The Amundsen photographs

by Roland Huntford (Editor)

Set in the context of Roald Amundsen's life and explorations with captions drawn from previously unpublished notes, this photographic collection offers an unprecedented illustrated tour of Amundsen's unrivaled achievements in Arctic exploration

Genres: Photography

199 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1987

About the author

Roland Huntford (né Horwitch) is an author, principally of biographies of Polar explorers.

Reviews

[Tom Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Amundsen Photographs – Roald learned sailing on a wooden ship, no steam engine, “before the mast”, IOW – as an able body seaman. First signed on a sealer but was sickened by the killing and the blood. He did not understand how anyone could kill for sport.
Amundsen was one of a handful of polar explorers who respected the knowledge of the Eskimo. On his search for the NW Passage it was the Netsilik Eskimo he studied to gain proficiency in surviving the Arctic. He also learned from such master explorers as John Rae. A basic rule was to use a relatively small ship and crew. Six carefully selected men accompanied Amundsen on his ship the Gjøa. All the essential skills were covered including dog-driving. Skis, fur clothes patterned after native gear, and sledge dogs were the key to dealing with polar climate.
From Wikipedia, “On March 28, 1901, Amundsen bought Gjøa from Asbjørn Sexe of Ullensvang, Norway, for his forthcoming expedition to the Arctic Ocean. Gjøa was much smaller than vessels used by other Arctic expeditions, but Amundsen intended to live off the limited resources of the land and sea through which he was to travel, and reasoned that the land could sustain only a tiny crew (this had been the cause of the catastrophic failure of John Franklin's expedition fifty years previous). Her shallow draft would help her traverse the shoals of the Arctic straits. More to the point, the aging ship was all that Amundsen (who was financing his expedition largely by spending his inheritance) could afford.”
“Amundsen, having little experience in Arctic sailing, decided to undertake a training expedition before braving the Arctic ice. He engaged Hans Christian Johannsen, her previous owner, and a small crew, and sailed from Tromsø in April 1901. The next five months were spent sealing on the pack ice of the Barents Sea. Following their return to Tromsø in September, Amundsen set about remedying the deficiencies in Gjøa that the trip had exposed. He had a 13-horsepower single-screw marine paraffin motor installed (she had hitherto been propelled only by sail, and had proved to be sluggish). Much of the winter was spent upgrading her ice sheathing; Amundsen knew she would spend several winters iced-in.”
“The 70 by 20 ft. square-sterned sloop of 45 net register tonnage was built by Knut Johannesson Skaale in Rosendal, Norway in 1872, the same year Amundsen was born. She was named Gjøa after her then owner's wife. (Gjøa is a modern form of the Norse name Gyða - this again is a compressed form of Guðfríðr, a compound of guð 'god' and fríðr 'beautiful'.) For the next 28 years, the vessel served as a herring fishing boat.” I could copy the whole article as it is a fascinating subject. The Gjøa has been preserved and is currently on display.” How nice it would be to visit Norway.
A favorite quote by Roald, from the book, “The best wish I have for my friends the Eskimos is that civilization never reaches them.” At that time, the gifts of “civilization” had been alcohol and syphilis.
Part II: The South Pole Expedition 1910-1912. This time he borrowed Nansen’s ship the Fram. No need in recapitulating the book. The photos are the draw. The text offers an excellent summation of Huntford's book, “The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole”. The English, under the dilettante Scott, never had a chance. Scott felt that dogs had no place at the South Pole, so he brought ponies and tractors to haul his supplies. The result was disastrous. Scott paid for his foolhardiness with his life.
Roald mustered one more expedition, the NE Passage, from the Barent Sea to the Bering Strait. Though somewhat successful it proved a parlous epic, beset with many reversals and just plain bad luck. Amundsen suffered a broken arm, a mauling by a polar bear, and worst of all he was poisoned by carbon monoxide. His heart was damaged and he never truly recovered. With sledging, no longer an option, aviation became his passion.
From Wikipedia, “The Latham 47 was a French twin-engine flying boat designed and built by Société Latham & Cie for the French Navy. The aircraft achieved notoriety in 1928 when aircraft number 47.02 disappeared with the explorer Roald Amundsen on a rescue mission for the Italian explorer Umberto Nobile.”
Roald Amundsen, intrepid polar pioneer to the end.

[Boris · Rating 5 out of 5]

The usual superb scholarship by Roland Huntford on polar exploration and Roald Amundsen in particular. The fascinating images are supplemented by an excellent summary of Amundsen's career in polar exploration. Having read most of the books in print on this subject there are always more interesting facts that one is not made aware of in other books on the subject.

[Barbpie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating photographs. The accompanying commentary is very dry.

[Eric_W · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roland Huntford has written several ‘books on South Pole explorers: Shackleton, Amundsen, and Scott: two very real heroes and one idiot. The great irony is that contemporary society made the idiot the hero! Scott has long been revered in British society as the great explorer, yet Huntford in his fascinating book Scott and Arnundsen shows Scott to be the dilettante bumbler who didn’t plan and made all the wrong decisions. Amundsen, the quiet Norwegian, spent years planning for the trip to the South Pole, experimented in the North, knew exactly what to do, and when finally he made the trip the result was almost anti-clímatic, so easy was it. He had no problems. Scott, on the other hand, disdainfully ignored the experience of the Eskimos, who had long since learned the advantages of using dogs in an arctic environment; Scott took ponies, which of course meant he had to lug along hay for them (dogs, being carnivores can eat each other if food runs short,) and of course lost most of the horses. Scott died on the way back from the Pole having been beaten by Amundsen in the race. Amundsen’s preparations were documented in a series of lantern slides which have been edited by Huntford. They were discovered only recently, having been tucked away in a Norwegian attic since 1915. They provide a. fascinating glimpse into the preparations for and the voyage to the South Pole.

See also: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53...

[Gil Reavill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beauteous