Roald Amundsen

“ We never tire of standing on the deck watching the drift-ice, which has a charm for any one who is observing it for the first time, even as it has for “old hands” in the northern regions. Against the sides of the great icebergs waves are breaking, just as they do against the island reefs of the Norwegian coast. The drifting pieces of ice have ever-changing forms. During a thaw, sea, sun, and wind turn them into shapes more weird and fantastic than even a sculptor could do. ”

“ As we pass a heavy flat ice-floe, we see an interesting sight. The waves are swaying it with a regular rhythm, and spouting up from its very center there is a large column of water which rises twenty to twenty-five meters into the air. The explanation of this strange spring is simple enough. A caprice of nature has formed a hole in the floe, and as the waves rock it, the water presses through the hole with such force that the floe becomes a floating fountain. ”

“ Amundsen, Dietrichson, Ellsworth, Feucht, Omdal, Riiser-Larsen, dirty and grimy, but living and safe and sound, surrounded by workers and seamen, a motley crowd who shout hurrah, clap their hands and carry them shoulder high. We jump down on to the overfilled deck, we cry and we laugh, we pat their cheeks, we embrace them and words fail us. ”

“ But on land we saw nothing but stones, snow and ice, and to westward only the long stretch of gray water broken here and there by white drift ice.
What a desert!... Local partisanship in Ny-Aalesund is right when it maintains that King’s Bay is the best spot in Spitzbergen. The sound is narrow and closed-in. The cliffs rise sheer from the sea, snow covers them, there is hardly the sight of a stone to break the whiteness. But there is an abundance of birds, auks, and little auks, black guillemots, sea-gulls, etc., filling the air with their screaming and chattering. ”

“ To carry with us a number of ice tools, which we might never need, was out of the question. We had only calculated with landing on, and rising from, suitable ice. No one had dreamed of the present situation. We looked at our available tools: three slip knives, one big knife, one ax, one ice-anchor, which in time of need could be used as a pick. It is unbelievable what people can do when they are driven to it. There was only one way to get the machine into safety—and for that the iceberg must come down and be leveled and it would appear that we only had our fingers to do it with. ”

“ THE AMUNDSEN-ELLSWORTH POLAR FLIGHT
So long as the human ear can hark back to the breaking of waves over deep seas; so long as the human eye can follow the gleam of the Northern Lights over the silent snow fields; then so long, no doubt, will the lure of the unknown draw restless souls into those great Arctic wastes. ”

“ It is standing on a high ice shoal at the extreme edge. We put a boat out and row towards it, climb ashore, and try to get within shooting range. Slowly we approach from shoal to shoal. In the excitement we fire from too long a range; the bullet passes the bear, which becomes alarmed, and, looking like a yellow-white streak on the drift-ice, it jumps from one shoal to another and speedily disappears from sight. Shall we leave it in peace or shall we try to find it again? We climb an iceberg and sight the bear through the glasses some hundred meters further ahead. ”

“ We push off, and the little trip to Seal Bay seems almost as exciting for us as the reading of a thrilling novel, for it is such a welcome change. The boat can approach quite near to land, where “Fram” cannot steer, as there are many sand-banks and rocks, unmarked on the charts. Lying in the sound just before we swing round and down the coast to the open sea is a little island no larger than the floor of an ordinary-sized room, ten or fifteen meters from Danskeöen. It is three or four meters high and has a skull-cap of snow, on which is perched a large sea-gull looking down at us. ”

“ We also think about all the types of humanity we have met in this frozen northern area. People who wrest their living from the ice. In milder climes they could earn more and live under better conditions, but the “unknown,” the danger, the ice and the love of adventure all call to them just as they called the six. With modest outfits and simple means they answered the call and set off to the sound of the enthusiastic jubilation of mankind: a jubilation that has turned into doubt and fear. ”

“ It is three or four years old, and those of us who have never seen the polar bear living in its natural surroundings are delighted to see it disporting itself on the floe. It has not yet noticed the boat approaching. Contented to play with the top of an ice-clump, it stands up on its hind legs, striking it with a fore paw, and sending the snowflakes flying around it. ”

“ I lay special weight on the fact that I hope our experiences will be found of use by others. I do not belong to that class of explorer who believes that the North Pole is a place for himself alone. My outlook shows that I have an absolutely opposite disposition; “the more the better,” say I. Rather, let all of us be at the same time at the same place. Nothing stimulates like competition, nothing encourages exploration more. ”

“ Something seemed to extend from each side of it, which could easily have been the wings of a flying machine. None of us really believed that it was one of the gray seaplanes we were waiting for. But all the same we fetched Captain Hagerup and told him what we had seen. He shook his head, but in spite of his doubt he went up the steps of his bridge much quicker than usual, where, looking through his glasses, he discovered that the gray mass was nothing but an ice-floe, which, aided by a little phantasy, appeared like an approaching aeroplane. It is so easy to be mistaken. ”

