Amundsen’s first North Pole expe­di­ti­on from Ny-Åle­sund 100 years ago

It was exact­ly 100 years ago today that Roald Amund­sen took off with two fly­ing boats (sea­pla­nes) from Ny-Åle­sund in Kongsfjord. It was his first attempt to fly to the North Pole. The attempt was not suc­cessful: short­ly befo­re 88 degrees north, both aero­pla­nes had to land in the ice, and it was only with unspeaka­ble dif­fi­cul­ty that they mana­ged to take off again after 25 days. One of the two pla­nes had to be left behind, the six mem­bers of the expe­di­ti­on rea­ched Nord­aus­t­land in the other pla­ne and were res­cued the­re by a Nor­we­gi­an seal­ing ves­sel that hap­pen­ed to be near­by.

The famous expe­di­ti­ons with Nobi­le and the air­ships Nor­ge (1926) and Ita­lia (1928) fol­lo­wed in the years that fol­lo­wed. As is well known, the Ita­lia was wre­cked and part of the crew dis­ap­peared wit­hout a trace. Nobi­le and the remai­ning crew were res­cued. Amund­sen had set off in search of Nobi­le, but died in the pro­cess. His exact fate is still unknown today.

Roald Amund­sen in Ny-Åle­sund.

The two Dor­nier-Wal air­craft N24 and N25 took off on 21 May 1925 – exact­ly 100 years ago today – mar­king the start of this last, famous and dra­ma­tic chap­ter in Amundsen’s life as an explo­rer, cha­rac­te­ri­sed by fly­ing expe­di­ti­ons to the North Pole.

The Fram Muse­um in Oslo is dedi­ca­ting a new exhi­bi­ti­on to this expe­di­ti­on.

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