ROALD AMUNDSEN (1872-1928), a Norwegian polar explorer and national hero. The first man to find and sail through the North-West Passage, and the first to set foot on the South Pole.

This is a book published in the series NORWEGIAN HERITAGE. A series of books about a range of Norway’s best-known national icons. The respective titles deal with significant figures within arts and literature, science, sports and society, as well as the country’s many natural wonders, important historical periods and cultural topics. Each book offers the reader an updated introduction to readers who wish to familiarize themselves with a given subject.

See www.norwegian-heritage.no for more titles and information about the series.

The books are published in Norwegian and English.

HANS OLAV THYVOLD

ROALD AMUNDSEN

CONQUEROR OF THE SOUTH POLE

TRANSLATED
FROM THE NORWEGIAN BY
J. BASIL COWLISHAW

FONT FORLAG

Roald Amundsen was first.

His name is on the list along with those of Marco Polo and James Cook, Yuri Gagarin and Leif Eriksson, Edmund Hillary and Neil Armstrong. Men whose achievements inspire dreams in ways we do not really comprehend. Men to whom we still attribute superhuman qualities, long after their human frailties have been exposed for all to see.

Roald Amundsen is one of a handful of historic personages known to every Norwegian. Wikipedia soberly refers to him as ‘an explorer of polar regions’, which is an apt enough description – but in a limited sense. There was a lot more to Roald Amundsen. Few, if any, Norwegians have engendered so much national fervour and pride as him.

Amundsen never exploited his accomplishments for political ends; nor did he use his fame as a springboard to other fields of endeavour. Roald Amundsen was a man who simply journeyed to places where no one had previously set foot, to plant the flag of a newborn, impoverished nation of two and a half million souls in search of national role models.

Roald Amundsen is a man about whom stories can still be told. But he would turn in his grave if he knew of some of the things that are being said and written about his once so venerated personage.

To be first to reach the South Pole, first to negotiate the North-West Passage, and first to reach both poles, one must necessarily go one’s own way – and cut a few corners en route. What is disturbing, now that historians have begun to cast a light on Amundsen as a human being, is precisely what made him so intriguing in the first place. The independent leader who tolerated no opposition; the sportsman who wrote the rules to such a degree that even Norwegian spelling had to bend to his will; a man who measured greatness by his ability to stand alone.

In short, a man apart.