Crowds of people stood on the banks of the fjord at Oslo in Norway.
Bands were playing and flags were waving. Cheer after cheer arose from
the crowd as the boat, the _Fram_, came into sight. On the _Fram_ was a
brave Norwegian named Nansen who was returning from adventures in Eskimo
land.
In the crowd which cheered Nansen was a lad seventeen years old who also
dreamed dreams of adventure. That lad was Roald Amundsen. “Some day,”
said Roald, “I’ll travel as far north as I can go. I’ll stand at the
North Pole—the spot at the very top of the world.”
People had known for a long time then that the earth is a big ball. The
spot at the very top of the big ball is called the North Pole and the
spot at the very bottom of the ball is called the South Pole. No matter
which way a person standing at the North Pole looked he would be looking
south toward the other end of the ball. If he stood at the South Pole,
no matter which way he looked, he would be looking north towards the top
of the ball. But when Roald was dreaming his dreams no one had stood at
either the North Pole or the South Pole. Roald thought, “Perhaps I can
be the first to visit the North Pole.”
How would he know when he reached a spot which no one had seen? Roald
had seen the instrument which sailors use to tell direction when out at
sea. It is a needle that always points toward the north star and that
star is almost directly overhead at the North Pole. Roald knew that he
could carry such a needle with him. With it he would be able to tell
when he came to the North Pole. For there the needle could no longer
point north, so it would move about trying to find north.
But Roald was then too young for such an adventure. Ten years passed
after Nansen’s return before he began to prepare for a journey to the
North Pole. He was to sail in the same boat that Nansen had used, the
_Fram_. Amundsen’s party was almost ready to start from Norway when news
came that an American, named Peary, had reached the North Pole. Already
the Stars and Stripes floated over that spot at the top of the earth.
Roald Amundsen still longed to visit the North Pole, but he decided not
to go at that time. He said, “No one has yet reached the South Pole—at
the bottom of the earth. We will go to the South Pole. Perhaps the
Norwegian flag may be the first to float there.”
On a bright sunny day in August, 1910, about a year after Peary found
the North Pole, Amundsen and his men set out on the long journey from
Norway to the South Pole at the bottom of the earth. He knew that the
Antarctic (ant ark tic)—the land and water at the bottom of the
earth—is a place of ice and snow. Amundsen knew much about cold lands
of ice and snow as he had always lived in Norway. He had traveled on
skis ever since he was a small boy. He had read many books about the
land to which he was going.
He planned everything very carefully so that he and his men would have
every chance to succeed. He said, “If a person starting on a hard task
prepares for the task carefully, he is likely to succeed—and then
people say he had _good luck_. If a person does not prepare carefully,
he is likely to fail—and then people say he had _bad luck_.”
On the deck of the _Fram_ were ninety-six Eskimo dogs. Amundsen said,
“The Eskimo dog is the best animal to endure the cold and to pull
sledges over the ice and snow.” Amundsen gave each man in the crew a
number of dogs to be in his care. The men named their dogs and began
making friends with them as soon as the journey began. They must have
the dogs ready to work well with them by the time they reached the
Antarctic.
On the deck of the boat too were skis and snowshoes, heavy blankets,
suits of Eskimo clothes, suits of reindeer skins, canned meat and other
foods, and lumber ready to fit together for a house. Amundsen had tried
to make sure that he and his men would _be lucky_.
The first part of the journey was through the North Sea along the coast
of Norway. Then the _Fram_ sailed into the Atlantic Ocean. As they
traveled farther and farther south, the weather got warmer each day. The
men saw the sun get higher and higher in the sky each noon. Then they
came to a place where the sun at noon was almost directly over their
heads. They were then halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole.
[Illustration: AMUNDSEN’S EQUIPMENT, NOW IN A MUSEUM]
The men put on light summer clothes. The dogs kept under the shelter
built for them, but still they suffered from the heat.
