by Matt Vance
Framheim was another of those flickers. The roughly constructed wooden hut on the impermanent mantle of floating ice was as close as Amundsen was to get to solid ground and the idea of home for the rest of his life. In the first volume of his book there is a photograph of the expedition’s midwinter feast. Amundsen’s four companions are jammed around the dining table while he sits at the back behind them. This was typical. On the trail, his was the will that moved the men onwards but he remained at the rear, picking up the gear that fell off the careering sleds and leaving the route-finding to his abler men. At the back he had time to fastidiously plan the next step. Failure to gain the South Pole was not an option: he had staked his entire reputation on it.
Amundsen with his adopted daughters, Camilla and Kakonita, c. 1922.
Unlike most of the known world, the South Pole did not have a physical presence: it was merely an abstract meeting of lines. Finding it needed the skill of a navigator. After crossing the continent for fifty-seven days, Amundsen’s team spent four days taking sightings of the sun and laying grids to make sure they had found its likely position. Photographs taken by one of the party, Olav Bjaaland, show men in good trim, removing their hats and facing the icy wind that snaps at the Norwegian flag.
Roald Amundsen, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel and Oscar Wisting at the South Pole, December 14, 1911.
Before returning north Amundsen and his men toasted their success with cigars, filling their lungs with the welcome warmth, while their dogs celebrated with an almighty brawl. Amundsen did not speak of the South Pole in the soft words he used for Framheim. It was, he said, a God-forsaken white hell. He had no desire to dwell there any longer than it took him to find the exact spot.
Out on the ice shelf the lives of explorers such as Amundsen are a common topic of conversation around camp cookers at dinnertime. Not so with our guests, who are initially stuck on the finer points of management theory and political gossip. As they talk Rob and I prepare the freeze-dried meals we’ve been issued with. As always, they are remarkable for their tastelessness and strange texture. Some of the party tell us they are not eating this ‘muck’. Fine cheeses and pâtés emerge from their bags. Two men huddle with the gourmet food inside their jackets, trying to thaw it to a temperature where it can be eaten.
Another man impresses us with his expensive taste in whisky, but while Rob and I enjoy the numbing sensation he keeps referring to the camp as if it were on land. I point out we are at sea, floating on a thick chunk of ice, but fail to convince him.
Gradually the conversation turns to Amundsen and his dogs. I am brought up short by one of the party, who says loudly, ‘Damn cheats.’ He is referring to Scott’s claim that Amundsen’s use of sled dogs was less than sporting – even though Scott’s own team had driven several Manchurian ponies to a grim end on the ice.
I’m not surprised by the man’s comment. For a long time after Scott and his party died, every school in the Commonwealth dished up the myth of the brave British explorer cheated from his goal by a no-good foreigner and his pack of dogs. Those who’d edited Scott’s journals had been sure to shed the best possible light on the man, despite his failures in leadership and planning. Even Amundsen is believed to have stated of Scott, ‘He has won’ in reference to the skilful myth-making.
It was Amundsen who said, ‘Latitude makes every difference in this world.’ Never was this truer than in his selection of a base at the Bay of Whales: Framheim was 110 kilometres closer to the South Pole than Scott’s hut on Ross Island. But ice shelves move inexorably. When I visited the Bay of Whales nearly a hundred years after Amundsen’s expedition, it had shifted ten kilometres further south and become just a small indent on the coastline. From the deck of the ship it appeared as the one soft point in a vast steely wall of ice.
The Bay of Whales constantly changes in form and aspect because of nearby Roosevelt Island, which lies near the seaward edge of the ice shelf. As the ice moves, it bulges over the island; on the island’s lee side it fractures like turbulence in a river behind a rock. The result is a moving inlet in the ice barrier, allowing access to those who want a closer but riskier base from which to strike out to the South Pole.
