Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (July 16, 1872 – c. June 18, 1928) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to the South Pole between 1910 and 1912. He was also the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage. He disappeared in June 1928 while taking part in a rescue mission. With Douglas Mawson, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, Amundsen was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Amundsen was born to a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in Borge, between the towns Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg. His father was Jens Amundsen. The fourth son in the family, his mother chose to keep him out of the maritime industry of the family and pressured him to become a doctor, a promise that Amundsen kept until his mother died when he was aged 21. Amundsen had hidden a lifelong desire inspired by Fridtjof Nansen's crossing of Greenland in 1888 and the doomed Franklin Expedition. As a result, he decided on a life of exploration.

He was a member of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897–1899) as second mate. This expedition was led by Adrien de Gerlache, using the ship the Belgica, became the first expedition to winter in Antarctica. The Belgica, whether by mistake or design, became locked in the sea ice at 70°30'S off Alexander Land, west of the Antarctic Peninsula. The crew then endured a winter for which the expedition was poorly prepared. By Amundsen's own estimation, the doctor for the expedition, American Frederick Cook, probably saved the crew from scurvy by hunting for animals and feeding the crew fresh meat, an important lesson for Amundsen's future expeditions.

In 1903, Amundsen led the first expedition to successfully traverse the Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (something explorers had been attempting since the days of Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, Jacques Cartier, and Henry Hudson), with six others in the ship Gjøa. They travelled via Baffin Bay, Lancaster and Peel Sounds, and James Ross and Rae Straits to spend two winters exploring over land and ice from the place today called Gjoa Haven, Nunavut, Canada.

During this time Amundsen learned from the local Netsilik people about key Arctic survival skills that he would need. From them, for example, he learned to use sled dogs. Amundsen even went so far as to adopt their dress. Continuing to the south of Victoria Island, the ship cleared the Canadian Arctic Archipelago on August 17 1905, but had to stop for the winter before going on to Nome on the Alaska Territory's Pacific coast. Five hundred miles (800 km) away, Eagle City, Alaska, had a telegraph station; Amundsen travelled there (and back) overland to wire a success message (collect) on December 5 1905. Nome was reached in 1906. Due to water as shallow as 3 feet (1 m), a larger ship could never have used the route.

After crossing the Northwest Passage, Amundsen made plans to go to the North Pole and explore the North Polar Basin. On hearing in 1909 that first Frederick Cook and then Robert Peary claimed the Pole, he changed his plans. Using the ship Fram ("Forward"), earlier used by Fridtjof Nansen, he instead set out for Antarctica in 1910. He states in his book The South Pole that he needed to attain the South Pole to guarantee funding for his proposed North Polar journey. In preparation for the new objective, Amundsen carefully read all the accounts of the previous expeditions to Antarctica. He combined this with his own experiences, both in the Arctic and the Antarctic, in planning for the southern expedition. Amundsen told no one of his change of plans except his brother Leon and Thorvald Nilsen, commander of the Fram. He was concerned that Nansen would rescind use of Fram, if he learned of the change. (Nansen, when he was informed of the change, supported Amundsen fully.) Also, he probably didn't want to alert Robert Falcon Scott that he would have a competitor for the pole. Scott later said that Amundsen's presence had no effect on his own plans for the Pole. The original plan had called for sailing Fram around the Horn to the Bering Strait. Amundsen waited until Fram reached Madeira to let his crew know of the changed plan. Much to his relief, every member agreed to continue. Leon made the news public on October 2. While in Madeira, Amundsen sent a telegram to Scott, notifying him of the change in destination: "BEG TO INFORM YOU FRAM PROCEEDING ANTARCTIC -- AMUNDSEN".

They arrived at the eastern edge of Ross Ice Shelf at a large inlet called the Bay of Whales on 14 January 1911. Amundsen located his base camp there and named it Framheim, literally, "Home of Fram." The Bay of Whales had been rejected by Shackleton as a potential base camp location. When Shackleton had visited Bay of Whales in 1907, he observed extensive calving in the inner bay. He rejected the location as too unstable for a camp. Amundsen read Shackleton's account of his expedition and noted the location and shape of the Bay had changed little from when James Clark Ross had discovered it seventy years previously in 1841. He reasoned that the feature was stable enough for his purposes and guessed that the ice shelf in the area was grounded on small islands or skerries. Amundsen remarked that if Shackleton had arrived a few days later, he might have chosen Bay of Whales. The ice shelf on which Amundsen's camp rested broke away in 2000 and floated out to sea (Ranulph Fiennes: Captain Scott 2003).

