The Last Viking

by Stephen Bown

  In Amundsen’s telling, the Inuit are fully realized multi-dimensional people whose customs, personality traits and emotions cover the entire spectrum open to the human race. Amundsen manages to convey a great deal of information and insight about them without being stereotypically judgmental or condescending. He notes that the culture could be harsh and unforgiving; some of the punishments for crimes, in particular, could be very violent and severe. One incident Amundsen witnessed has a prominent place in his book and includes a sketch of the event based on a poor-quality photograph. Two brothers, one a man’s natural-born son and the other a foster son, were playing in a caribou-skin tent near the Gjøa during the first summer. The parents went visiting and left behind a gun, fully loaded and primed, in the tent. “Then followed what so often happens when boys play with weapons without having been shown how to use them properly; they were ignorant and the gun went off, and Umiktuallu’s son, who was only seven years old, fell down dead.” Hearing the shot, the father and a crowd of others rushed over. “At the sight of his own dead son, and the foster son sitting with the smoking weapon, he was seized with frenzy. He carried the horror-stricken boy out of the tent, stabbed him three times through the heart with his knife, then kicked him away.” Amundsen then related that the boys were buried, and the father, “with time and reflection,” calmed down and “was seized with remorse.” The family departed the next day, and Amundsen heard nothing more of them.

  The Inuit women attracted a great deal of interest from the men of the Gjøa expedition. Amundsen wrote that “some of these women are absolute beauties. They are rather small but shapely.” He also recorded the prevalence of wife swapping and bigamy, and that for a small price husbands would offer to sell sexual access to their wives: “a wife must obey but I doubt whether she does it of her own free will.” Nevertheless, amorous liaisons between the crew and the local women were common, if not frequent, during their two-year stay, and the journals of several men make oblique references to this, although several published accounts of the voyage, including The North-West Passage, claim the contrary. In fact, Amundsen relates the story of how he discovered the open sores of syphilis on a sick boy in one of the tribes they encountered, a group that had had communication with European whalers. He then brought the crew together to “speak seriously. . . . I called the men together to inform them and added that I assumed the illness was probably rife in the tribe.”

  In the official account of the voyage, Amundsen writes in a somewhat lofty and prim tone that he discouraged his men from giving in to their “baser passions” and that “I therefore took the first opportunity to have a most serious talk with my companions and urge them not to yield to this kind of temptation.” There was probably collusion among the men not to publicly discuss something of which all were aware, out of fear that it would ruffle the feathers of early-twentieth-century moralists. The issue is discussed, however, in an article in Above and Beyond: Canada’s Arctic Journal: “Indeed, there are a few people in Gjoa Haven today who are proud to declare that they are Roald Amundsen’s grandchildren, including Paul Iquallaq who is quoted as saying, ‘My father was the son of Amundsen . . . I’m one of the proudest people in Gjoa Haven.’” According to local tradition, Amundsen’s son, Luke Iquallaq, was born to a woman named Queleoq after the Gjøa departed, and his parentage was kept secret for fear of discrimination. Luke, who worked most of his life for the Hudson’s Bay Company, revealed to his own children only in 1979 that his mother told him just before she died that his father was Amundsen. Recent DNA testing of Luke Iquallaq and the descendents of Amundsen’s father, orchestrated by Norway’s Fram Museum, show that Luke is not the genetic descendent of Amundsen. The tests do not, however, show that Amundsen has no descendants in Gjoa Haven or that Luke Iquallaq is not descended from another member of the Gjøa’s crew.

  Amundsen’s opinion of the Inuit was generally positive. “Evidently they enjoyed life,” he reported, “but on the other hand, they had not the slightest fear of death. . . . I must state as my firm conviction that the . . . Eskimo living absolutely isolated from civilization, are undoubtedly the happiest, healthiest, most honourable and most contented among them. . . . My sincerest wish for our friends the Nechilli Eskimo is, that civilization may never find them.” His attitude was unusual but not unique. Seven decades earlier, between 1829 and 1833, the British naval commander John Ross, captain of the expedition that first located the magnetic North Pole, wrote,

  I believe that it is the Esquimaux alone who here knows the true secret of happiness and rational art of living. . . . He smells at no flowers, for there are none to smell at; but he prefers the odour of seal oil. . . . They could travel easier than we, could find delights where we experienced only suffering, could outdo us in killing the seal, could regale in abundant food where we should starve because we could not endure it. . . . The adaptation is perfect; his happiness is absolute. Had we been better educated, we should have done the same; but we were out of our element, as much in the philosophy of life as in the geography of it.

  Amundsen was not an autocrat by nature—at least not a micromanaging autocrat. He wasn’t interested in interfering in the daily routines or personal lives of his men. But in order to avoid the possible problems of a dispersed power structure, he formed a hierarchy in which all the major decision-making authority was vested in one individual: himself. This arrangement at times engendered some resentment among his men. It also raises the question of whether it is possible to achieve perfect harmony in any group engaged in a dangerous, stressful and at times monotonous and isolated endeavour—an expedition of exploration—without the spectre of personal disagreements arising. Even the famed master mariner James Cook during his three epochal voyages dealt with incidents that resulted in anger, resentment and violent punishment.