There is no record of the disappearance of Framheim. As the Fram sailed out of the bay in the late summer of 1912 the hut was cloaked in fog, and the minds of the crew were already on arriving in Hobart and breaking the news of their conquest of the South Pole to a waiting world. By the time Richard Byrd visited the Bay of Whales seventeen years later there was no sign of the hut. At some stage in the intervening years a large chunk had calved off the Ross Ice Shelf and Framheim had sunk into the ocean.
The four men who reached the South Pole with Amundsen mostly faded into the murk of history. Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen and Sverre Hassel retreated into quiet mediocrity. Only Oscar Wisting continued adventuring. Meanwhile Hjalmar Johansen, who had fallen out with Amundsen and been barred from the team going to the South Pole – and therefore any subsequent glory – became an alcoholic and committed suicide.
Amundsen did not give up on his fanatical desire to be the first to reach the North Pole. He had headed south in the belief the pole had been conquered by Cook and Peary, but when their claims were later found to be fraudulent his desire to be first to stand at the top of the world was re-ignited.
In the years from 1918 to 1925 he attempted without success to have his specially designed ship Maud drift to the pole. When this failed, he turned his attention to new technology in the form of the airship and airplane. His first concerted airborne attempts to reach the pole involved two Dornier Do J flying boats. He and his team got within a whisker of their goal before having to put down on sea ice. They then barely got away with their lives as they battled to construct a runway and get airborne again before the ice broke up.
His final attempt was by airship. On May 11, 1926, he and fifteen companions, including Wisting, Umberto Nobile, an Italian engineer, and Nobile’s dog, successfully passed over the North Pole in the Norge, a craft Nobile had designed. The flight from Spitzbergen in the Arctic Ocean to Alaska took two days. Amundsen had consented to having the dog on board on the condition he could be eaten if they had to ditch the airship.
Two years later Amundsen would set out by flying boat on a rescue mission for another airship, Italia, which had crashed during a second attempt at the North Pole by Nobile. Months later a wing float and the fuel tank of Amundsen’s flying boat were found washed up on the Tromsø coast. The famous explorer was never seen again.
Epilogue
Over fourteen years of voyaging on the Southern Ocean and walking on its frozen waters, I have inevitably begun to notice changes. The number of sea lions on Enderby Island’s Sandy Bay is declining as the number of squid trawlers north of the island increases, reducing the sea lions’ food stocks. There are fewer toothfish in the Ross Sea and more ill-prepared boats fishing for them are getting into trouble and sinking. The ferocious nature of the Southern Ocean is unlikely to be enough to discourage the plunder of its remaining fish stocks, nor protect the Ross Sea, the last remaining intact marine ecosystem on Earth, from human greed and carelessness.
Some things, however, are changing for the better. There is more ice in McMurdo Sound thanks to the effects of B-15A, and more Adélie penguins are in the rookeries. Fewer whales are being killed for ‘scientific’ research. Campbell Island is free of rats and its vegetation and birdlife are flourishing; Macquarie Island has finally become rabbit-free and it too is beginning to show signs of ecological recovery. The Antipodes Islands are about to become mouse-free and should become a birdland once again.
Expeditions continue to take small numbers of tourists and other visitors to the subantarctic islands. The advocacy this encourages can take much of the credit for the growing awareness of what is at stake in the Southern Ocean: once you have seen these places you cannot help but become their fanatical defender. On these small islands, isolated by a vast ocean, it is possible to make a diff
erence and leave the world a better place. The skill and dedication of New Zealand’s conservation experts in achieving what can seem the near impossible task of pest eradication are being noticed around the world.
There are some things in the Southern Ocean that will not change, at least in my lifetime. The wind will blow from the west in relentless gales and storms, producing enormous waves to test the courage of sailors. As long as the ocean is cold enough to form sea ice, it will continue to contribute a massive annual injection of biomass from the algal forests that bloom beneath it. The convergence zone will continue to offer a bonanza of food and act as a wobbly barrier to the deep south. When it moves the animals will have to move with it or perish.
On a planet dominated by sea, the Southern Ocean will remain the most important body of water, driving the vast gyres of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Until the East Antarctic ice cap melts, it will be the major source of bottom-water formation, the baseline for global ocean circulation – and indeed global climate control.
