14 DECEMBER SPECIAL ISSUE : The Conquest of South Pole (part 1)
Published on 13.12.2011 - General Info
The Fram polar exploration ship, which participated in Roald Amundsen's historic first.
© Wikimedia Commons
By a curious coincidence, two nations -England and Norway- undertook the conquest of the South Pole the same Austral season : 1911-12. The protagonists were Robert Falcon Scott for Great Britain and Roald Amundsen for Norway. A fascinating story.
The Fram is going to Antarctica ...
Who would be the first to the South Pole: Amundsen or Scott? Nobody was asking that particular question at the time. Because, when the Norwegian left the port of Oslo aboard the Fram (the ship used by the explorer, Fridtjof Nansen, at the time of his drifting on the Arctic pack ice in 1893), nobody yet knew, not even the crew, that instead of going as envisaged towards Greenland and Siberia, they were in fact heading for the Antarctic with the intention of being the first men to reach the South Pole. It was only several weeks after leaving the Madeira point of call, 09 September 1910, that his brother to whom he had entrusted his secret mail, could finally send the letter to London and let the world know of the great news. It was with stupefaction that Scott learnt of the telegram when his ship, the Terra Nova, stopped over at Melbourne: 'We kindly inform you that the Fram is going to Antarctica. Amundsen'.
The disappointment was all the greater because, several months after having set up their base at Cape Evans (Ross Sea), one of their forward teams, which was on an exploratory mission in King Edward VII Land, perceived, far away, the Fram anchored in the Bay of Whales! Not only was Amundsen attempting the pole at the same time as he was but he too had chosen the Ross Ice Shelf as the landing point for establishing his base camp. And, greater misfortune still, his rival already had several days advance on him, his camp being, by chance, about 100 kilometres further south than the Cape Evans base!
The famous Amundsen's vessel Fram
© Wikipedia
Heavy loads for Britons, Superlight sleds for Norwegians
For the two teams, the four winter months of 1911 were going to be devoted to meticulous preparation for the great departure. In Amundsen's team, they were frantically struggling in any way that they could to get rid of any superfluous weight. The expedition's carpenter planed down the components of the sledges to a maximum and made skis. In a make-piece shelter located outside their small house, they also transformed the tents in order to make them lighter. On Scott's side there was also a host of tasks of all kinds that occupied the English during the winter months - meticulous preparation of portions of rations, checking the seams of the tents, creating soles from sealskin, and other things.
There was however one essential difference between the ways that the two expeditions were getting ready. With Scott, they hardly paid any attention to weight. Amundsen, on the other hand, was to set off as light as possible, and each man would steer a sledge that would be pulled by dogs. Scott, for his part, was to use heavy equipment with motorised sledges and ponies pulling other sledges on part of the route until the assault team was to set off on its own. Amundsen had brought 86 dogs with him (of which 13 were to go to the Pole and return), the others having been slaughtered along the way in order to feed the survivors. Scott, for his part, had embarked 233 of them.
Another point of view separated the two explorers: the one was counting on the ability of his animals to help him conquer the pole, the other, good Britisher that he was, preferred to wager on the courage of the men. The proof was that instead of taking dogs on the final assault, which was to take place over more than 900 kilometres, Scott and his last four companions decided to pull the sledges over the ice themselves. One might be surprised a posteriori of these tactics; but England was undergoing a full-blown identity crisis and the men that went off to defy the South Pole had to be models for their fellow citizens and could not allow themselves to forget the great moral Victorian principles that guided the British; loyalty, courage, a spirit of solidarity, sacrifice, denial, endurance of suffering and so on.
