The Northwest Passage

On June 16, 1903 Amundsen and a crew of six set off from Oslo, Norway to discover the Northwest Passage (a long sought after holy grail for Arctic explorers, the Northwest Passage is a Northern Hemisphere waterway link between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans). Many explorers had already looked for the passage amongst the islands and inlets that Amundsen would attempt to navigate. However, pack ice had either forced these earlier expeditions to turn back or had frozen the ships in place, often destroying the boats under the massive pressures of the ice; in a number of cases, the crew also starved as their supplies ran out.

Amundsen set a time limit of a maximum five years to find the passage but would ultimately need far less. In August 1905, Amundsen's expedition encountered a whaling ship sailing east from the Pacific Ocean, immediately confirming that the Northwest Passage had finally been found. Along with his journal, the hand-drawn map shown to the right was submitted by Amundsen to Collier's Weekly magazine.

To see a short video that both traces and magnifies Amundsen's route please click here (5 MB).

The South Pole

On December 14, 1911, after four months of sailing and almost a year of waiting out the long Antarctic winter, Amundsen and four other crew members of the Fram became the first men ever to set foot at  the South Pole. 

It was a bitter blow to the British explorer Robert Scott, who had also been trying to become the first to the pole. But while Scott had better financing, he had made some poor choices on how his Terra Nova team would journey overland. Where Scott attempted to use ponies to haul supplies, Amundsen had relied on sled dogs. While Scott's team marched, Amundsen's used skis. In the end, Amundsen's success would almost be equaled in scope by the tragedy that befell Scott and four other men on his team.