For most of planetary time, ice will dominate the southern edges of the ocean, but every few million years the ice will disappear and with it will go most of our major cities. And as the Ross Ice Shelf melts, it will release the dark waters below to the light and its dead explorers to the sea.
Despite its massive importance to us all, the Southern Ocean will remain incognito except to those of us who have discovered its rare beauty. Every time we go there we will swear it is the last time, but each year we will find ourselves back among the birds and waves and winds of the most notorious and magnificent ocean on Earth.
Acknowledgements
For turning a vague idea into reality I would like to thank Mary Varnham and the staff of Awa Press for their tireless work. For providing a much appreciated research grant which bought me time to write I would like to thank Copyright Licensing New Zealand and the New Zealand Society of Authors. For their excellent suggestions and endless corrections I would like to thank my fine readers Jenny Agnew, Nancy, Murray and Doreen Vance. For their unconditional support I would like to thank my family and for the chance to turn dreams into reality I would like to thank the Russ family, the crew of the Professor Khromov and the staff of Heritage Expeditions.
Illustration credits
Attributions and dates have been provided where known. Reasonable efforts have been made to identify all rights holders. The editor and publisher apologise for any omission and invite any rights holder not credited to contact Awa Press.
Front cover photograph: Snares Islands, Rob Suisted/naturespic.com
Map of the Southern Ocean: Roger Smith/geographx.co.nz 3
Limits of Oceans and Seas, 1937: International Hydrographic Bureau 7–8
Bounty Islands: Ngaire Hart 13
Adélie penguins and Salvin’s albatrosses, Bounty Islands, c. 1888: William Dougall, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 16
Gerry Clark on Totorore, Bounty Islands, 1997: Jacinda Amey 19
Icy rigging on Totorore, Antarctic Peninsula: from The Totorore Voyage 22
Totorore, Bucket Cove, Bounty Islands, 1997: Jacinda Amey 24
Coastwatchers on Auckland Island, December 1942: Sir Charles Fleming, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, Lady Fleming Collection, 1/4-066868-G 27
Remains of coastwatchers’ hut on Auckland Island, 2014: Matt Vance 35
‘Placemakers I’, 1996: Bill Hammond, Alan and Jenny Gibbs Collection, Christchurch Art Gallery 37
Bill Hammond and ratas on Enderby Island, 1989: Lloyd Godman 40
Sitka spruce, Campbell Island: Rodney Russ 43
Lord Ranfurly, c. 1900: photographer unknown, Whanganui Regional Museum. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand 47
Auckland Island merganser c. 1913: George Lodge, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa 51
Dent Island: Matt Vance 57
Campbell Island teal: David Boyle, New Zealand Birds Online 57
Elephant seals and king penguins, Macquarie Island: Rob Suisted/naturespic.com 59
Hatch’s steam-pressure digesters, Macquarie Island: Rob Suisted/naturespic.com 64
King penguins, Macquarie Island: Rob Suisted/naturespic.com 67
Vito Dumas aboard Lehg II: photographer unknown 77
Bernard Moitessier on his boat Joshua, Tahiti, 1971: 2015 © William Rodarmor 82
Stamp issue featuring Vito Dumas, Argentina, 1968 84
Russian icebreaker Professor Khromov in Commonwealth Bay: Matt Vance 85
Auckland Islands snipe: Kirk Zufelt 90
Matt Vance and Dr Phil: Matt Vance 92
Tabular iceberg, Southern Ocean: Rob Suisted/naturespic.com 95
Henrik Blessing and Fram in Arctic pack ice, 1894: Fridtjof Nansen 97
Stern of Russian icebreaker Professor Khromov in McMurdo Sound: Matt Vance 103
Storm brewing on the Southern Ocean: Matt Vance 109
