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Amundsen (1908)Amundsen, Roald Englebert Gravning (1872-1928). Nordvest-passagen beretning om Gjöa-ekspeditionen, 1903-1907. Kristiana: Forlagt Av H. Aschehoug & Co., 1908. Roald Amundsen's "The North West Passage", Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship "Gjöa", 1903-1907. London: Archibald Constable, 1908.
Roald Amundsen was born in 1872, the son of a Norwegian shipowner. As an adolescent he read John Franklin's works with passionate interest and resolved to go in search of the famous Northwest Passage for which so many explorers had perished. Amundsen learned the sailor's trade on whaling ships. In 1897 he accompanied Belgian navigator Adrien de Gerlache as second in command on an expedition to the Antarctic, thus taking part in the first wintering in those regions. In 1902 Amundsen bought a 47-ton cutter, the Gjöa. In June of the following year he went to sea with six companions, reached the west coast of Greenland, crossed Baffin Sea and entered Lancaster Strait. He spent the following two winters on King William Island doing scientific research which enabled him, among other things, to reposition the magnetic pole at more than 50 kilometers northwest of the position determined by John Ross in 1830. On August 13, 1905, the Gjöa set out again to sea. For three weeks, which Amundsen called "the three longest weeks of my life", the ship threaded its way through tortuous channels within a labyrinth of ice floes and rocks. On August 27 he met a whaling ship that had come from the west: after 400 years of vain attempts the famous Northwest Passage was finally about to be traversed! But on September 2 the Gjöa was trapped in the ice floes near the mouth of the Mackenzie. After their forced wintering, Amundsen and his companions arrived in Nome on the south coast of Alaska in August 1906, thus completing an historic voyage. The "knight of the ice floes" did not content himself with this exploit: "Having realized the first ambition of my life, I began to look for other worlds to conquer." On December 14, 1911, Amundsen became the first explorer to reach the South Pole. In May 1926, still thirsting for adventure, Amundsen managed to fly over the North Pole on board a dirigible. Two years later he disappeared forever, while searching for an Italian aviator at the North Pole.
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