  Inevitably, disagreements arose between the six crew members of the Gjøa and their captain as well as among each other, and they intensified during the two years the ship was stationary in the middle of the Northwest Passage. Some of the crew’s private journals reveal irritation over Amundsen’s apparently harsh treatment of the dogs and overly friendly relations with the Inuit, but these remained minor incidents of personal grumbling and never metastasized into anything bigger. There was never any serious public quarrelling, and the expedition was never in danger from it. The men grew sick of each other, bored with each others’ jokes and stories, and irritated by each others’ quirks and foibles. But this was nothing more than the friction to be expected in a small group living far from home, with only themselves for companionship for years at a time.

  Lindstrøm the cook was the pillar of stability throughout the Gjøa’s stay in Gjøahavn. Always in a good mood, and a superior cook who took pride in excellent meals, he had no interest in the local peoples or polar survival techniques. Indeed, he seldom left the ship for those two years, except for infrequent short excursions to trade or to retrieve animals he had shot. But his kitchen continuously produced roasts, pies, pancakes, stews, cakes, breads—all delicious and of high quality. It is said that an army marches on its stomach—so too does a voyage of exploration. Lindstrøm kept everyone happy in that department with an ever-evolving diet for every palate: seals, walrus, polar bear, geese and various fish. The abundant supply of fresh meat also kept scurvy at bay. Amundsen recalled fondly that although Lindstrøm liked to indulge in not insignificant quantities of alcohol, “when he sets his mind on something he never gives up. The others laugh at him, but he just laughs back and continues on his way. He usually succeeds.”

  Lindstrøm was genuinely liked by all the crew, and was never the butt of criticism or the cause of quarrelling or frustration. “A funny chap,” Ristvedt noted in his diary, “fat as a pig but always happy and in a good mood, in spite of having every reason to be bad tempered.” Lindstrøm took great pleasure in hunting many of the animals for his meals and bartered with the Inuit to obtain others. On one occasion the other men played a practical joke on him. Two of
them snuck across the snowy plain, perhaps 30 metres from the bow of the ship, and placed a frozen ptarmigan in the snow. “Lindstrøm! Lindstrøm!” yelled one, “there is a ptarmigan on the ice!” The cook rushed from the kitchen below deck with his gun loaded. “Where is it?” They pointed and he silently raised his gun, taking aim, and fired. The bird flopped over, and Lindstrøm scampered over the gunwales of the ship and trotted across the frozen plain to retrieve his quarry. He stooped to pick it up but then called out, bewildered, “Why, it is quite cold!” As he stood there, holding the frozen bird in his hand, the men on the deck of the ship laughingly let him in on the joke.

  Lindstrøm was always working with a purpose and had daily responsibilities, which predisposed him for success in the Arctic winter, according to Amundsen’s philosophy that idle time led to lethargy and depression. For the other men, filling the hours was not always easy. To counter this, Amundsen was constantly devising tasks for the men, keeping them on a daily schedule that otherwise would have disintegrated during the ever-shifting balance of day and night—from total light to none. Some of the men began to resent Amundsen for his enforced ski jaunts every morning, yet they also constructed a large hill and practised downhill techniques for fun. There were complaints that Amundsen was seldom on board the ship and was too often taking trips with the locals. But others went on excursions too, either with Amundsen or in other groups.

  Furthermore, the men were being paid, while Amundsen was the one paying: surely he should have some leeway to do what he wanted. If the expedition failed, the thirty-two-year-old captain stood to lose all his investment, human and financial, and to see his reputation destroyed and his career ended. He had the strain of trying to be the indomitable optimist and leader, never faltering in his assessment of things and never appearing to waver in his belief in inevitable success. The crew’s few disparaging journal entries were written in the moment, and reflect brief resentments—imagine working all day under difficult, stressful conditions and then eating dinner with your boss and sleeping in the same small ship with him, seeing all his sides, his temperamental episodes and moments of indecision. In such close quarters Amundsen could not conceal all his angers, frustrations, doubts and dilemmas. But Amundsen never had anything negative to say about his men; he always gave them credit and recognition, at least in public.

  The second winter was the harder of the two, the novelty of the situation having worn off after they had experienced all four Arctic seasons. “It is extraordinary to see that already after only one year everyone has lost the desire to work and we all feel the need to get away from the vessel and camp out in the wilderness or even just to go to bed,” Amundsen wrote. John Ross had also begun to despair during his expedition’s second winter, and by the end of the third winter he was downright depressed about the climate of northern lands: “Amid all its brilliancy, this land, the land of ice and snow, has ever been and ever will be a dull, dreary, heart-sinking, monotonous waste, under the influence of which the very mind is paralyzed, ceasing to care or think.” Ross later wrote: “The sameness of everything weighed on our spirits, and the mind itself flagged under the want of excitement. In such a life as ours, even the capture of an Arctic mouse was an event. Everywhere was suffocated and paralyzed by the endless, wearysome, heartsinking, uniform, cold load of ice and snow.”