Mawson’s hut, Cape Denison: Matt Vance 113
Alistair Mackay, Edgeworth David and Douglas Mawson at what they believed to be the south magnetic pole, January 16, 1909: Edgeworth David 118
Memorial to Xavier Mertz and Edward Sutton Ninnis, Cape Denison: Matt Vance 121
Shackleton’s hut, Cape Royds: Lizzie Meek, New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust 123
Interior of Shackleton’s hut, Cape Royds: Laurence Aberhart 125
Frank Wild, Ernest Shackleton, Eric Marshall and Jameson Adams on board Nimrod after an unsuccessful attempt on the South Pole, 1909: photographer unknown (probably James Murray) 128
Skeleton of Weddell seal, Dry Valleys, Antarctica: George Steinmetz, ASA Agency 131
Shackleton’s Endurance ice-bound in the Weddell Sea, 1914: Frank Hurley 134
Lone Adélie penguin, Ross Ice Shelf: Matt Vance 135
Flag trail, Ross Ice Shelf: Matt Vance 137
Mount Erebus, Ross Ice Shelf: Matt Vance 143
A-frame hut, Scott Base: Matt Vance 145
White Island from Scott Base: Laurence Aberhart 147
Richard Byrd revisits his old hut at the site of Little America II during the US Navy’s Operation Highjump, 1947. He is smoking 12-year-old tobacco in a 12-year-old corncob pipe left at the camp in 1935: US Navy, National Science Foundation 150
Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers, Edgar Evans, Robert Falcon Scott and Lawrence Oates at the South Pole, January 17, 1912: Henry Bowers 152
Memorial cairn marking the site of Robert Falcon Scott’s tent, 1912: photographer unknown, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, Sir Joseph James Kinsey Collection. PA1-f-066-86-3 153
Conical monopole, Scott Base: Laurence Aberhart 155
Hollow earth declaration, 1818: John Symmes 158
Geological drilling site, Ross Ice Shelf, 2007: andrill.org 161
Roald Amundsen, June 1899: Daniel Georg Nyblin, National Library of Norway 165
Amundsen’s base Framheim, Bay of Whales, 1911: photographer unknown, National Library of Norway 168
Amundsen with his adopted daughters Camilla and Kakonita, c. 1922: photographer unknown 170
Roald Amundsen, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel and Oscar Wisting at the South Pole, December 14, 1911: Olav Bjaaland, National Library of Australia, Edward Searle Collection ID 307895 171
Index
Numbers in bold denote illustrations.
Aberhart, Laurence 38, 127–128, 147–148, 151, 155
Adams, Jameson 126, 128
Adélie penguin 16, 124, 128–130, 135, 136
albatross 17, 105
black–browed 21, 23, 41
light–mantled sooty 104–105
research on 25–26
royal 40, 90, 105
Salvin’s 14–15, 16
threats to 105–106
Wandering 22
America’s Cup team, New Zealand 23
Amundsen, Roald 118, 133, 165, 170, 171
adopted daughters 169, 170
affair with Kristine Bennett 169
Fram (ship
) 101, 167, 173
Framheim (hut) 168, 169, 171–173
Maud (ship) 173
North Pole, attempts to reach 173–174
relationship with Nansen 101–102
rescue mission to airship Italia 174
Scott and Amundsen (book) 135
South Pole expedition (1910–11) 134, 138, 166, 169–171, 171, 172
South Pole, The (book) 166–16
upbringing 168–169
ANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions) 60
ANDRILL (Antarctic Geological Drilling) 160–164, 161
Antarctic
Circumpolar Current 9
Peninsula 22, 159
Convergence zone 10, 71–72, 72, 105
Antarctica
climate science see ANDRILL
climate records 159–164
Dry Valleys 130–133, 131
early beliefs about 156–159
geological drilling see ANDRILL
mirages 138, 145
Ross Dependency (New Zealand claim) 140
Ross Ice Shelf 138–139, 140–146, 148–154, 159, 163–164
Scott Base 138, 139, 140, 141, 144, 155
Transantarctic Mountains 130
White Island 147
Antipodes Island 24–25, 175
albatross research on 25–26
Alert Bay 26
South Bay 26
Art in the Subantarctic programme 38–41