by Stephen Bown
The heart and soul of The Last Viking, however, is a collection of more than four hundred newspaper articles about Amundsen, primarily from the New York Times (which published articles that also appeared in other newspapers), which I relied upon extensively to enliven his story and to enrich the understanding of his personality. There are literally thousands of extant newspaper articles about Roald Amundsen, if one chose to search for them. Every city he visited produced a story about his latest exploits. In general, however, little of unique interest is contained in these reports that differentiates them from the reportage in the New York Times, which frequently ran a similar version of a local story submitted by correspondents. Many of these stories can be searched and read online at little cost, or for no cost at a university microfilm station.
I have elected to quote mainly from the New York Times for several reasons: because it was the newspaper of record at the time and had a large national and international audience, and because it reproduced variations on almost everything written about Amundsen from other sources, including articles from European correspondents and reprints from smaller local newspapers. Amundsen also had a special relationship with the New York Times: he sold the newspaper exclusive rights to the stories of his adventures, ensuring that he received a great deal of publicity even when he wasn’t returning from an expedition. If a story made the New York Times, it must have been important enough to be of more than purely local interest and therefore is a good reflection of American sentiment about and interest in Amundsen and his exploits.
Amundsen spent most of his adult life either on his expeditions or in the United States (where he was particularly fond of the Waldorf Astoria in New York), rather than in Norway, as is commonly assumed. In fact, he was hardly ever in Norway; nevertheless he was a national hero there. But he was equally famous in the United States. In the 1920s the American coverage of Amundsen picked up dramatically, even though many of his exploits then lacked the unique flare of capturing the South Pole; it was during this period that he became a celebrity and every detail of his public life was reported.
These articles have never been brought to light in a book, apart from the obvious headlines concerning the Northwest Passage and the South Pole. I was able to discover and access this extensive source of new information because of the digital searching capabilities of the New York Times Article Archive. These articles were probably never previously used because of the Herculean task of searching for them. Yet they reveal a whole new perspective on Amundsen. Who knew that in early-twentieth-century America Amundsen was constantly in the news, like a modern rock star?
The articles provide wonderful insight into Amundsen’s activities and character. In an era before television, radio and the Internet, newspaper and magazine articles were the main source of public news and entertainment. The articles on Amundsen are not primarily what we would consider news. They are lingering biographical treatments, full of quotes, descriptions of his unusual life and his opinions on all matters, including polar exploration. A different portrait of Amundsen emerges from these articles—not the typical one of Amundsen as the stern and ruthless foil to Scott, but that of a droll, self-deprecating storyteller who had unusual opinions and strange dreams.
I could not have written this book without the prior work of Roland Huntford, especially his book on Scott and Amundsen, The Last Place on Earth. Huntford focused on Antarctica and on how Amundsen’s career and life were melded with Scott’s. The Last Viking seeks to extend and expand on Huntford’s work to include all of Amundsen’s adventures, including his numerous publicity tours of the United States.
Also valuable was the work of the Norwegian biographer Tor Bomann-Larsen, who has gone through a collection of Amundsen’s voluminous correspondence in Norwegian that provides details about Amundsen’s relations with his family and about his financial records, which are helpful in creating a full chronology of the less-public periods of his life, particularly in Europe. Bomann-Larsen focuses more on what the world (especially Norway) was to Amundsen and on the details of the people, primarily the Norwegians, who shared his life. As a reassessment of a national hero, his book Roald Amundsen is perhaps unjustifiably critical of Amundsen’s personal attributes. While I appreciate the great work Bomann-Larsen has done in bringing to light new documents concerning Amundsen, I have come to very different conclusions regarding Amundsen’s character and historical significance. But that is to be expected from two authors from different backgrounds; Bomann-Larsen is looking at his famous countryman and challenging some of the myths surrounding him in his native land, whereas for me Amundsen has always been an international figure. His accomplishments are of global significance, and his greatest fame was in the United States.