“ What immense areas would it not be possible to observe in an Arctic trip if one only was able to rise a few thousand yards? By what I had seen of the ice I was certain one could always find flat places to rise from and to land on. But later experience showed me that it takes an aviator to express an opinion about landing conditions amidst Polar ice, and not an Arctic explorer. What the second considers to be a flat plateau can be absolutely useless in the opinion of the first. ”

“ Virgo-havn. Wednesday, May 27th
Ness is right. We are hardly in bed before we hear a scraping noise alongside, and we notice that the plates are sensitive to the pressure as the drift ice turns against the ship. But we turn over and sleep all the same on our mattresses on the saloon floor. At three o’clock we rush on deck. We have the steering gear right over our heads and can hear how it is working. There is a noise of the tramping of sea-boots, and the engine-room telegraph keeps insistently ringing. ”

“ At the mouth of the fjord was a little cloud-belt and the people noticed how a little sea-boat came in through the evening haze. Nobody took special notice of it or showed special delight, as they all thought it was one of the many vessels which in the course of the summer call in at Ny-Aalesund to get coal and water. People watched indifferently remarking only that it seemed to carry an unusually big crew for such a small vessel. Forward stand some heavily fur-clad men who wave their arms towards the land. The vessel approaches quickly. Then somebody shouts: “It’s Amundsen!” ”

“ It has the same effect whether it is day or whether it is what we, from force of habit, call night; either the sun shines from a blue sky or gray clouds scurrying before a bitter nor’-easter hide that same sun, which in the south is making the grass grow and the birds sing love-songs from the tops of the beech trees. ”

“ We feel that it is not only we who await the expedition,271 but there are millions and millions in the five Continents who are longing to hear how much further, between the known and the unknown areas, the boundary has been moved northward as the result of human enterprise’s latest move in the eternal search for knowledge. In the few words of the American message we get certain proof that all who have longed to do the same things which Amundsen, Dietrichson, Ellsworth, Feucht, Omdal and Riiser-Larsen actually set out to accomplish fear that the journey to the Pole will end in sacrifice. ”

“ We pass one large iceberg after another, heavy, stranded icebergs, which stand thirty, forty or fifty meters above the surface of the sea. They are eight or nine times deeper than the part which we can see, and stand on the sea bottom until such a time as sun and wind leave their mark on them to such an extent that they overbalance and drift off southwards. ”

“ How we should have liked to have had that seal we saw the first day! We had seen no life of any description since, neither in the water nor in the air, not even a track on the snow to show that there was another living thing in these latitudes but ourselves. It is a land of misery and death.
With a view to working the longest possible time in an attempt to get the N 25 clear, and at the same time have sufficient provisions left with which to reach Greenland, Captain Amundsen felt that it was necessary to cut down our daily rations to 300 grams per man, or just one half pound per man per day. ”

“ We rowed about auk-shooting in the forenoon, and later we went out in it round the islets collecting fresh eggs.
There we were received by eider-duck and gulls, kittiwakes, sea-swallows and geese, which flew up in thousands from the nests, chirping, whistling and shrieking as they in desperation swooped down over the heads of the robbers of their nests, flapping their wings about our eyes. We hit out at them with our caps, but did not allow ourselves to be frightened back to our boat again. Nest after nest has to be looked into—it is principally the nest of the eider-duck we care about. ”

“ We have had a taste of both winter and spring up here and now we are experiencing the short summer of the Arctic regions. Our thoughts go back to the start—to the long weeks preceding it in Ny-Aalesund, and to the still longer weeks we have spent in the ice area since the six departed. We have seen men whom we (until they disappeared outside the fjord in two gray flying-machines) considered as ordinary mortals, but who are now regarded by us as something apart, since the light of adventure started to shine over them. ”

“ We were well aware of the chances we were taking, crossing this new ice, but we saw no other alternative. We must get over to N 25 with all possible speed if we were ever to get back again to civilization.
With our feet shoved loosely into our skis, for we never fastened them on here for fear of getting tangled up, should we fall into the sea, we shuffled along, slowly feeling our way over the thin ice. Omdal was in the lead, myself and Dietrichson—who had recovered from his slight attack of snowblindness the next day—following in that order. ”

“ From there they were able to get a coal-boat to Tromsö. Arriving home, they found that their vessel had not returned, however, as it had remained to search for Kristian and his companions, and when it arrived several days after their return it was flying its flag half-mast, causing Kristian, who stood on the quay, to burst out in loud laughter as he shouted, ‘Hullo, father, what have you done with the top of the flag cord?’
The weather is still calm, and the seal-boat does not row very far away from the vessel. One could not imagine a calmer night. The barren landscape is as still as death. ”