Roald Amundsen | Conquering the North and South Poles

Roald Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer whose legacy looms large across the history of exploration and the polar lands we explore at Secret Atlas. In particular, the Svalbard location of Ny-Ålesund, which we frequently venture to on our expeditions, is inextricably linked with Amundsen and his exploits. 

Unlike many explorers, his was a life marked by great success. In common with many of his ilk, his death occurred out in the field – and only added to his fame and notoriety. 

Read on for an introduction to the many feats of endurance, skill, and adventure that mark out the life of Roald Amundsen, a born adventurer whose name rings out across both poles and beyond. 

Why is Roald Amundsen famous?

Roald Amundsen is most famous for his successful expeditions to the South and North poles at the beginning of the 20th century. 

Both feats were the first of their kind, and Amundsen stands as the first person (alongside fellow explorer and close friend Oscar Wisting) to reach both absolute geographical extremes of our planet.

Born close to Oslo in 1872, from a young age Amundsen was inspired by the polar regions and humankind’s attempts to conquer them. He made his name leading the first successful expedition to sail the Northwest Passage, before turning his attention to the South Pole. 

The Roald Amundsen South Pole expedition traversed Antarctica, becoming the first humans to reach the geographic pole, on 14th December 1911. Fifteen years later, he led a pioneering airship expedition (alongside Italian pilot Umberto Nobile) to the North Pole. Again, his team were the first verified humans to achieve this remarkable feat. 

The circumstances surrounding his death added to Amundsen’s mystique, heroic aura, and fame. In 1928, Amundsen joined the rescue mission to find survivors of the Italia, an airship piloted by his former expedition partner Umberto Nobile, which had crashed 75 miles northeast of Nordaustlandet, Svalbard. 

Amundsen’s flying boat disappeared on the way from mainland Norway to Svalbard to join the search, suspected to have crashed into the Barents Sea. The bodies of Amundsen and his crew were never found. 

Amundsen and the Northwest Passage 

Before his polar expeditions, Amundsen achieved fame and glory as the leader of the first expedition to navigate the Northwest Passage on a single ship. 

The Northwest Passage is the sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Searching for a path through this ice-choked stretch of sea took the lives of many brave and bold explorers, most notably Sir John Franklin’s expedition of 1845–47, when a total of 129 men perished aboard the two ships, Erebus and Terror. 

Amundsen’s Northwest Passage expedition set sail in June 1903 aboard the Gjøa, a reinforced herring boat. They spent two winters in the Arctic and finally made it to Nome, Alaska, on 31st August 1906.

Amundsen adopted a greatly different approach to past expeditions. Instead of commanding a large vessel (or multiple large vessels) with attendant crew, he opted to set sail on a much smaller, more agile ship, with just six other crew members and without a strict itinerary. (It’s fair to say we’re fans.)

His bold innovations paid off, with the Gjøa proving herself adept at navigating narrow passages and icy waters compared with larger ships. His small team could be adaptable when met with unexpected circumstances and live off the land when necessary. With an evolving timetable, the expedition could better take advantage of opportunities presented by the weather and ice. 

Perhaps most important of all was the time Amundsen and his team spent living with and learning from the Netsilik Inuit community on King William Island, Nunavut, Canada. The expedition spent two winters in what is now known as Gjoa Haven, learning dog sledding and hunting skills from the resilient locals. 

It changed the way the expedition travelled, their diet, and how they dressed, with the crew ditching their woollen garments for animal skins. These local adaptations, learned from the Netsilik Inuit – the custodians of this environment – allowed Amundsen to find safe passage through to the Pacific. 

They would have an even greater impact on polar exploration in the years to come. 

The Roald Amundsen South Pole expedition

What many deem the defining achievement of Roald Amundsen’s life came next when he set his sights on attaining the South Pole. 