I sincerely hope that the public interest in Amundsen stemming from the centenary of his and Scott’s conquest of the South Pole will inspire further interest in this most fascinating and enigmatic of polar explorers and will result in greater access to the documents that provide information about his life.
Further Information on the Web
Motion pictures, black-and-white and silent, were in their infancy when Amundsen was engaged in his later expeditions. One fascinating film includes footage of Amundsen’s flight to the North Pole with Lincoln Ellsworth in 1925. Amundsen’s brief appearance on camera is intriguing; it starts with the familiar stern face common in his still photographs, and then, after a moment, he transforms into the smiling, somewhat shy and self-effacing character described by his friends. View the footage online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEHmD-FDUEU. The close-up of Amundsen begins at 2:11.
The Fram Museum in Oslo is a fantastic source of information about Amundsen, including a photo gallery, short biographies of Amundsen’s men and excerpts from their expedition journals, and information about all of Amundsen’s expeditions as well as those of other Norwegian explorers. Visit the museum online at www.frammuseum.no.
The New York Times Article Archive is a great place for those interested in reading Amundsen-related articles in full or in researching a specific aspect of Amundsen’s storied life in the United States. They are organized by date, and many of the early articles are free. Visit the archive online at www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/nytarchive.html.
Endnotes
1. The Gjøa was later presented as a gift to the city of San Francisco, remaining on display in Golden Gate Park until 1972, when it was returned to Norway. It now resides in Oslo harbour, next to two other famous Norwegian ships, Fridtjof Nansen’s Fram and Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki.
2. The sensational news that did soon dominate the newspapers was the April 15, 1912, sinking of the RMS Titanic.
3. Leon Amundsen did once express the opinion in a letter that it was fortunate that Amundsen had prevailed; otherwise, the British would have continued to send out one doomed expedition after another, condemning dozens to horrible fates, similar to what had occurred in the wake of Sir John Franklin’s demise in the mid-nineteenth century.
4. The Maud, which had been drifting in the ice north of Siberia, eventually cruised into Nome in August 1925 and was promptly impounded for debts. Temporarily freed, the ship continued south to Seattle and was again impounded, eventually being sold to the Hudson’s Bay Company.
5. In 1925—twenty years after Norway gained its independence from Sweden—the Norwegian capital, Christiania, was given its original medieval Norwegian name, Oslo.
6. Much later, Amundsen received a letter from Clarendon (then known as “Charles”) Carpendale informing him that the family had kept both girls instead of sending Kakonita to her negligent father, and that eventually they had all fled the arrival of the Bolsheviks and escaped from eastern Siberia to Nome. By November 1927, the Carpendale family had moved to Surrey, Vancouver, British Columbia, where Kakonita married and had three children.
7. Archival film footage of the event, restored by the Norwegian Film Institute, shows N25 skidding down an incline and wobbling on the uneven ice while
a crowd of enthusiastic onlookers waves and cheers: “Roald Amundsen-Lincoln Ellworths Flyveekspedisjon 1925.mp4,” www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEHmD-FD UEU.
8. The most famous airship disaster occurred much later, in 1937, when the German airship Hindenburg burst into flames in New Jersey after successfully crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Europe. Over a third of its ninety-seven passengers and crew died in the accident. The disaster was caught on film, thereby ending commercial passenger airship service.
9. Bess Magids returned to Alaska and eventually took over Magids Brothers Trading Co., becoming a noted figure in early-twentieth-century Alaskan history. In 1931, she married a younger man, Arthur Chamberlain, with whom she had a daughter, and in 1937 she married John Milton Cross. In 1945, she was elected to the Alaska Territorial Legislature, where she voted for Alaska statehood. She died in 1971.
Selected Bibliography
Amundsen, Roald. Roald Amundsen’s Belgica Diary: The First Scientific Expedition to the Antarctic. Bluntisham, UK: Erskine, 1999.
———. The North-West Passage: Being a Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship Gjøa, 1903–1907. New York: Dutton, 1908.
