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The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2

R >> Roald Amundsen >> The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2




From here to the Bay of Whales we saw a few scattered streams of
floes and some icebergs.

A few seals were shot in the ice, so that we had fresh meat enough,
and could save the sheep and pigs until the shore party came on
board. I was sure they would appreciate fresh roast pork.

The chart of Ross Sea has been drawn chiefly as a guide to future
expeditions. It may be taken as certain that the best place to go
through the ice is between long. 176° E. and 180°, and that the best
time is about the beginning of February.

Take, for instance, our southward route in 1911 -- 1912: as has been
said, the ice was met with as early as in 65° S., and we were not
clear of it till about 73° S.; between 68° S. and 69° S. the line
is interrupted, and it was there that I ought to have steered to
the south.

Now follow the course from the Bay of Whales in 1912. Only in about 75°
S. was ice seen (almost as in 1911), and we followed it. After that
time we saw absolutely no more ice, as the chart shows; therefore in
the course of about a month and a half all the ice that we met when
going south had drifted out.

The stippled line shows how I assume the ice to have lain; the heavy
broken line shows what our course ought to have been.

The midnight sun was not seen till the night of January 7, 1912,
to the south of lat. 77° S.; it was already 9.5° above the horizon.

On the night of January 8 we arrived off the Barrier in extremely
bitter weather. South-westerly and southerly winds had held for a
few days, with fair weather; but that night there was thick snow,
and the wind gradually fell calm, after which a fresh breeze sprang
up from the south-east, with biting snow, and at the same time a lot
of drift-ice. The engine went very slowly, and the ship kept head to
wind. About midnight the weather cleared a little, and a dark line,
which proved to be the Barrier, came in sight. The engine went ahead
at full speed, and the sails were set, so that we might get under
the lee of the perpendicular wall. By degrees the ice-blink above the
Barrier became lighter and lighter, and before very long we were so
close under it that we only just had room to go about. The Barrier
here runs east and west, and with a south-easterly wind we went along
it to the east. The watch that had gone below at eight o'clock, when
we were still in open sea, came up again at two to find us close to
the long-desired wall of ice.

Some hours passed in the same way, but then, of course, the wind
became easterly -- dead ahead -- so that we had tack after tack till
6 p.m. the same day, when we were at the western point of the Bay
of Whales.

The ice lay right out to West Cape, and we sailed across the mouth
of the bay and up under the lee of the eastern Barrier, in order,
if possible, to find slack ice or open water; but no, the fast ice
came just as far on that side. It turned out that we could not get
farther south than 78°30' -- that is, eleven nautical miles farther
north than the previous year, and no less than fifteen nautical miles
from Framheim, taking into consideration the turn in the bay.

We were thus back at the same place we had left on February 14,
1911, and had since been round the world. The distance covered on
this voyage of circumnavigation was 25,000 nautical miles, of which
8,000 belong to the oceanographical cruise in the South Atlantic.

We did not lie under the lee of the eastern Barrier for more than
four hours; the wind, which had so often been against us, was true to
its principles to the last. Of course it went to the north and blew
right up the bay; the drift-ice from Ross Sea came in, and at midnight
(January 9 -- 10) we stood out again.

I had thought of sending a man up to Framheim to report that we had
arrived, but the state of the weather did not allow it. Besides, I
had only one pair of private ski on board and should therefore only
have been able to send one man. It would have been better if several
had gone together.

During the forenoon of the l0th it gradually cleared, the wind fell
light and we stood inshore again. As at the same time the barometer
was rising steadily, Lieutenant Gjertsen went ashore on ski about
one o'clock.

Later in the afternoon a dog came running out across the sea-ice,
and I thought it had come down on Lieutenant Gjertsen's track; but I
was afterwards told it was one of the half-wild dogs that ran about
on the ice and did not show themselves up at the hut.

Meanwhile the wind freshened again; we had to put out for another
twenty-four hours and lay first one way and then the other with
shortened sail; then there was fine weather again and we came in. At 4
p.m. on the 11th Lieutenant Gjertsen returned with Lieutenant Prestrud,
Johansen and Stubberud. Of course we were very glad to see one another
again and all sorts of questions were asked on both sides. The Chief
and the southern party were not yet back. They stayed on board till
the 12th, got their letters and a big pile of newspapers and went
ashore again; we followed them with the glasses as far as possible,
so as to take them on board again if they could not get across the
cracks in the ice.

