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(Stated First Edition. Clean blue cloth boards with stampe...)
Stated First Edition. Clean blue cloth boards with stamped gold lettering on cover and spine. Hint of slightest surface wear to spine corners, no fraying, no fading. Binding is tight and square, no cracking. Pages and edges are clean and bright (page 25 has marker line in lower margin), tasteful previous owner bookplate on rear pastedown, flaps from dust jacket neatly glued to front fixed endpaper with biographical information on Amundsen. Illustrated with photo, maps, drawings. 282 pages with index.
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(Originally published in 1908. This volume from the Cornel...)
Originally published in 1908. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies. All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume.
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Amundsen was born to a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in Borge, between the towns Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg. His father was Jens Amundsen. He was the fourth son in the family. His mother chose to keep him out of the maritime industry of the family and pressured him to become a doctor, a promise that Amundsen kept until his mother died when he was aged 21, whereupon he quit university for a life at sea.
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a medical student at Christiania University but left to go to sea. He studied sailing techniques, steam navigation, scientific navigation, and terrestrial magnetism, and he trained himself to endure bitter cold and long travel. After being a mate on an Antarctic expedition, he began at 25 to plan his own expedition.
Roald Amundsen originally began a career studying medicine at the University of Christiana (now the University of Oslo), but dropped out in order to go to sea. His first Antarctic trip was in 1899 on the Belgica expedition when he was one of the first party ever to over winter in Antarctica as the ship became trapped in the pack ice and drifted until it broke out in the following spring. He established his credentials on this trip as a leader, ice master and as a resourceful expeditioner.
He led his first polar expedition in the Arctic from 1903 - 1906 in the Gjoa, successfully traversing the "North West Passage" a extraordinary achievement in a tiny ship that came after a century of attempts and the loss of literally hundreds of lives.
The next major expedition was to be to drift over the North pole with the pack ice in the ship Fram built for the fellow Norwegian explorer Nansen (regarded as being the father of polar travel - North and South). The Fram was an unusual ship, unlike many polar exploratory ships that started life as merchant-men, coal ships, or the like, the Fram was designed and built for polar travel. It was a round bottomed ship that was about a third as wide as it was long. The idea being that it was immune to the perils of being stuck in pack ice. Other ships stuck in pack would succumb to the immense pressures on them and be crushed leaving the occupants stranded on floating seasonal ice with no ship.
The Fram was different in that she would respond to the sideways pressure by being pushed upwards, rising out of the pack to sit above the ice in the way that many small and relatively weak boats had regularly been seen to do when frozen in forming sea ice in the Norwegian Fjords in winter time. Against many expectations, the Fram performed perfectly in this manner.
Before the expedition set off to drift over the North Pole, news reached Amundsen of Peary's attainment of the their goal. Plans were hastily changed and Amundsen set out to lead the party that would the first to reach the South Pole instead.
Amundsen left Christiana, Norway in August 1910 with provisions for 2 years and nearly a hundred Greenland sled dogs that were to be the key in his team's subsequent success in reaching the South Pole ahead of Scott and his manhaul party.
Such was the secrecy of Amundsen's plans, that it was not until a month after leaving Norway, when their ship had reached Madeira, that Amundsen told his crew of the revised goal of Antarctica and the South Pole. Until this point, they were all of the impression that they were then to head north again for the Arctic.
The Fram and Amundsen's party reached Antarctica and land fall at the Bay of Whales on January 14th 1911 where a winter base was established. Depots were established between then and April when the sun set for the long Antarctic winter night, depots of stores that would be used in the push to reach the South Pole the following spring.
The winter was passed in orderly industriousness while the party prepared the equipment and stores for the polar journey as well as settling into winter routines to maintain morale and make sure the men were kept occupied. Amundsen had endured a difficult enforced winter on the Belgica over 10 years beforehand and understood the importance of preparation for the winter and of maintaining spirits particularly during the dark days of winter.
By late winter / early spring, the sun had reappeared, sledges were ready for the push to the pole and dogs and men were prepared. The weather however was a constant source of frustration, everything would be in place and ready but the weather would turn at the last moment, so the trip would be cancelled.
When eventually Amundsen and his team set off, there were 8 men with sledges, pulled by 86 dogs. The first attempt was halted by the weather that became much colder than expected forcing the team to return to the winter base.
In the end a team of 5 men set off each with a sledge pulled by 13 dogs. They made good progress feeding the dogs on seal meat and blubber that had been brought with them. The men's rations were meagre in quality, but sufficient in quantity.
Plans were made for the final push to the pole based on setting out with dogs that would be systematically shot and fed to the remainder. They struggled on against poor weather, blizzards and bad snow conditions which took their toll on both dogs and men.
At 3 p.m. on Friday December the 14th 1911 the party arrived at the South Pole. They had been concerned that Scott may have beaten them to the prize. They erected a small tent and placed inside it a letter and then set off back to their winter base. They arrived 39 days later with all five men and 11 dogs "hale and hearty".
Amundsen continued his explorations in the Arctic becoming more and more interested in flying and airship travel. He disappeared with no trace in 1928 while searching for the survivors of an airship crash in the Arctic. He was much troubled in later years by accusations of ungentlemanly conduct and being unsporting in the manner that he arrived in Antarctica to "race" Scott to the pole without giving any prior notice of intention. Accusations made all the more painful because he and his team survived while Scott and his party all perished.
The Norwegian Roald Amundsen was the first explorer to reach the South Pole.
One of the greatest figures in the history of polar exploration, he was also the first to sail through the Northwest Passage.
As the leader of the Antarctic expedition of 1910–12, which was the first to reach the South Pole, on 14 December 1911, he was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
In 1926, he was the first expedition leader for the air expedition to the North Pole, making him the first person, without dispute, to reach both poles.
He is also known as having the first expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage (1903–06) in the Arctic.
(Originally published in 1908. This volume from the Cornel...)
(Stated First Edition. Clean blue cloth boards with stampe...)
Quotations: "I may say that this is the greatest factor, the way in which the expedition is equipped, the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck. "