The Bay of Whales location gave Amundsen an immediate advantage over Scott's location on McMurdo Sound. It was 60 statute miles (96 km) closer to the Pole than Cape Evans, where the rival British expedition led by Scott made its base camp. Scott would follow the route up the Beardmore Glacier to the Antarctic Plateau, discovered by Ernest Shackleton in 1908. Amundsen, however, would have to find his own entirely new path south to the Pole.

Amundsen and his men created supply depots at 80°, 81° and 82° South, along a line directly south to the Pole. They began this process on 10 February. The depots were to supply part of the food necessary for the trip to the Pole, which was to take place in the following austral Spring. The depot trips gave Amundsen some experience of conditions on the Ross Ice Shelf and provided crucial testing of their equipment. The Ross Ice Shelf proved to be an excellent surface for the use of ski and dog sleds, Amundsen's primary source of transportation. When the depots were completed, they contained 6700 pounds (2750 kg) of food for the Pole journey.

At Framheim, while the depot trips were conducted, the remaining team offloaded the remaining equipment and supplies from the Fram, killed seals and penguins for food and assembled a wooden hut that had been originally constructed in Norway for this purpose. Fram then departed and was to return the following year.

The winter period was used to prepare for the attempt on the Pole the following Spring. The team kept busy improving their equipment, particularly the sledges. The sledges, the same kind and manufacturer that Scott used, weighed 165 pounds (75 kg). During the winter, Olav Bjaaland was able to reduce their weight to 48 pounds (22 kg). The tents and footwear were also redesigned. On February 4, 1911, members of the Scott's team on Terra Nova paid a visit to the Amundsen camp at Framheim.

Amundsen made a false start to the Pole on 8 September 1911. The temperatures had risen, giving the impression of an austral-Spring warming. This Pole team consisted of eight people, Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting, Jørgen Stubberud, Hjalmar Johansen, Kristian Prestrud and Amundsen. Soon after departure, temperatures fell below -60°F (-51°C). On 12 September, it was decided to reach the depot at 80°, deposit their supplies and turn back to Framheim to await warmer conditions. The depot was reached on 15 September from which they hurriedly retreated back to Framheim. Prestrud and Hanssen sustained frost-bitten heels on the return. The last day of the return, by Amundsen's own description, was not organized. This was the result of poor leadership, by all accounts except Amundsen's. Johansen carried Prestrud through a blizzard for hours. Raw strength, experience and dumb luck saved their lives. At Framheim, Johansen, who had extensive Arctic and dogsled experience with Nansen, openly suggested that Amundsen had not acted properly and had abandoned Prestrud and himself. Amundsen then reorganized the Pole party by reducing its number. Prestrud, with Johansen and Stubberud, was tasked with the exploration of Edward VII Land. This separated Johansen from the Pole team. Johansen was further humiliated by having the inexperienced Prestrud placed in command of the subsidiary expedition. On their return to Norway, Johansen was prevented from landing with the others and eventually committed suicide in 1913.

The new Pole team consisted of Bjaaland, Hanssen, Hassel, Wisting and Amundsen. They departed on 19 October 1911. They took four sledges and 52 dogs. Etah was the name of the lead bitch. She was a Samoyed.

The route was directly south from Framheim across the Ross Ice Shelf. On October 23, they reached the 80°S Depot and on November 3, the 82° Depot. On November 15, they reached latitude 85°S and rested a day. They had arrived at the base of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains. The ascent to the Antarctic Plateau began on 17th. They chose a route along the previously unknown Axel Heiberg Glacier. It was easier than they had expected, though not a simple climb. They made a few mistakes in choosing the route. They arrived at the edge of the Polar Plateau on November 21 after a four-day climb. Here they camped at the place they named "Butcher Shop." Here, 24 of the dogs were killed. Some of the carcasses were fed to the remaining dogs, the men themselves ate some of the dog meat. The balance was cached for the return journey.

