Taissumani, Dec. 9

How Inuit Knowledge Got Amundsen to the South Pole

There is no disputing that the renowned Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, was the first person to reach the South Pole.

Roald Amundsen was an accomplished man — the first to travel through the North West Passage by ship, and the first to reach the South Pole. December is an important month for Amundsen lovers, as mid-month marks the 100th anniversary of his reaching the most southerly point on the globe.

That achievement was not tarnished by accusations of fraud, as the claimed attainment of the North Pole had been when, in 1909, Robert Peary announced that he had reached it that spring, while Frederick Cook claimed to have gotten there a year earlier.

Both sides in that unseemly dispute had their champions and today – over a century later – the matter is still not resolved. It never will be.

Reaching the South Pole was different, and perhaps even easier. One travelled over a solid platform of ice and snow, not over moving ice floes or across leads of open water, and was not slowly swept west by an unseen but relentless current.

The destination was firm and unmoving and, given the proper instruments, there should be no doubt about whether one had reached it or not. In short, it was attainable with certainty.

But there were attempts to tarnish Amundsen’s achievement nonetheless. For Amundsen had had a rival and that rival was an Englishman, Robert Falcon Scott. And Scott’s fellow Englishmen lamented that, not only had Amundsen beaten their man, but — horror of horrors — he had done so by cheating! And what constituted that cheating? Why, he had not let Scott know early enough that he was going to make an attempt on the pole.

Ironically, the young Amundsen had been inspired, not by the success, but by the failure, of another Englishman, Sir John Franklin. The loss of life on Franklin’s expedition was the greatest tragedy and shame that England had suffered in the north polar regions.

Scott’s expedition, although losing far fewer men, would be a comparable shame at the opposite end of the planet. Amundsen, strangely, had been inspired by the sufferings of Franklin and his men.

“A strange ambition burned within me,” wrote Amundsen, “to endure those same sufferings.” It might be hard to beat a man with such an attitude. 

After his success with the Gjoa in being first through the Northwest Passage, Amundsen had hoped to eventually conquer the North Pole. But he abandoned that plan in 1909 when Peary and Cook both claimed that geographic prize.

That news was “the death blow” to his enterprise. Instead he surreptitiously began planning his South Pole venture under the guise of a trip from Norway, south through the Atlantic, around Cape Horn, north through the Pacific and Bering Strait.

Even his mentor, Nansen, who lent him his old ship, the Fram, was not privy to his real plan. Amundsen recruited expedition members, ordered supplies — even Greenland sled dogs —  then one night slipped unannounced out of harbour and headed south.

At Madeira, he announced the truth to his crew, and wrote a letter of apology to Nansen. Amundsen’s brother sent a telegram to Scott, who had already reached Melbourne: “Beg leave to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic.”

The Norwegian press had the story almost instantly and the race was on. In England, Sir Clements Markham huffed with indignation, “What rascals these poles are producing… He has been deliberately forming a plan to steal a march on Scott. He is a blackguard.”

As Amundsen biographer Roland Huntford pointed out, Amundsen’s plan revolved around two objectives: “to beat the British to the Pole, and get back first with the news.” Amundsen knew that the press made its own reality. “The winner was not necessarily he who won the race, but he who got the headlines first.”

In the viciously-fought battle for recognition of priority at the North Pole, the two contestants had known that there would be no prize, no adulation, for coming second.

But the South Pole would turn out to be different, perhaps because neither of the contestants was American. More to the point — perhaps because one of them was English.

Next Week – Reaching the Pole

Taissumani recounts a specific event of historic interest. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).