  The crew of the Gjøa must have had similar moments. For them, the sole source of wonder and amusement was their dogs, who were the kernel of numerous amusing anecdotes. The dogs, Amundsen noted during the second winter, were “now turning their noses up at pemmican. They consider old pieces of fur a delicacy. ‘The menu of the Polar dog is comprehensive,’ said Ristvedt. ‘I think I can manage many dishes, but I don’t think I could have managed your old underpants.’ The dogs smacked their lips over them like a bear with honey.”

  Amundsen perfected his polar survival techniques during the two years he spent in the Northwest Passage, including skills such as the prevention of frostbite by the use of proper clothing. The skills for which he lacked experience he had now mastered and adapted to his own life and plans. He was now in possession of a remarkable and unique blend of skills that would be the foundation of his success. Perhaps there was no other person on the planet better educated for geographical exploration and survival in its polar regions.

  On August 13, 1905, when the sea ice was sufficiently melted, the obligatory scientific measurements completed, and Amundsen was confident that he had learned what he could from the Inuit, there was nothing left but to head west into the unknown. The Gjøa’s engines fired up, smoke blew from the exhaust pipes and the silence was shattered as the little ship pushed slowly westward through the ice. The Norwegian visitors left their local hosts priceless gifts, including the wood and materials from their on-shore huts. “I am not sure that the little brown-eyed people on the beach were quite cheerful that morning,” Amundsen related. “They waved long to us—probably a farewell for life; and if some traveller, many years later, pays this place a visit, the numerous tent-rings will remind him of the many happy days the Gjøa expedition spent here with their friends the Netsilik Eskimos.”

  Simpson Strait is the narrow, labyrinthine ice-choked channel separating the northern part of Canada’s mainland from the innumerable islands of the Arctic Archipelago. Uncharted in Amundsen’s time—parts of it never before navigated—the strait is littered with hidden shoals and icebergs. After four days of slowly picking its way through the treacherous channel, the Gjøa passed Cape Colborne, the point beyond which no one had ever sailed east through Simpson Strait. Amundsen wrote in his memoirs that “time and time again it seemed certain we should be defeated by the shallowness of these tortuous channels. Day after day, for three weeks—the longest three weeks of my life—we crept along, sounding our depth with the lead, trying here, there and everywhere to nose into a channel that would carry us clear through to the known waters to the west.” They were saved by the motor that Amundsen had had installed in the ship, for with the erratic winds and currents, sail power alone would not have provided the manoeuvrability needed to clear the obstacles. On one particularly stressful day, the ship slipped over some jagged rocks with barely a few centimetres of water beneath the keel. Another time, they spent three days anchored behind barren islands, waiting for fog to lift.

  The strain on Amundsen was enormous as the ship inched through the deadly waters. Here the voyage would either utterly fail or grandly succeed. “I could not get rid of the possibility of returning home with the task unperformed. The thought was anything but cheering.” He spent hours brooding in the bowels of the ship when he should have been sleeping. He craved food with “a devouring hunger,” but at mealtimes the food stuck in his throat. He was sick with worry. Afterward his appetite returned, and he later reported in The North-West Passage that “I would rather not mention what I managed to dispose of.” In his memoirs, however, written decades afterward, he was less concerned with propriety and ready to entertain his readers with a lurid tale. “Instantly, my nerve-racking strain of the last three weeks was over. And with its passing, my appetite returned. I felt ravenous. Hanging from the shrouds were carcasses of caribou. I rushed up the rigging, knife in hand. Furiously I slashed off slice after slice of the raw meat, thrusting it down my throat in chunks and ribbons, like a famished animal, until I could contain no more.” His stomach rejected this “barbarous” feast and he had to “feed the fishes,” but “my appetite would not be denied and again I ate my fill of raw, half-frozen meat.” This time his rude meal stayed down and his usual “sense of calm and well being” returned. The strain, however, left its “mark upon me in such a way that my age was guessed to be between fifty-nine and seventy-five years, although I was only thirty-three!”

  Not until August 26 did the Gjøa slip into the safer waters of what has become known as Amundsen Gulf, where the crew spied the distant outlines of a sail in the hazy distance. The sail was flying the Stars and Stripes. It was the Charles Hansson, a
whaling schooner from San Francisco. The Norwegians rushed below deck to change from their ragged working outfits into their best clothes—they had been saving them for years, for just this purpose. As the two ships neared, the Gjøa lowered a small boat and Amundsen and three others rowed across the icy sea to board the Charles Hansson. “How surprised was I not, when Captain McKenna wrapped his fist round mine and congratulated me on a brilliant success.” McKenna had been on the lookout for the Gjøa. After a couple of hours chatting and gathering information on ice conditions and exchanging sailing tips, the Norwegians bid farewell to the Americans and returned to the Gjøa with an armful of old newspapers as a precious parting gift. One of the newspapers contained a vague and unnerving article under the headline “War between Norway and Sweden.” The world had changed during the adventurers’ sojourn with the Inuit.