The trek across the Polar Plateau to the Pole began on 25 November. After three days of blizzard conditions, the team grew impatient. Blizzards and poor weather made progress slow as they crossed the "Devil's Ballroom", a heavily crevassed area. They reached 87°S on December 4. On December 7, they reached the latitude of Shackleton's furthest south, 88°23'S, 180 km (97 nautical miles) from the South Pole.

On 14 December 1911, the team of five, with 16 dogs, arrived at the Pole (90°00'S). They arrived 35 days before Scott's group. Amundsen named their South Pole camp Polheim, "Home on the Pole". Amundsen renamed the Antarctic Plateau as King Haakon VII's Plateau. They left a small tent and letter stating their accomplishment, in case they did not return safely to Framheim.

Amundsen's extensive experience, careful preparation and use of high-quality sled dogs (Greenland huskies) paid off in the end. In contrast to the misfortunes of Scott's team, the Amundsen's trek proved rather smooth and uneventful, although Amundsen tended to make light of difficulties. They returned to Framheim on January 25, 1912 with eleven dogs. Henrik Lindstrom, the cook, said to Amundsen: "And what about the Pole? Have you been there?" The trip had taken 99 days (originally planned to have taken 100 days), the distance about 3,000 km (1,860 miles).

Amundsen's success was publicly announced on 7 March 1912, when he arrived at Hobart, Australia. Amundsen recounted his journey in the book The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the "Fram", 1910–1912. That year the Explorers Club in New York elected Amundsen to its highest category of membership, Honorary Member.

Map of Amundsen's and Scott's South Pole journeys at The Fram Museum (Frammuseet)

The reasons for Amundsen's success and for Scott's failure in returning from the South Pole have always been the subject of discussion and controversy. Unforeseeable weather conditions played a significant role in each expedition's fate. For example, Amundsen's expedition experienced normal Antarctic weather, though his men still suffered from frostbite. On the other hand, Scott experienced exceptionally severe weather, and his entire party lost their lives on the Ross Ice Shelf while returning from the pole. This deadly weather was exceptionally severe for the time of year: between 1985 and 1999 weather of this severity had only been observed once http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/96/23/13012. Amundsen was blessed with the normal weather conditions for Antarctica, whereas Scott was simply extremely unlucky.

There are a number of reasons why Amundsen was successful. Among these was his sole purpose to reach the pole, knowledge of Inuit technology, planning, attention to detail, and good luck . Amundsen discovered the Axel Heiberg Glacier and it proved to be a shorter route up to the Polar Plateau than the Beardmore Glacier. The Beardmore had been discovered by Shackleton three years previously and was used by Scott. Without the good luck of finding this new, shorter route, Amundsen's careful planning and attention to detail would have been fruitless. Though some have said the Heiberg Glacier is an "easier" route, it is merely shorter. It has been described by explorers as a tumult, a "catastrophe of ice." Pilots flying over the region prefer the long slope of the Beardmore to the Heiberg, for which they must use their maximum rate of climb to overcome. Another factor contributing to Amundsen's success was his use of dogs for transport since these allowed him to head south some three weeks earlier in the Antarctic summer season than Scott who used dogs and Manchurian ponies. Amundsen used Samoyed dogs to haul his sledges. After reaching the Polar Plateau, over half of the dogs were killed and fed to the remaining dogs, reducing the weight of dog food required for the entire trip.

Scott kept an open mind on his transport options, using dogs, tractors (which broke down about 50 miles from base camp), and Manchurian ponies man-hauling with skis and man-hauling on foot. It is true they lacked the specialist knowledge of handling dogs in the manner of Amundsen but it is untrue that Scott did not use sled-dogs nor that he did not use skis effectively. Norwegian expert skier Lieutenant Tryggve Gran, RNN, accompanied Scott on Nansen's advice. Gran later commented that Scott's skiing ability matched that of the average Norwegian. Scott's polar party relied primarily on "man hauling" which meant using only their own power to pull their sledges, which, in Scott's experience, was the most effective. Of Scott's final polar team of five men four were on skis, the fifth was not simply because, initially, it was not intended that five men go to the pole so his skis had earlier been stowed on a dog sled, that had returned to base, to save overall weight. As Scott's party neared the exit from the top of the Beardmore glacier there was a phased withdrawal of the dog team, and killing of their ponies for food. The dog team headed back to base with the intention of later heading south again to meet and help the returning polar party at some point in the future.