During the days that followed we lay moored to the ice or went out,
according to the weather.

At 7 p.m. on the 16th we were somewhat surprised to see a vessel
bearing down. For my part, I guessed her to be the Aurora, Dr. Mawson's
ship. She came very slowly, but at last what should we see but the
Japanese flag! I had no idea that expedition was out again. The ship
came right in, went past us twice and moored alongside the loose
ice. Immediately afterwards ten men armed with picks and shovels went
up the Barrier, while the rest rushed wildly about after penguins,
and their shots were heard all night. Next morning the commander of
the Kainan Maru, whose name was Homura, came on board. The same day
a tent was set up on the edge of the Barrier, and cases, sledges, and
so on, were put out on the ice. Kainan Maru means, I have been told,
"the ship that opens the South."

Prestrud and I went on board her later in the day, to see what she
was like, but we met neither the leader of the expedition nor the
captain of the ship. Prestrud had the cinematograph apparatus with him,
and a lot of photographs were also taken.

The leader of the Japanese expedition has written somewhere or other
that the reason of Shackleton's losing all his ponies was that the
ponies were not kept in tents at night, but had to lie outside. He
thought the ponies ought to be in the tents and the men outside. From
this one would think they were great lovers of animals, but I must
confess that was not the impression I received. They had put penguins
into little boxes to take them alive to Japan! Round about the deck
lay dead and half-dead skua gulls in heaps. On the ice close to the
vessel was a seal ripped open, with part of its entrails on the ice;
but the seal was still alive. Neither Prestrud nor I had any sort of
weapon that we could kill the seal with, so we asked the Japanese
to do it, but they only grinned and laughed. A little way off two
of them were coming across the ice with a seal in front of them;
they drove it on with two long poles, with which they pricked it
when it would not go. If it fell into a crack, they dug it up again
as you would see men quarrying stone at home; it had not enough life
in it to be able to escape its tormentors. All this was accompanied
by laughter and jokes. On arrival at the ship the animal was nearly
dead, and it was left there till it expired.

On the 19th we had a fresh south-westerly wind and a lot of ice
went out. The Japanese were occupied most of the night in going
round among the floes and picking up men, dogs, cases, and so on, as
they had put a good deal on to the ice in the course of the day. As
the ice came out, so the Fram went in, right up to fat. 78°35' S.,
while the Kainan Maru drifted farther and farther out, till at last
she disappeared. Nor did we see the vessel again, but a couple of
men with a tent stayed on the Barrier as long as we were in the bay.

On the night of the 24th there was a stiff breeze from the west,
and we drifted so far out in the thick snow that it was only on the
afternoon of the 27th that we could make our way in again through a
mass of ice. In the course of these two days so much ice had broken
up that we came right in to fat. 78°39' S., or almost to Framheim, and
that was very lucky. As we stood in over the Bay of Whales, we caught
sight of a big Norwegian naval ensign flying on the Barrier at Cape
Man's Head, and I then knew that the southern party had arrived. We
went therefore as far south as possible and blew our powerful siren;
nor was it very long before eight men came tearing down. There was
great enthusiasm. The first man on board was the Chief; I was so
certain he had reached the goal that I never asked him. Not till an
hour later, when we had discussed all kinds of other things, did I
enquire "Well, of course you have been at the South Pole?"

We lay there for a couple of days; on account of the short distance
from Framheim, provisions, outfit, etc., were brought on board. If such
great masses of ice had not drifted out in the last few days, it would
probably have taken us a week or two to get the same quantity on board.

At 9.30 p.m. on January 30, 1912, in a thick fog, we took our moorings
on board and waved a last farewell to the mighty Barrier.


From the Barrier to Buenos Aires, Via Hobart.

The first day after our departure from the Barrier everything we had
taken on board was stowed away, so that one would not have thought
our numbers were doubled, or that we had taken several hundred cases
and a lot of outfit on board. The change was only noticed on deck,
where thirty-nine powerful dogs made an uproar all day long, and in
the fore-saloon, which was entirely changed. This saloon, after being
deserted for a year, was now full of men, and it was a pleasure to
be there; especially as everyone had something to tell -- the Chief
of his trip, Prestrud of his, and Gjertsen and I of the Fram's.