———. The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the Fram, 1910–1912. New York: Keedick, 1913.
———. Nordostpassagen. Kristiania: Gyldendalske Boghandel, 1921. There is no English translation.
———. My Life as an Explorer. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page, 1927. Amundsen, Roald, and Lincoln Ellsworth. Our Polar Flight: The Amundsen-Ellsworth Polar Flight. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1925.
———. First Crossing of the Polar Sea. New York: Doran, 1927.
Arnesaon, Odd. The Polar Adventure: The Italia Tragedy Seen at Close Quarters. London: Gollancz, 1929.
Atwood, Evangeline. Who’s Who in Alaskan Politics: A Biographical Dictionary of Alaskan Political Personalities, 1884–1974. Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort (for the Alaska Historical Commission), 1977.
Balchen, Bernt. Come North with Me. New York: Dutton, 1958.
Bomann-Larsen, Tor. Roald Amundsen. Translated by Ingrid Christophersen. Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: History Press, 2006. Originally published in Norway in 1995.
Bryce, Robert M. Cook and Peary: The Polar Controversy Resolved. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997.
Byrd, Richard. Skyward. New York: Putnam, 1928.
Eber, Dorothy Harley. Encounters on the Passage: Inuit Meet the Explorers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008.
Ellsworth, Lincoln. Beyond Horizons. New York: Doubleday, 1938.
Gade, John G. All My Born Days. New York: Scribner, 1942.
Goldberg, Fred. Roald Amundsen: Expedition Mail, Letters, Postcards and Stamps. Oslo: Fram Museum, 2000.
Hanssen, Helmer. Voyages of a Modern Viking. London: Routledge, 1936.
Hayes, Derek. Historical Atlas of the Arctic. Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & McIntyre, 2003.
Hensley, William Iggiagruk. Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2009.
Holland, Clive, ed. Farthest North: A History of North Polar Exploration in Eyewitness Accounts. London: Robinson, 1994.
Huntford, Roland. Race for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen. London: Continuum, 2010.
Huntford, Roland. The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole. New York: Modern Library, 1999. Originally published as Scott and Amundsen in 1985.
Huntford, Roland. The Amundsen Photographs. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987.
Kenney, Gerard. Dangerous Passage: Issues in the Arctic. Toronto: Natural Heritage Books, 2006.
Kershner, Howard Eldred, ed. Air Pioneering in the Arctic: The Two Polar Flights of Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth. New York: National America Society, 1929.
Klover, Geir O., ed. Cold Recall: Reflections of a Polar Explorer. Oslo: Fram Museum, 2009.
Langner, Rainer K. Scott and Amundsen: Duel in the Ice. London: Haus, 2007.
MacPhee, R.D.E. Race to the End: Amundsen, Scott, and the Attainment of the South Pole. New York: Sterling Innovation, 2010.
Mason, Theodore K. Two Against the Ice: Amundsen and Ellsworth. New York: Dodd, Mead, 1982.
Maynard, Jeff. Wings of Ice: The Mystery of the Polar Air Race. North Sydney: Random House Australia, 2010.
McCutcheon, Campbell. Introduction to Roald Amundsen, My Life as an Explorer. Stroud, UK: Amberley, 2008. Reprint of a 1927 original.
McKee, Alexander. Ice Crash: Disaster in the Arctic, 1928. New York: St. Martin’s, 1979.
Montague, Richard. Oceans, Poles, and Airmen. New York: Random House, 1971.
Neider, Charles. Antarctica: Authentic Accounts of Life and Exploration in the World’s Highest, Driest, Windiest, Coldest and Most Remote Continent. New York: Random House, 1972.
Nobile, Umberto. My Polar Flights. New York: Putnam, 1961.
Pinson, Elizabeth Bernhardt. Alaska’s Daughter: An Eskimo Memoir of the Early Twentieth Century. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2004.
Roberts, David. Great Exploration Hoaxes. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1982.
Stevens, Robert W. Alaskan Aviation History. Des Moines, WA: Polynyas, 1990.