Scott calculated the supply requirements based on a number of expeditions, both by members of his team and by those of Shackleton, on this basis Scott's planning was more than adequate to his needs. The shortage of food and fuel that eventually killed Scott's team was due to the unexpected prolonged and exceptionally severe weather and the injuries of members of the team slowing their progress and a leakage of fuel from the cans stored in the depots. Amundsen did not experience this fuel loss due to his practice of soldering the fuel tins until they were to be used. Scott used fuel storage vessels with leather washers, a method which had previously been used with some success by a number of previous expeditions. As it was, in Scott's case evaporation of fuel occurred at random from the storage vessels he used although it seems to have occurred more so with the storage vessels he used further south.

On their return to the Ross Ice Shelf, Scott's group experienced prolonged blizzards and low temperatures which have only been matched in one year since continuous records began to be kept in 1985 http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/96/23/13012. Scott and Shackleton's experience in 1903 and 1907 gave them first-hand experience of normal conditions in Antarctica. Simpson, Scott's meteorologist 1910-1912, did a huge amount of research into the weather during the time of their expedition, often taking two readings a day, every day. None of these suggested the extreme weather conditions they encountered on their return journey and a severe blizzard cemented the fate of the Scott team. The exceptional severity of the weather meant that they could not leave the confines of their tent and thus they were prevented from reaching the final food and fuel depot. In the previous year, at the time they were laying their food and fuel depots, weather conditions frustrated them and they had to place their One-Ton Depot at 79° 29', 36 statute miles short of its planned location at 80°. Scott perished 11 statute miles from One-Ton Depot.

Much has been said that Scott was inappropriately dressed in the man-made fibred clothing that he chose and that Amundsen was better prepared in wearing furs (as was the Inuit practice of Amundsen's experience). The fact is that each was best dressed for their circumstances. Amundsen used dog-sleds and as such his team generated much less body heat and perspiration and needed the superb insulation of fur clothing. Scott's team, who exclusively man-hauled on the high polar plateau as expected, sweated much more profusely and needed clothing that would allow the evaporation of that perspiration. If Scott had worn furs the subsequent freezing of that perspiration close to the skin would have been disastrous.

Both Amundsen's and Scott's teams suffered because of normal [severe] conditions in the Antarctic. It has been argued that sheer bad luck caused Scott and his team to perish, though it will never be known if Scott's team would have survived under normal Antarctic conditions. It has also been argued that the superior preparation and planning of Amundsen's team would have allowed them to survive the unforeseen weather encountered by Scott.

Amundsen's expedition benefited from good equipment, appropriate clothing, a fundamentally different primary task (Amundsen did no surveying on his route south and is known to have taken only two photographs), an understanding of dogs and their handling, and the effective use of skis. He pioneered an entirely new route to the Pole and they returned. In Amundsen's own words:

"I may say that this is the greatest factor -- the way in which the expedition is equipped -- the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order -- luck, people call it. Defeat is certain for him who has neglected to take the necessary precautions in time; this is called bad luck." ::::--from The South Pole, by Roald Amundsen.

There are some who would consider Amundsen's assessment of his own success as disingenuous; it was, as has been previously noted, pure luck that he came upon the Heiberg glacier and without that stroke of luck he might well have failed.

In 1918 Amundsen began an expedition with a new ship Maud, which was to last until 1925. Maud sailed West to East through the Northeast Passage, now called the Northern Route (1918-1920). Amundsen planned to freeze the Maud into the polar ice cap and drift towards the North Pole (as Nansen had done with the Fram), but in this he was not successful. However, the scientific results of the expedition, mainly the work of Harald Sverdrup, were of considerable value.

