The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, MAY 30th, 1925. FLYING TO THE NORTH

Hokitika Guardian, 30 May 1925, Page 2

The Guardian And Evening Star, with which is incorporated the West Coast Times. SATURDAY, MAY 30th, 1925. FLYING TO THE NORTH

Roi.AU ex| loration has been n-.sociai-.-d "itlt the adventures of British bloc ling ever since the spacious days of Hood Oneen Bess, TTu>-e were tin- days. sins the Sydney “Herald”, of the seali h |or tile ort 11-'A es| Pi--a„a-‘ through the Arctic Sea- to the n lie, ol that liapi v hunting ground the Indies: the days of Willoughby and Burrough. of Davis and of Hudson. But long before the men of purely British blood had thrust their frail and searching slips into these, icy waters the Northmen, those strong progenitors of mils had shown the way. Ere Erie the Red had made his .settlement on Greenland and found the far mysterious “Vii.eland” of the Sagas, those hardy souls Ohtliere and Wulfstan, whose deeds were ehi'.mieled by Alfred the Great, had voyaged to Lapland; and down through all the centuries since the curious Scandinavian prows have wrested secret liter

secret I’n in tin 1 northern polar seas. It was niily fitting, then, that tlit'ir descendant, Captain Koaiil Amundson, should havo i'olt within Ids veins the unconquerable attraetion of the Arctic, and that it should have l.eon left for him, alter the chase had heen extended through four centuries, to find the North-west Passage in the Cion some twenty years ago. That lie found it t) l.e impracticable for ordinary commerce, thus putting a shattering-p'-riod to a long-cherished dream, detracts nothing from the value and the glamour of lii.s achievement. If lie hud done nothing else hut this, his name would have stood in honour on the chronicles of discovery. But Amundson lias done, and still is doing, vastly more. Five times since that memor-

able expedition of tbe (lion has he ventured forth into those northern waters, seeking for the Pole; and five times has he had to own himself defeated. Adverse fortunes, both financial and climatic, havo deprived him of the honour of the .supreme attainment which fell to the American, Peary, in the Roosevelt in 190f>; hut though the North Pole itself he has not reached as yet. his present great attempt bids fair to lie successful; and any hour now may give us word of that success. And if the North Pole has eluded his search, all the world remembers howlie, fust of all the human race, stood, with a few companions, one inid-De-eeniher day in 1011. upon that mysteri-

ous .southern spot where all the world's meridians meet, and hoisted there the Hag i.f Norway. First of all the human race, indeed; hot only by a month; for on the 18th. day of January. 101 ‘J. the cpmst of Capita in Scott was equally successful, and he. too. with Dr. 'Wilson. Captain Oates. Lieutenant Bowers, and Pettv-otficer Evans stood there beside the little cairn whereon ‘-till floated bravely in the furious wind the flag of Captain Am undsen. The glory and the tragech and the desperate romance of that double achievement stands without parallel in the long annals of discovery; and though Scott lost the ra-e. he lost it to a worthy and a wonderful competitor; and, losing it. he and his companions gained world-wide fame and an everlasting memory in the hearts of their country, ft is a curious coincidence that the discovery of both North and South Poles has been associated with a dramatic event entirely extrinsic to the ordinary incidental dangers and honours of the feat. The rare 1 etoen Amundsen and Srott in the south, to which we have reterred. seemto he matched in the north by the sensational claims of T)r. Cook to havo antedated Peary in reaching the Pole, followed hv the no less sensational exposure of a fraud. Indeed, the story of polar discovery since this t-wenti--century began is fuller of enthralling romance than any novel of the most imaginative pen. The present attempt of Captain Amundsen to attain the Jiorth Pole is made vastly more inter-

esting tlinn it would ordinarily have been by two factors. The first is tliat it constitutes the first atenijit to make that attainment hy the aid of an ncroldane under the present conditions; the second, that (nice again there is a race in j regress between the Norwegian explorer and a British rival towntds the' polar goal. Captain Grettir Algarsson. who. despite hi.s name, is a citizen of British Columbia, financed hy a number of wealthy residents of Liverpool. England, has recently set out from the .Mersey with the North Pole as hi.s objective. It is not known exactly at what point his party has now arrived, and it is hardly possible that, given the most favourable circumstances. he can outstrip his veteran competitor; Inn the very fact of his starting on the race at all. added to the fact that he is hut a youth of 21 has earned for himself a considerable sympathy, and has lent to his expedition an 'added piquancy. Captain Algnrssoti, like his rival, proposes to effect the actual arrival at the Polo hy aeroplane; and this fact. too. adds interest to Ins endeavour. But. aithough. as lias been -aid, an attack iij nn the* l*oU* m*v« , r beiVsn- boon attempted in such a way as Amundsen and Algai'sson are now attempting it. it is not the first time that man has tried to reach the Pole by air. On the afternocn of .July It. 189<, Salomon August Andree, a Swedish engineer. accompanied by two assistants, floated up in a balloon from nil island off the .North Spitsbergen coast, with the idea of allowing the wind to carry them over the Pole. At 10 o'clock that niajit a nic-s-age dropjied down that all was well with them; and after tint the awful silence of the north swallowed them it]), never to reveal the mystery of their late to this day. But the diU'eronee between a wind-driven balloon and a modern aeroplane is too obviously in favour ! 1 1 the latter to require mention; so that there is little likelihood of either Auiunds'ii or Algar.*sun meeting with such trrgic disaster us that which enveloped l)r Andree. And. whether, either sin eeed in their quest, or both or neither, the results of their attempts are bound to be valuable, both M-ient ilieally. to geography and meteorology, and ethically, as a further proof, though such, indeed, i* hardly needed, of the adventurous /.est which still inspires the souk of men.