The _Fram_ went on farther south, but the weather began to grow cooler
and cooler. The farther the boat went from the place where the sun was
almost directly over head at noon, the cooler the weather was. The men
put on warmer clothing and the dogs left their shelters.
By New Year’s Day the _Fram_ was in the icy waters of the Antarctic. The
men saw huge pieces of ice floating in the water. The boat had to make
its way through the ice. In about two weeks more, they reached a wall of
ice about one hundred feet high. Amundsen was expecting that wall of
ice, which was the edge of the great field of ice called _The Great Ice
Barrier_.
The _Fram_ could go no farther. The men unloaded the supplies on the
ice. Not far from that spot, they dug into the ice and made a cellar
where they stored their supplies. Over it they set up the house they had
brought from Norway. They called their new home _Framheim_, which means
_Fram home_.
In January the weather in the Antarctic is much like June weather in the
far north. Day after day the men watched the sun go in a circle around
their home on the ice. The sun there moved much the same as they had
seen it move in the Arctic where Hammerfest lies. At Hammerfest, that
town which is farther north than any other town, the sun is in the east
in the early morning, in the south at noon, in the west in the late
afternoon, and in the north at midnight. But in the Antarctic the men
saw the sun in the east in the early morning, in the _north_ at noon, in
the west in the late afternoon, and in the _south_ at midnight.
The men knew that after April twenty-second the sun would not be seen in
this land at the bottom of the earth for four months. They would not
have time to reach the South Pole before that long night came. They must
wait for another summer.
During the long night the men lived comfortably in their house on the
ice. They looked over every sledge, every piece of harness, their
clothes, and their skis to make sure that everything was in shape for
the trip over the ice to the South Pole.
The sun appeared in the sky for only a few minutes on August
twenty-fourth. Each day after that it crept a little higher and stayed a
little longer until at last the long day came when the sun was in the
sky for weeks and weeks without setting.
For weeks after the sun appeared, the weather was bitter cold. The men
watched for signs of warmer weather. Late in September they saw a seal
crawl out of the water. They then knew that they soon would have warmer
days, so they began to prepare for the journey to the pole.
On October twentieth, Amundsen and four other men with four sledges and
fifty-two dogs set out from Framheim. The sledges were loaded with
provisions enough to last four months. As they journeyed south, they
stopped at different places and built up piles of snow blocks. The heaps
of snow would help them find their way back. Under the blocks of snow
they put supplies which they would need as they came back.
The dogs made good time over the ice of the Antarctic. They traveled
about seventeen miles a day. The men on their skis easily kept up with
the dogs. But by the middle of November they came to snow-covered
mountains. Some of them are two miles high. Travel was then harder. The
party traveled up about one mile. They then rested. Travel was easier
for a few days as they had reached a high level stretch of land which we
call a plateau (pla tō). They then began to climb mountains again. Early
in December they were up two miles high. From that time on they traveled
on another plateau. Travel was easy on this level stretch of land. The
men knew that the South Pole was on this plateau. The end of their
journey seemed near.
On the night of December thirteenth, they had that strange feeling that
something was going to happen. And at three o’clock the next day they
were on the spot which they reckoned to be the South Pole. The happy men
seized each other’s hands. How glad they were! They then did the most
important act of the journey—they planted the flag of Norway on that
spot.
The hands of all five men held the flag as it was set into place.
Amundsen would have it that way. He said later, “It was not for one man
to do this; it was for all who staked their lives in the struggle, and
held together through thick and thin.”
As the men put the flag in place, they said, “Thus we plant thee,
Beloved Flag, at the South Pole, and give the plateau on which it lies
the name _King Haakon VII’s Plateau_.”
So while the Stars and Stripes floated at the top of the earth, the red,
white, and blue flag of Norway floated at its bottom.
In about six weeks the happy men were back in Framheim. About a week
later the _Fram_ set sail for the long return trip to Norway. But early
in March the _Fram_ reached land from which messages could be sent and
the whole world soon knew that the flag of Norway had been planted at
the South Pole. And the whole world did honor to the brave men from the
north who planted it there.
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