In 1925, accompanied by Lincoln Ellsworth, pilot Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen and three other team members, Amundsen took two aircraft, the N-24 and N-25 to 87° 44' north. It was the northernmost latitude reached by plane up to that time. The planes landed a few miles apart without radio contact, yet the crews managed to reunite. One of the aircraft, the N-24 was damaged. Amundsen and his crew worked for over three weeks to clean up an airstrip to take off from ice. They shovelled 600 tons of ice on 1 lb (400 g) of daily food rations. In the end six crew members were packed into the N-25. In a remarkable feat, Riiser-Larsen took off and barely became airborne over the cracking ice. They returned triumphant when everyone thought they had been lost for ever.

In 1926, Amundsen, Ellsworth, Riiser-Larsen, Wisting and Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile made the first crossing of the Arctic in the airship Norge designed by Nobile. They left Spitsbergen on May 11, 1926 and landed in Alaska two days later. The three previous claims to have arrived at the North Pole – by Frederick Cook in 1908, Robert Peary in 1909, and Richard E. Byrd in 1926 (just a few days before the Norge) – are all disputed, as being either of dubious accuracy or outright fraud. Some of those disputing these earlier claims therefore consider the crew of the Norge to be the first verified explorers to have reached the North Pole. If the Norge expedition was actually the first to the North Pole, Amundsen and Wisting would therefore be the first persons to attain each geographical pole.

Amundsen disappeared on June 18, 1928 while flying on a rescue mission with the famous Norwegian pilot Leif Dietrichson, the French pilot Rene Guilbaud, and three more Frenchmen, looking for missing members of Nobile's crew, whose new airship the Italia had crashed while returning from the North Pole. Afterwards, a pontoon from the French Latham 47 flying-boat he was in, improvised into a life raft, was found near the Tromsø coast. It is believed that the plane crashed in fog in the Barents Sea, and that Amundsen was killed in the crash, or died shortly afterwards. His body was never found. The search for Amundsen was called off in September by the Norwegian Government. In 2003 it was suggested that the plane went down northwest of Bjørnøya (Bear Island).

A number of places have been named after him: * The Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is named jointly with his rival. * Amundsen Sea, off the coast of Antarctica. * Amundsen Glacier in Antarctica. * Amundsen Gulf, in the Arctic Ocean, off the coast of the Northwest Territories in Canada (separating Banks Island and the western parts of Victoria Island from the mainland). * A large crater covering the Moon's south pole is named Amundsen Crater.

The following ships are named after him: * The Canadian Coast Guard named an icebreaker CCGS Amundsen, whose mission is to perform scientific research in the waters of the Arctic. * The Norwegian Navy is building a class of Aegis frigates, the second of which, is the HNoMS Roald Amundsen (completed 2006). * The German brig Roald Amundsen.

Other tributes include: *Writer Roald Dahl was named after Amundsen. *The Amundsen Trail, Staten Island, New York *Amundsen High School, Chicago, Illinois

* Explorers * Northwest Passage * Antarctica * Robert Falcon Scott (of the Scott Expedition) * List of Antarctica expeditions * List of people who have disappeared

* The Fram Museum (Frammuseet) * Arctic Passage at PBS' Nova site has photographs, maps, excerpts from Amundsen's autobiography and an interview with Roland Huntford. * Roald Amundsen article at south-pole.com * 70South - information on Roald Amundsen * Short biography from Norwegian Foreign Ministry * DIO vol.10 2000 Amundsen's unparalleled record of polar firsts, including evidence that he was 1st to each geographical pole. * The Last Place On Earth 1985 miniseries depicting the race between Amundsen and Scott. * Roald Amundsen At Find A Grave * The Red Tent Sean Connery plays Amundsen

Works by Amundsen: * * Arthur G. Chater's 1912 translation of Amundsen's The South Pole *

*Roald Amundsen's Belgica Diary. The first Scientific Expedition to the Antarctic by Hugo Decleir Bluntisham Books, Erskine Press. *The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen's Race to the South Pole by Roland Huntford Modern Library (September 7, 1999) *The South Pole:An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the Fram, 1910 - 1912, by Roald Amundsen, John Murray, 1912. Online edition at eBooks @ Adelaide

*Langner, Rainer-K. 'Scott and Amundsen - Duel in the Ice', Haus Publishing, London, 2007, ISBN 978905791088