by Stephen Bown
After only a month in Norway, in the early fall of 1927, Amundsen unexpectedly packed again and set off on a steamship across the Atlantic for another extensive trip to the United States, and perhaps other countries as well. He was as restless as ever, and may have been uncomfortable with the contents of his memoir, which if he had ever glanced over the published version must surely have struck him as amateurish compared with his other works. Having spent so much of his life on the road, he could never just settle down to quiet obscurity and a peaceful life of contemplation in Uranienborg. It would require too much thinking—thinking about his past and, perhaps more importantly, about his future. Besides, he had spent far more time living in the Waldorf-Astoria than he had in his house in Norway. In a sense, he was returning home when he crossed the Atlantic to New York.
After spending a month in New York, Amundsen again abruptly packed up from the hotel, cancelled his speaking engagements and boarded a steamship for Norway. Near the end of his memoir he had written, “My explorations have brought me welcome formal honours, but, better than these, they have brought me the joys of enduring friendships. Many of my best friends are Americans. Their homes are open to me and their hearts as well.” This time, however, one particular friend wasn’t in New York. Amundsen’s relationship with Bess Magids was becoming more serious, and the rumours were that she was the reason for his abrupt departure from New York. But as with all of Amundsen’s previous romantic relationships, he was thoroughly discreet, particularly since Magids was still married.
She arrived in Norway on December 22, 1927, in secret. The Magids Brothers trading company was involved in business around the world, and Bess easily could have been in Europe on business. In any event she stayed at Uranienborg for several months, returning to the United States at the end of February to finalize her divorce. She may have returned to Norway in March, but by May and June she was in Seattle, packing up her life for a permanent move to Norway. She was 30, Amundsen 55. Her unusual level of comfort with the Arctic frontier and also with large urban centres was surely one of the foundations of their relationship. But their story was to be altered by the inexorable unfolding events of the next few months.
The public quarrel with Nobile was stressful for Amundsen, and the public reaction to his memoir was less than enthusiastic, in some cases hostile. The book was routinely dismissed as petty and peculiar, a drastic departure from his usual subtle and self-deprecating style. One of Scott’s South Pole expedition members, Herbert Ponting, wrote a letter to the London Times deriding Amundsen’s claims of the British being “bad losers” and claiming that the Norwegian explorer’s entire South Pole expedition was nothing more than “a desire to deprive the British of the glory of crowning their long and valuable work in the South.” The claims were reprinted in the New York Times and other papers, reviving the now fifteen-year-old controversy to no one’s benefit, least of all Amundsen’s.
He had also burned many professional bridges—with the Royal Geographical Society in London and the National Geographic Society in Washington—by including undiplomatic accounts of events that placed those institutions in an unflattering light. My Life as an Explorer raised the spectres of these past quarrels, which would otherwise have remained dormant. Time has shown that Amundsen was right to question Robert Peary’s claim to have reached the North Pole, and he was right that Frederick Cook’s and Peary’s evidence was equally compelling—that is, equally fabricated. Amundsen’s quarrel with the National Geographic Society stemmed from its cancellation of one of his lectures; the society had endorsed and supported Peary, and didn’t want anyone challenging its version of the truth. But Amundsen had refused to be muzzled.
The publication of his memoir also led directly to “the Amundsen Affair,” a diplomatic issue between Britain and Norway that Amundsen probably had no idea could result from revealing the thoughts and ideas that he harboured deep within himself—resentments, bitter reminiscences and memories of perceived slights that were decades old and deeply personal to the aging explorer. Many of his friends and colleagues believed that he had not been in his right mind when he allowed his memoir to be published in its current state. Fridtjof Nansen wrote letters to the Royal Geographic Society informing it that he believed Amundsen was not of sound mind and that whatever Amundsen might say should not be trusted.
Whether Nansen believed Amundsen to be deranged or not, his comments were intended to stem the disintegration of co-operation and goodwill between prominent individuals in Norway and Britain; it was a political, rather than medical, claim. Such was Amundsen’s international stature that international relations could easily be damaged by nationalistic feelings. For many, Amundsen was a stand-in for Norway, and attitudes toward him transferred to the nation. If it was believed that Amundsen had lost his mind and was no longer to be trusted, the potential diplomatic damage resulting from his statements could be minimized.
Amundsen certainly harboured some bitterness over his current state of affairs. He had reached the age when intrepid adventuring in the remote wilds of the polar regions was beyond him, and yet he was barely financially solvent after a lifetime of dangerous work. He had never married and had no children. He felt that he deserved more, after all he had risked; that it was unjust that he should end up with so little. And he would have been correct in his assessment, but as Amundsen himself was aware, seldom does the world mete out justice and success based upon merit alone. Many people live and die in poverty and obscurity only to be revered later, and many have seen their tide rise through no great effort of their own.