However, there was not very much time for yarning. The Chief at once
began writing cablegrams and lectures, which Prestrud and I translated
into English, and the Chief then copied again on a typewriter. In
addition to this I was occupied the whole time in drawing charts,
so that on arrival at Hobart everything was ready; the time passed
quickly, though the voyage was fearfully long.

As regards the pack-ice we were extremely lucky. It lay in exactly
the same spot where we had met with it in 1911 -- that is, in about
lat. 75° S. We went along the edge of it for a very short time, and
then it was done with. To the north of 75° we saw nothing but a few
small icebergs.

We made terribly slow progress to the northward, how slow may perhaps
be understood if I quote my diary for February 27:

"This trip is slower than anything we have had before; now and then
we manage an average rate of two knots an hour in a day's run. In
the last four days we have covered a distance that before would have
been too little for a single day. We have been at it now for nearly
a month, and are still only between lat. 52° and 53° S. Gales from
the north are almost the order of the day," etc. However, it is an
ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the time was well employed
with all we had to do.

After a five weeks' struggle we at last reached Hobart and anchored
in the splendid harbour on March 7.

Our fresh provisions from Buenos Aires just lasted out; the last of
the fresh potatoes were finished a couple of days before our arrival,
and the last pig was killed when we had been at Hobart two days.

The Fram remained here for thirteen days, which were chiefly spent in
repairing the propeller and cleaning the engine; in addition to this
the topsail-yard, which was nearly broken in the middle, was spliced,
as we had no opportunity of getting a new one.

The first week was quiet on board, as, owing to the circumstances,
there was no communication with the shore; but after that the ship
was full of visitors, so that we were not very sorry to get away again.

Twenty-one of our dogs were presented to Dr. Mawson, the leader of
the Australian expedition, and only those dogs that had been to the
South Pole and a few puppies, eighteen in all, were left on board.

While we lay in Hobart, Dr. Mawson's ship, the Aurora, came in. I went
aboard her one day, and have thus been on board the vessels of all
the present Antarctic expeditions. On the Terra Nova, the British, on
February 4, 1911, in the Bay of Whales; on the Deutschland, the German,
in September and October, 1911, in Buenos Aires; on the Kainan Maru,
the Japanese, on January 17, 1912, in the Bay of Whales; and finally
on the Aurora in Hobart. Not forgetting the Fram, which, of course,
I think best of all.

On March 20 the Fram weighed anchor and left Tasmania.

We made very poor progress to begin with, as we had calms for nearly
three weeks, in spite of its being the month of March in the west wind
belt of the South Pacific. On the morning of Easter Sunday, April 7,
the wind first freshened from the north-west and blew day after day,
a stiff breeze and a gale alternately, so that we went splendidly
all the way to the Falkland Islands, in spite of the fact that the
topsail was reefed for nearly five weeks on account of the fragile
state of the yard. I believe most of us wanted to get on fast; the
trip was now over for the present, and those who had families at home
naturally wanted to be with them as soon as they could; perhaps that
was why we went so well.

On April 1 Mrs. Snuppesen gave birth to eight pups; four of these
were killed, while the rest, two of each sex, were allowed to live.

On Maundy Thursday, April 4, we were in long. 180° and changed the
date, so that we had two Maundy Thursdays in one week; this gave us a
good many holidays running, and I cannot say the effect is altogether
cheerful; it was a good thing when Easter Tuesday came round as an
ordinary week-day.

On May 6 we passed Cape Horn in very fair weather; it is true we,
had a snow-squall of hurricane violence, but it did not last much
more than half an hour. For a few days the temperature was a little
below freezing-point, but it rose rapidly as soon as we were out in
the Atlantic.

From Hobart to Cape Horn we saw no ice.

After passing the Falkland Islands we had a head wind, so that the
last part of the trip was nothing to boast of.

On the night of May 21 we passed Montevideo, where the Chief had
arrived a few hours before. From here up the River La Plata we
went so slowly on account of head wind that we did not anchor in
the roads of Buenos Aires till the afternoon of the 23rd, almost
exactly at the same time as the Chief landed at Buenos Aires. When
I went ashore next morning and met Mr. P. Christophersen, he was in
great good-humour. "This is just like a fairy tale," he said; and it
could not be denied that it was an amusing coincidence. The Chief,
of course, was equally pleased.