Interestingly – though perhaps not out of character for an explorer who embraced change and adaptability – it was not Amundsen’s original intention to set off in search of Earth’s southernmost extreme. Instead, when Amundsen assembled his crew and boarded their ship, they were seeking to attain the North Pole, not the South. 

In preparation for the expedition north, Amundsen secured the use of the Fram, a unique ship built for the Arctic explorations of Fridtjof Nansen, another giant of polar expeditionary history. Purpose-designed to cope with the Arctic sea ice, it was shallow, wide, and robust, built to be driven up by the ice as it froze, where normal ships would be crushed under the pressure. 

Again, the expedition team was small, with just five men, including Amundsen, boarding the Fram, their destination the North Pole. 

Before departing from Oslo in August 1910, Amundsen controversially (and secretly) scrapped their stated expedition plans after hearing that two Americans, Robert Peary and Frederick Cook, were separately claiming to have reached the North Pole. 

Despite having received permissions and funding to attain the North Pole, he set his mind to the opposite end of the Earth, only informing the rest of his crew once they had reached Madeira. He sent a telegram to Captain Robert Falcon Scott, who was conducting his own expedition to the South Pole, saying simply: "Beg leave to inform you Fram proceeding Antarctic. Amundsen."

The race to the South Pole was on. 

Despite the covert, unexpected change of destination, the Amundsen Antarctica expedition was a masterpiece of advance planning, strategic decision making, and flawless execution. 

The Fram was the perfect ship to get the crew deep into the continent, where they established their base camp, Framheim, in the Bay of Whales on the Ross Ice Shelf. They lay out their supply depots ahead of their trek, marking the route with flags and cairns, and waited for the Antarctic spring. 

The team of five set off from Framheim on 19th October 1911. Using all he had learned from the Arctic Inuit, they were pulled by a team of 52 sled dogs on four sledges and wore lightweight animal skins rather than heavy wool. They took on the trek in defined stages, with Amundsen keen to avoid exhausting his team and their dogs. 

The expedition team explored the Transantarctic Mountains, a range that divides East and West Antarctica, looking for a clear route through. They discovered a steep, 30 mile-long glacier that seemed to offer them a path through the mountains to the Antarctic Plateau and the pole. 

The climb was treacherous but ultimately a success, and the expedition reached the plateau on 21st November 1911. Amundsen named the previously unknown glacier the Axel Heiberg Glacier in honour of one of the expedition’s primary financial backers.  

On 14th December 1911, the Amundsen team became the first humans to attain the South Pole, reaching their goal a full month before Scott’s Terra Nova expedition. After three days spent rigorously testing they were at 90°S, the team left a note for Scott’s expedition, protecting it with a tent, and returned safely to Framheim. 

Though it reached its target, Scott’s expedition lost the race to the South Pole – and would ultimately end in tragedy. 

The Roald Amundsen North Pole expedition

In the years that followed, Amundsen attempted to sail the Northeast Passage, following in the wake of the earlier Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz. He also planned to reach the North Pole using the same drifting method used by Fridtjof Nansen aboard the Fram late in the previous century. Both attempts were unsuccessful. 

Amundsen’s desire to attain the North Pole was reignited when all previous claims on the pole were called into serious doubt. The opportunity to be in the first team of explorers to reach 90°N was back on – so too was the chance to be the first man to reach both poles. 

Showing his commitment to incorporating technological innovations into his expeditions, Amundsen decided to use air travel to reach the pole, a largely untested method of polar exploration at the time. 

A 1925 expedition with two flying boats ended in failure. The six-man expedition team were feared lost forever, only to return in a single plane, having made it to 84°N before one of the planes was catastrophically damaged.

Undeterred, Amundsen next teamed up with the Italian aviator and airship engineer Umberto Nobile, who designed the Norge, a dirigible capable of covering long distances. Nobile was to pilot the airship, while Amundsen planned their route and American sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth financed the expedition.

In 1926, the Norge flew from Rome to Svalbard for final preparations. 

