AKA the last of the Vikings, Roald Amundsen was a heroic Norwegian explorer of the polar regions. He was the first to reach both the north and south poles and the first to traverse the Northwest Passage (the stretch of Canada between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans). His success in these endeavors is even more apparent considering the failure of those before him. Amundsen made quite the name for Norway in terms of exploration of extreme regions. Unfortunately, his last whereabouts were on a rescue mission of 3 other explorers who crashed on their way back from the north pole.
Amundsen, one of four brothers, was born into a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in a small town called Borge, which lies between Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg. While his 3 older brothers entered the maritime industry, his mother’s desire was to keep Roald out of it; she wanted him to become a doctor. Being the good son he was, he kept his promise to his mother until she died when he was just 21 years old. At this point, he left the university and took to a life at sea. Amundsen’s secret desire was fueled by Fritjof Nansen’s (another famous Norwegian explorer) crossing of Greenland in 1888.
When Amundsen was 25 years old, he was first mate on a Belgian Antarctic Expedition on a ship called Belgica, which became frozen in sea ice off of Alexander Island near the Antarctic Peninsula. The crew endured a tough winter and barely survived to return home.
Since the time of Christopher Columbus, he and others had attempted to traverse the Northwest Passage. It wasn’t until 1903 that this mission was accomplished by Roald Amundsen with a small crew in a seal hunting ship called Gjøa. The trip took several years, during which time Amundsen learned important survival skills from the natives, including the use of sled dogs and animal skins (rather than a cumbersome parka) to keep warm. It wasn’t until December of 1905, after having successfully traversed the Northwest Passage and on his way back, that Amundsen was able to send a telegraph to Norway announcing his triumph. At this point Amundsen was informed of the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden; Norway was fully independent with her own king! Amundsen was ecstatic and fueled his drive even more to explore new territory as a proud subject of the king of Norway.
In 1910, Amundsen left Oslo heading south for Antarctica on Fram, the ship that Fritjof Nansen had used in an earlier expedition. After one failed attempt to reach the pole, Amundsen’s success was made public on March 7, 1912. The expedition certainly did not happen without hardship. Of the 52 dogs the group originally started with, only 11 survived the trip.
Amundsen endured other polar adventures throughout his life, and as mentioned earlier, the arctic claimed his life when the plane he was in went down while flying over the Arctic Ocean on a rescue mission (1928). He had always said that he wanted to do in the arctic.
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