It is also possible that Amundsen’s health was not good after his many years of hard living in frozen lands, compounded by years of cocktail parties, endless travel and public engagements, and his long-time smoking habit. On several occasions he had visited physicians concerning the heart troubles that resulted from the poisoning on the Maud expedition, including consulting a doctor in Los Angeles for an unspecified treatment involving radium. He had instructed his lawyer, “Make me a free man. See to it that my debts are paid.” But the stress of paying off his creditors, which was nearly complete after several years of applying all his surplus income to the task, as well as selling off many of his medals and decorations (which were purchased by a benefactor and donated to the Norwegian state), could easily have exacerbated any lingering or underlying health problems. Fortunately he still had his monthly stipend from the Norwegian government. Any discussion of Amundsen’s health is speculation, however, in the absence of any direct evidence. His older brother Jens had recently died, and that event was sure to provoke ruminations on his own mortality.
It was during this time that Amundsen was also intensifying his relationship with Bess Magids, whom he had visited in New York for several years. He hosted her at Uranienborg for several months, and she had plans to return to Norway to marry him in June 1928. It has often been claimed that at this time in his life Amundsen was a bitter, lonely and resentful man, but he couldn’t have been too lonely—Magids was visiting him during much of this period, and he was excited enough about her visit to cut short his American lecture tour. Furthermore, she was returning to the United States to organize her affairs before coming back to Norway to share her life with Amundsen—an act that involved getting divorced (her husband was probably ill at the time; he died the following year) and likely sacrificing a substantial amount of money. So, at the very least, Amundsen was able to muster enough energy and charm to move forward with this aspect of his life. It couldn’t have been all bad, despite the unresolved issues that preyed on his mind.
Many people who retire experience problems in adjusting to a quieter life, a life without responsibility. Could Amundsen be a romantic and charming gallant for an extended period? He had never been in a committed public relationship, had always followed his own schedule. Perhaps, like many an older bachelor, and particularly for one who spent far more time in hotels than he ever did at home, he feared that he was permanently unmoored from the
rhythms of regular life, that he was incapable of a committed relationship or of settling down. Perhaps Magids herself operated under a set of false expectations, such as about the state of Amundsen’s finances?9 Perhaps Amundsen feared he wouldn’t be able to succeed at commitment. It couldn’t be planned like an expedition, and at the age of fifty-five he had no precedent.
On May 26, 1928, while Magids was in Seattle settling her affairs, Amundsen was attending a public luncheon celebrating the successful airplane flight of Hubert Wilkins and Carl Eielson from Alaska to Spitsbergen. The host of the lunch, the editor of the newspaper Aftenposten, was called to take a phone call: Nobile’s new airship Italia had been lost near Spitsbergen. There was no radio communication with Nobile. His highly publicized second airship expedition to the North Pole had been undertaken chiefly to prove that he didn’t need Amundsen to lead an expedition in the Arctic. Questioned by a reporter, Amundsen made a public statement of support and offered his assistance. And so followed the series of events that led to Amundsen setting off in his French Latham biplane.
Having publicly announced his intention to help with the search and rescue, and having such a storied relationship with Nobile, Amundsen felt compelled to push for a role in the rescue operation. An emotional and temperamental man, he probably regretted his feud with Nobile. Their quarrel likely would have petered out much sooner if not for the constant reporting of each other’s statements in the press. By the spring of 1928, after four months in Norway, Amundsen had spent a greater block of time at Uranienborg than he had in years, and if his past behaviour is any indication he may have been anxious to leave and do something. Contributing to Nobile’s rescue would be a chance to gain some final fame, to feel he was doing something useful, to show that he still had something to contribute.
But he was no longer the leading man. He was a bit player dutifully performing his role—workmanlike, predictable and competent—but not in control. He was annoyed when the Norwegian government, at Mussolini’s request, denied him an official role in the rescue and selected Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen to lead the Norwegian rescue operation. Mussolini was trying to salvage Italian pride by downplaying the international rescue operation. (He had warned Nobile about tempting fate with a second expedition and had advised against it.) Amundsen quickly sought other means of joining the operation, to counter the taint of being overlooked by his own country. If he at least made the appropriate gestures, none could claim that he had been cowardly or had accepted the official slight without a fight. At the same time, he was a reluctant rescuer—his participation was all to save face and honour. Many countries were participating in the extravaganza for a similar reason—not in a genuine attempt to rescue a handful of injured and stranded men, but to bolster their national prestige. Twenty-one airplanes and numerous ships from the international community were involved in the search, so it was only a matter of time before Nobile was found.
Amundsen may have been surprised and perhaps annoyed when the French government, which certainly didn’t mind upstaging or humiliating Mussolini, had a plane and crew ready for him. Many possibilities can be advanced as sources of the guilt and misguided sense of duty that drove Amundsen at this time: he knew that Nobile had ventured to the Arctic again merely to prove that it could be done without Amundsen’s leadership; he didn’t want another life on his conscience, in addition to Wiik’s, Scott’s and Johanssen’s. Perhaps he lacked the courage to say no, he wasn’t going, it wasn’t his job. We will never know.