Sverdrup, Harald. “Roald Amundsen, Biographical Sketch.” Journal of the Arctic Institute of North America 12, no. 4 (1959).
Thomson, David. Scott, Shackleton and Amundsen: Ambition and Tragedy in the Antarctic. New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 2002. Originally published as Scott’s Men in 1977.
Tombs, George. “Amundsen’s Family Secrets: Another Side of the Polar Explorer Emerges as an Inuit Family Connection Comes to Light.” Canada’s History 91, no. 5 (October/November 2011).
Acknowledgments
I wish to thank a number of people for their contributions to this book. First, my wife, Nicky Brink, for encouragement, numerous discussions, and for reading the first draft. My editor John Eerkes-Medrano once again provided his insightful comments, suggestions and opinions, strengthening the book and leading me to some new ideas; also to copyeditors Ann Delgehausen and Ruth Wilson. Merloyd Lawrence offered valuable and enthusiastic suggestions and an exciting vision of the book’s potential. Scott Manktelow created the stylish maps (www.scottmanktelow.com). A big shout out goes to the Canmore Public Library for bringing in numerous old and obscure books for me, the Arctic Institute of North America for maintaining such a good selection of Amundsen’s books, and to Café Books for its support and for at one time devoting an entire table to my books. Thanks to the Alberta Foundation for the Arts. Last but not least, thanks to Roald Amundsen for living such an unusual and adventurous life.
Photo Credits
The photographs in this book’s inserts originally appeared in the following books by Roald Amundsen:
Opdagelseseiser: images 1, 2, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, and 20
The North-West Passage: The Gjoa Expedition, 1903–1907: images 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8
The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the Fram, 1910–1912: images 9, 10, 11, and 12
Voyages of a Modern Viking: image 15
Nordostpassagen: images 18 and 21
My Polar Flight: images 23, 24, 25 and 31
The First Flight Across the Polar Sea: images 29 and 30
Image 22 appears courtesy of the Museum of History and Industry, Seattle.
The photograph on page ii appears courtesy of Getty images.
Index
Airships, history, ref 1, ref 2
technical aspects, ref 1
Amundsen, Gustav, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9
Amundsen, Gustav S. (nephew), ref 1
Amundsen, Hanna Henrikke Gustava (née Sahlquist) (mother), ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5
Amundsen, Jens Engebreth (father), ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4
Amundsen, Jens Ole Antonio (Tonni), ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
Amundsen, Kakonita (stepdaughter), ref 1, ref 2, r
ef 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6
Amundsen, Leon
as Amundsen’s business agent, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11, ref 12, ref 13, ref 14, ref 15, ref 16, ref 17, ref 18, ref 19, ref 20, ref 21, ref 22, ref 23, ref 24
Amundsen’s quarrel with, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5
early support of Northwest Passage voyage, ref 1
ski trip over Hardangervidda, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5
youth, ref 1
Amundsen, Roald Engelbregt Gravning
animosity toward the British establishment, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7
appearance, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11, ref 12, ref 13, ref 14
assessment and legacy, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6
attitude toward native peoples, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11, ref 12
as a celebrity, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11, ref 12
character and personality, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11, ref 12, ref 13, ref 14, ref 15, ref 16, ref 17, ref 18, ref 19, ref 20, ref 21, ref 22, ref 23, ref 24, ref 25, ref 26, ref 27, ref 28, ref 29, ref 30, ref 31, ref 32, ref 33, ref 34, ref 35, ref 36, ref 37, ref 38, ref 39, ref 40
contemplates marriage, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
descendents, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3
distrust of doctors and scientists, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5
eccentricity, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10
finances, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7, ref 8, ref 9, ref 10, ref 11, ref 12, ref 13, ref 14, ref 15, ref 16, ref 17, ref 18, ref 19, ref 20, ref 21, ref 22
friendship with Lincoln Ellsworth, ref 1, ref 2, ref 3, ref 4, ref 5, ref 6, ref 7