On the 25th, the Argentine National Fête, the Fram was moored at the
same quay that we had left on October 5, 1911. At our departure there
were exactly seven people on board to say good-bye, but, as far as I
could see, there were more than this when we arrived; and I was able
to make out, from newspapers and other sources, that in the course of
a couple of months the third Fram Expedition had grown considerably
in popularity.

In conclusion I will give one or two data. Since the Fram left
Christiania on June 7, 1910, we have been two and a half times round
the globe; the distance covered is about 54,400 nautical miles; the
lowest reading of the barometer during this time was 27.56 inches (700
millimetres) in March, 1911, in the South Pacific, and the highest
30.82 inches (783 millimetres) in October, 1911, in the South Atlantic.

On June 7, 1912, the second anniversary of our leaving Christiania,
all the members of the Expedition, except the Chief and myself, left
for Norway, and the first half of the Expedition was thus brought to
a fortunate conclusion.





CHAPTER I

The "Fram"

By Commodore Christian Blom

Colin Archer says in his description of the Fram, in Fridtjof Nansen's
account of the Norwegian Arctic Expedition, 1893 -- 1896, that the
successful result of an expedition such as that planned and carried
out by Dr. Nansen in the years 1893 -- 1896 must depend on the care
with which all possible contingencies are foreseen, and precautions
taken to meet them, and the choice of every detail of the equipment
with special regard to the use to which it will be put. To no part
of the equipment, he says, could this apply with greater force than
to the ship which was to carry Dr. Nansen and his companions on their
adventurous voyage.

Colin Archer then built the ship -- Fram was her name -- and she
showed -- first on Fridtjof Nansen's famous voyage, and afterwards
on Sverdrup's long wintering expedition in Ellesmere Land, that
she answered her purpose completely, nay, she greatly exceeded the
boldest expectations.

Then Roald Amundsen decided to set out on a voyage not less adventurous
than the two former, and he looked about for a suitable ship. It
was natural that he should think of the Fram, but she was old --
about sixteen years -- and had been exposed to many a hard buffet;
it was said that she was a good deal damaged by decay.

Roald Amundsen, however, did not allow himself to be discouraged
by these misgivings, but wished to see for himself what kind of
a craft the Fram was after her two commissions. He therefore came
down to Horten with Colin Archer on June 1, 1908, and made a thorough
examination of the vessel. He then, in the spring of 1909, requested
the Naval Dockyard at Horten to repair the ship and carry out the
alterations he considered necessary for his enterprise.

Before giving an account of the repairs and alterations to the vessel
in 1909 -- 1910, we shall briefly recapitulate, with the author's
permission, a part of the description of the Fram in Fridtjof Nansen's
work, especially as regards the constructive peculiarities of the
vessel.

The problem which it was sought to solve in the construction of the
Fram was that of providing a ship which could survive the crushing
embrace of the Arctic drift-ice. To fit her for this was the object
before which all other considerations had to give way.

But apart from the question of mere strength of construction, there
were problems of design and model which, it was thought, would play an
important part in the attainment of the chief object. It is sometimes
prudent in an encounter to avoid the full force of a blow instead of
resisting it, even if it could be met without damage; and there was
reason to think that by a judicious choice of model something might
be done to break the force of the ice-pressure, and thus lessen its
danger. Examples of this had been seen in small Norwegian vessels that
had been caught in the ice near Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. It often
happens that they are lifted right out of the water by the pressure
of the ice without sustaining serious damage; and these vessels are
not particularly strong, but have, like most small sailing-ships,
a considerable dead rising and sloping sides. The ice encounters
these sloping sides and presses in under the bilge on both sides,
until the ice-edges meet under the keel, and the ship is raised up
into the bed that is formed by the ice itself.

In order to turn this principle to account, it was decided to depart
entirely from the usual flat-bottomed frame-section, and to adopt
a form that would offer no vulnerable point on the ship's side, but
would cause the increasing horizontal pressure of the ice to effect
a raising of the ship, as described above. In the construction of
the Fram it was sought to solve this problem by avoiding plane or
concave surfaces, thus giving the vessel as far as possible round and
full lines. Besides increasing the power of resistance to external
pressure, this form has the advantage of making it easy for the ice
to glide along the bottom in any direction.

The Fram was a three-masted fore-and-aft schooner with an auxiliary
engine of 200 indicated horse-power, which was calculated to give her
a speed of 6 knots, when moderately loaded, with a coal consumption
of 2.8 tons a day.