Amundsen’s life seemed to be narrowing. His old companion Sverre Hassel, one of the four men with whom he had reached the South Pole, came to visit him in Uranienborg and died suddenly of a heart attack while they were talking. In a telephone interview with a New York Times correspondent, Amundsen specifically asked the man to “give my greetings to my numerous friends in America and thank them for me for all the cables of encouragement they have sent to me.” With his companions Leif Dietrichson and Oscar Wisting, Amundsen boarded the train for Bergen with a certain reluctance, lingering on the walkway even after the train began to move, with a tear in his eye, staring at the ground while the crowd cheered.
After a lingering meeting in Tromsø, his friend Fritz Zapffe, who had known him for nearly two decades and had been part of the support crew for several expeditions, wrote “I even felt slightly embarrassed—as I would in the company of someone ill, to whom one does not quite know what to say.” When Zapffe saw Amundsen crawl into the fuselage of the biplane, he saw a man already defeated. “I shall not forget the expression on his face, sitting astern, something extraordinary and resigned was over him. It appeared that nothing concerned him and yet it was maybe all about him. He sat quietly just looking at me.” Amundsen had played the showman for so long now that he could not back down; he had to keep acting for the crowd as if he still needed their goodwill to finance his next expedition. Rueful and sheepish, propelled toward his fate, Amundsen was caught up in a media frenzy of his own making and was unable to stop himself.
The French Latham biplane, with its crew of young Norwegian and French men headed by Amundsen, set off into a bright sun on June 18. Underpowered and overloaded, the Latham also had the disadvantage of being unsuited to landing safely on either choppy water or ice. A fisherman reported the airplane flying into “a bank of fog that rose up over the horizon and then the machine began to climb presumably to fly over it but then it seemed to me she began to move unevenly but then . . . she ran into the fog and disappeared before our eyes.” It was the last anyone ever saw of the biplane, and soon radio contact was lost.
Amundsen had often telegrammed Bess in Seattle in June before she rode the train to New York. He sent her a final telegram from Bergen on his way north, just before she boarded the steamship Hellig Olav. When she arrived in Oslo on July 2, he was missing and presumed dead.
The End of the Heroic Age
Amundsen! The very name carries the song of the Arctic winds; the mystery of the white places on the earth. Of all men, he alone had stood at both frozen tips of our spinning world. From boyhood, his life was dedicated to the lonely polar trails, and when, a weathered old man, he roared away into the white silence, on a winged quest of rescue, it was his beloved land of snow that claimed him at last. Even today, as Byrd and Wilkins plow southward toward the Antarctic, it is the spirit of Amundsen that leads on.
—Boyden Sparkes, “The Last of the Vikings,”
Popular Science Monthly, December 1928
IN THE MONTHS after his disappearance, Roald Amundsen was eulogized as a hero in both Norway and the United States in countless speeches, articles and radio broadcasts. This was particularly the case on December 14, 1928, when South Pole Day, the seventeenth anniversary of Amundsen and his party’s reaching the South Pole, was proclaimed a national holiday in Norway. The entire country observed two minutes’ silence in Amundsen’s honour; thousands crowded the streets of Oslo, and Norway’s schools devoted lessons that day to the man and his explorations. Lincoln Ellsworth delivered a heartfelt speech that was broadcast in New York and, in translation, in Oslo: “The end, no doubt, was as he himself would have wished it,” he said. “For Amundsen often told me that he wanted to die in action. . . . I cannot see him other than as the great leader he was.”
Even Umberto Nobile, rescued from the ice five days after Amundsen went missing and now disgraced in Italy for his role in the Italia’s failure, paid tribute to the Norwegian hero: “On the day that Norway commemorates Roald Amundsen my thoughts are turned with deep respect to the memory of that great explorer. I ask you to consider me present in spirit at your memorial festival.” In the United States, the New York Times boldly proclaimed that the “Whole World Honors Amundsen’s Memory.”
Nevertheless, Amundsen soon faded from public memory. The technology of exploration changed, new records were set and then broken, and other world-shaking events came to dominate the news: stock markets crashed, the Great Depression set in, Fascism gained strength and the world mov
ed toward another war. In Britain, Robert Falcon Scott was transformed into a national hero, a martyr who had died in a gallant struggle, while Amundsen was denigrated as the dastardly foil to Scott—Scott was good, therefore Amundsen was bad. It was a task made much easier by Amundsen’s ill-considered claim, fifteen years after the fact, that the British were “bad losers” for not celebrating his achievement with the same vigour with which they celebrated Scott’s tragedy. For decades in Britain, Amundsen was considered only in reference to Scott and their so-called race to the South Pole, at the same time receiving only occasional mention in books about the exploration of the Arctic and aviation history.