Amundsen opted to use Ny-Ålesund as their base of operations and departure point, rather than other more northerly locations used on previous expeditions, such as Virgohamna. 

Ny-Ålesund, a Norwegian company town, offered more developed infrastructure, resources, and workers than other possible departure points in Svalbard. As the start point of Amundsen’s Arctic journey, it is forever written into history. It’s a fascinating place that we regularly visit on our Svalbard expeditions. 

The Norge departed from Ny-Ålesund on 11th May 1926 and flew over the North Pole on 12th May 1926, making Amundsen and the small crew the first verified expedition to reach the North Pole. 

The whole venture nearly descended into farce when, at 90°N, Amundsen and Nobile both threw their national flags from the airship to claim the pole and the achievement for their respective countries. But the Norge – and all her passengers – arrived safely in Teller, Alaska, a day later. 

It marked not only the first attainment of the pole but also the first crossing of the entire Arctic, with the entire journey covering over 2,000 miles. With the achievement, Amundsen and his friend, fellow explorer Oscar Wisting, became the first men to attain both poles. 

How did Roald Amundsen die?

Roald Amundsen’s life ended tragically though heroically. 

In 1928, two years after their successful North Pole flight together, Amundsen’s former partner, flag-throwing rival, and pilot of the Norge, Umberto Nobile, was back in the Arctic with his own expedition aboard the airship Italia. 

The Italia left from Ny-Ålesund and successfully reached the North Pole, before crashing on its return journey, 75 miles northeast of Nordaustlandet, Svalbard. 

The surviving crew managed to send distress signals; the crash location was remote and dangerous, prompting several international rescue efforts. Despite reportedly strained nature of their relationship, Amundsen volunteered to join the search for his former colleague. 

On June 18th 1928, Amundsen boarded a French Latham 47 seaplane with a crew of five French aviators, including pilot René Guilbaud, and they departed from Tromsø, Norway. They were never seen again. 

It is believed that the plane encountered bad weather and possibly crashed into the icy waters of the Barents Sea, a region known for its harsh, unpredictable conditions. Despite extensive searches, the bodies of Amundsen and his crew were never recovered.

The search for the Italia survivors ultimately succeeded, with a number of crew members, including Nobile, being rescued by other search teams.

The legacy of Roald Amundsen

Roald Amundsen stands as one of history’s greatest explorers and is regarded as a national hero in Norway. 

His achievements – navigating the Northwest Passage, attaining both the South Pole and the North Pole before anyone else – are among the greatest humankind has witnessed.

But his expeditions brought more than just crosses on a map and flags in the snow. They served to open up the extremes of our planet for the very first time, allowing them to be studied, better understood, and learnt from. 

His expeditions – on foot, by air, on dog-pulled sled – became a benchmark for all subsequent polar explorations. His meticulous planning, adaptability, preference for smaller teams, use of Inuit technology and skills, and innovative use of air travel were all hugely influential for those who followed the path he blazed.

The manner in which Amundsen achieved his feats helped to push forward theories of environmental adaptation, anthropology, technological innovation, teamwork, and leadership in directions far beyond the scope of polar expedition. 

The circumstances of his death have added to the heroic glow of his legacy – and not unjustly. His death casts him as a figure whose dogged determination to succeed and break ground was driven by his dedication to the lands he explored and the people he explored them with. 

Explore Ny-Ålesund: Roald Amundsen’s Arctic Base

Step into the history of polar exploration with Secret Atlas, on a visit to Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, the departure point of Roald Amundsen’s legendary 1926 Norge airship expedition to the North Pole. 

Our tours offer a rare opportunity to see the airship mast and visit the museum that celebrates Amundsen's achievements. Discover the pivotal role Ny-Ålesund played in the first flight over the North Pole and immerse yourself in the legacy of Norway’s greatest explorer, surrounded by stunning Arctic landscape on a Svalbard expedition.