The vessel was designed to be only large enough to carry the necessary
coal-supply, provisions, and other equipment for a period of five
years, and to give room for the crew.


Her principal dimensions are:


Length of keel 103.3 English feet
Length of waterline 119'
Length over all 128'
Beam on waterline 34'
Greatest beam 36'
Depth 17.2'


Her displacement, with a draught of 15.6 feet, is 800 tons. The
measurements are taken to the outside of the planks, but do not
include the ice-skin. By Custom-house measurement she was found to
be 402 gross tons register, and 807 tons net.

The ship, with engines and boilers, was calculated to weigh about 420
tons. With the draught above mentioned, which gives a freeboard of 3
feet, there would thus be 380 tons available for cargo. This weight
was actually exceeded by 100 tons, which left a freeboard of only
20 inches when the ship sailed on her first voyage. This additional
immersion could only have awkward effects when the ship came into the
ice, as its effect would then be to retard the lifting by the ice,
on which the safety of the ship was believed to depend in a great
measure. Not only was there a greater weight to lift, but there was
a considerably greater danger of the walls of ice, that would pile
themselves against the ship's sides, falling over the bulwarks and
covering the deck before the ice began to raise her. The load would,
however, be lightened by the time the ship was frozen fast. Events
showed that she was readily lifted when the ice-pressure set in, and
that the danger of injury from falling blocks of ice was less than
had been expected. The Fram's keel is of American elm in two lengths,
14 inches square; the room and space is 2 feet. The frame-timbers
are almost all of oak obtained from the Naval Dockyard at Horten,
where they had lain for many years, thus being perfectly seasoned. The
timbers were all grown to shape. The frames consist of two tiers of
timbers everywhere, each timber measuring 10 to 11 inches fore and aft;
the two tiers of timbers are fitted together and bolted, so that they
form a solid and compact whole. The joints of the frame-timbers are
covered with iron plates. The lining consists of pitch-pine in good
lengths and of varying thickness from 4 to 6 inches. The keelson is
also of pitch-pine, in two layers, one above the other; each layer 15
inches square from the stem to the engine-room. Under the boiler and
engine there was only room for one keelson. There are two decks. The
beams of the main-deck are of American or German oak, those of the
lower deck and half-deck of pitch-pine and Norwegian fir. All the deck
planks are of Norwegian fir, 4 inches in the main-deck and 3 inches
elsewhere. The beams are fastened to the ship's sides by knees of
Norwegian spruce, of which about 450 were used. Wooden knees were,
as a rule, preferred to iron ones, as they are more elastic. A good
many iron knees were used, however, where wood was less suitable. In
the boiler and engine room the beams of the lower deck had to be
raised about 3 feet to give sufficient height for the engines. The
upper deck was similarly raised from the stern-post to the mainmast,
forming a half-deck, under which the cabins were placed. On this
half-deck, immediately forward of the funnel, a deck-house was
placed, arranged as a chart-house, from which two companions (one
on each side) led down to the cabins. Besides the ice-skin, there
is a double layer of outside planking of oak. The two first strakes
(garboard strakes), however, are single, 7 inches thick, and are
bolted both to the keel and to the frame-timbers. The first (inner)
layer of planks is 8 inches thick, and is only fastened with nails;
outside this comes a layer of 4-inch planks, fastened with oak trenails
and through bolts, as usual. The two top strakes are single again, and
6 inches thick. The ice-skin is of greenheart, and covers the whole
ship's side from the keel to 18 inches from the sheer strake. It is
only fastened with nails and jagged bolts. Each layer of planks was
caulked and pitched before the next one was laid. Thus only about 3
or 4 inches of the keel projects below the planking, and this part of
the keel is rounded off so as not to hinder the ice from passing under
the ship's bottom. The intervals between the timbers were filled with
a mixture of coal-tar, pitch, and sawdust, heated together and put in
warm. The ship's side thus forms a compact mass varying in thickness
from 28 to 32 inches. As a consequence of all the intervals between
the timbers being filled up, there is no room for bilge-water under
the lining. A loose bottom was therefore laid a few inches above the
lining on each side of the keelson. In order to strengthen the ship's
sides still more, and especially to prevent stretching, iron braces
were placed on the lining, running from the clamps of the top deck
down to well past the floor-timbers.

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