exploration." [2]


Notes:

[1] Wikimedia Commons.
[2] Daily Mirror, and Times, dates not given, quoted by David Crane in Scott of the Antarctic (New York : Knopf, c2005), p.335.

Thursday, 13 August 1908

Scott

The scientific results from the Discovery expedition had begun to appear, attracting criticism from the president of the Physical Society of London among others. Having confused true and magnetic compass bearings, the expedition's wind observations were mostly worthless. "The meteorological observations," the Times Literary Supplement said, "instead of being made by people familiar with such work ... were entrusted to officers who had no previous training, and were not even properly instructed.... How much longer shall we have to wait in England for those entrusted with national affairs to appreciate a little more seriously the requirements of scientific investigation? Probably until the constant leakage and loss which we suffer in ignorance are made plainer by one or more exceptional disasters." [1]

Scott, furious, demanded a public inquiry to put an end to the criticisms -- having emphasized the scientific aims of the new expedition as well as the geographic, he could ill-afford doubts on his scientific accuracy -- but by early December was persuaded that with a public inquiry he would be doing himself more harm than good.


Notes:

[1] The Times Literary Supplement, 13 August, 1908, quoted by Roland Huntford in Scott and Amundsen (New York : Putnam, 1980, c1979), p.242.