The South Pole

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 220, 15 March 1912, Page 5

The South Pole

CAPTAIN AMUNDSEN'S PLANS. By Cable—Press Association—Copyright. Hobart, March 14. , Captain Amundsen corrects the Chronicle's statement that the highest altitude reached by the party was 16,500 feet. The highest point reached was 11,500 feet, and 10,500 feet at the Pole. It was extremely possible, he said, that Captain Scott had reached the Pole," but there was no indication as to when he was there. After docking the IPrafli, and going on a short lecturing tour, Captain Amundsen starts in quest of the North Pole. AMUNDSEN'S EARLIER WORK. INSPIRED BY~ FRANKLIN. THREE YEARS IN NORTH-WEST I PASSAGE.

his story of how lie forced the .North-West Passage in the tiny sloop Gjoa (47 tons). Amundsen acknowledges his debt to the late Sir John Franklin. It was Franklin who first captivated his imagination as a boy of eight or nine years old," Franklin was a memory. loi a living guide he had his compatriot, the great Dr. Fridtjof Nansen, who was worshipped in Norway, and who for a long time held the Farthest North record. Amundsen formed a boyish resolve to attempt the North-West Passage, and would have liked to have gone with Dr. Nansen when he left again in I 1893. At that time Amundsen was bare--20; he was too young. "My mother," lie writes, "bade me v at home and go on with my lessons. I I stayed. My mother passed away, id for a time my affection for her memojy struggled to keep me faithful to her wish, but at last it gave way. No bond eould restrain my yearning to pursue the object of my old and only desire. I threw up my studies and decided to start the long training for the goal I had set before me, that of becoming an Arctic explorer. In 1894 I engaged as an ordinary seaman on board the old Ma"dalena, of Tonsberg, and went out seal hunting in the Polar Sea. This was my first encounter with the ice, and I liked it. Time passed, my training progressed, and from 1897 to 1899 I took part, as mate, in the Belgian Antarctic expedition, under Adrien de fieri ache."

, He goes on to describe how, after his return, Xansen approved of his plan to force the North-West Passage. His little ship, the Gjoa, was originally built on the Hardanger, for a herring-boat. Franklin had long before proved that thg strip of open sea bathed the whole coast of North America. "We knew," writes Amundsen, "there was a sea passage round Northern America, but we did not know whether this passage was practicable for ships, and no one had ever navigated it throughout. This unsolved question agitated above all the minds of those who, from their childhood, had been impressed by the profound tragedy of the Franklin expedition. Just as the Vega had to navigate the entire passage to the east (to prove the NorthEast Passage) so our knowledge as to this strip of open sea to the west must remain inadequate until this passage also had been traced from end to end by one ship's keel." That was the task which Amundsen set himself, and which he accomplished. The Gjoa was fitted with a petroleum motor of 39-h.p. for use in calm weather, and was strengthened to withstand the ice pressure. Her cabin measured only 9ft by 6ft. Her company totalled six. She left Christiana on June 17, L 903, and reached Behring Strait on August 30, 1006, the first ship to pass from Atlantic to Pacific north of Patagonia, Prior to Admiral Peary's announcement of his arrival at the North Pole, Amundsen had also announced his North Polar drift voyage referred to in a recent issue. He was to attack the North Pole from the Behring Sea, drift across it, and emerge on the other side in five or seven years,t Following Peary's announcement, it appeared to him that he could not raise the additional £8250 he required for this venture, unless he stimulated public interest by conquering the South Pole. "It is my intention," he wrote to Nanscn, "not to'land near the English expedition. They, of course, have the first right; we shall have to.be content with what they leave us." He chose the Bay of Whales as indicating, from the contour of the background, that there was solid land to be reached, once the ice was penetrated. "There would be no perilous wintering on a floating barrier. The ground was safe enough." In. that respect probably his anticipation was realised.