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Norway celebrates Amundsen centenary

Herring boat first European vessel to transit Northwest Passage

JANE GEORGE

Jack Anawak, Canada’s circumpolar ambassador, and Maaki Putulik, a throat-singer who now lives in Norway, attended a celebration in Norway last week to mark the 100th anniversary of the Roald Amundsen’s voyage through the Northwest Passage. They’re seen here by the Gjøa, in front of an inuksuk donated by Canada. (PHOTO COURTESY OF BJØRN PETTER HERNES)

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Highlights of the day’s festivities included an opening speech by Jack Anawak, Canada’s Arctic ambassador; throatsinging with Maaki Putulik; special seminars on Amundsen’s vessel, the Gjøa, and its legacy for science; as well as the opening of a new photo exhibition on Amundsen’s expedition through the Northwest Passage.

The Gjøa, a revamped herring boat, was the first European vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. With his crew of six, Amundsen made the passage in three years, finishing in 1906.

Amundsen’s discovery of a route through the Northwest Passage ended a 400-year quest for this seaway, which took the lives of many European explorers before him.

“We celebrate on August 30 because it was that day in 1906 that Roald Amundsen and his men first saw a ship sailing in the opposite direction and understood that they had conquered the Northwest Passage,” said Charlotte Westereng Syversen from the Norwegian Maritime Museum in Oslo.

The significance of Amundsen’s accomplishment endures today. That’s because as ice cover diminishes in the Northwest Passage due to climate change, the route is expected to open to increased traffic.

In 1903, the Gjøa wintered in a natural harbour on King William Island, in a place his men ended up calling “Gjøahavn” – (“havn” meaning harbour.)

Today, the community is still known as Gjoa Haven. Gjoa Haven’s harbour, which Amundsen called “the finest little harbour in the world,” was a refuge from the pack ice, and Amundsen’s successful navigation of the route may have been partly due to his willingness to adopt some of the traditional ways of Nattilik Inuit.

The members of Amundsen’s expedition remained in Gjoa Haven for two years, building observatories equipped with high-precision instruments. Their studies established the position of the magnetic North Pole, and included observations of such precision that polar experts based research on them for years afterward.

At that time, the magnetic North Pole was located about 120 kilometres from Gjoa Haven. Amundsen also learned how to drive dog teams from Inuit he met. He observed their clothes, the food they ate, and used this knowledge later when he was in the western Arctic and Antarctic.

Amundsen and his crew also fathered a few children during the time spent among the Nattilingmiut.

In August 1905, the Gjøa resumed its course through fog and drift ice. After three weeks, the crew spotted a whaling ship that had set out from California. This was proof that the Gjøa had successfully navigated the Northwest Passage.

By October, the Gjøa was again iced-in, this time near Herschel Island in the Beaufort Sea. When the boat became locked in ice again, Amundsen would travel by dog team to Alaska where he finally sent out word of his achievement.

He returned in March, but the Gjøa remained icebound until July 11. The Gjøa reached Nome, Alaska on Aug. 31, 1906, before sailing on to San Francisco, California, where the expedition was met with a hero’s welcome that October.

Amundsen had hoped to be the first to reach the North Pole, but in 1909 when he learned Robert Peary got there, he headed south, and in 1911 became the first man to reach the South Pole. In June 1918, Amundsen returned to the Arctic in his ship the Maud, which froze in coastal ice for two years, and then froze again off Siberia.

Amundsen would be the first to fly over the North Pole in 1926 in the airship Norge. And two years later, the aircraft disappeared after taking off from Tromsø in northern Norway. His body was never found.

In 1972, the Gjøa was returned to Norway and is on display at the Norwegian Maritime Museum in Oslo. However, there is not much of the original Gjøa left.

After restoration in San Francisco during the 1940s, many of the original planks were replaced and, after another restoration in Norway in 1972, there is little left of the original boat except for the keel and ship bottom.

The 21-metre sloop was built by Kurt Johannesson Skaale in Rosendal, Norway in 1872, the same year Amundsen was born, and named “Gjøa” after the owner’s wife. For the next 28 years, the Gjøa fished herring, before Amundsen bought the vessel in 1900 for his expedition to the Canadian Arctic.

The aging Gjøa was all that Amundsen, who was financing that expedition by selling off his inheritance, could afford. The Gjøa was much smaller than vessels used by other Arctic expeditions, but that’s because Amundsen intended to live off the land and sea he was traveling to.

As it turned out, the Gjøa‘s shallow hull would help it traverse the shallow waters of the Arctic straits. Amundsen’s successful transit of the Northwest Passage continues to be an inspiration.

Starting out in 2003, Knut Espen Solberg and Camilla Grønneberg, both from Norway, made three unsuccessful attempts to retrace Amunden’s journey in their 13-metre yacht, spending the winter of 2005, iced-in, in Arctic Bay.

They were on hand last week to celebrate Amunden’s achievements. Speaking from Oslo, Solberg said Amundsen remains “an icon,” a patriotic figure of Norway’s spirit.

This year, ice conditions have favoured others eager to emulate Amundsen. Two vessels, the Stary and the Nekton, from Poland are also trying to test their own luck in the Northwest Passage.

The 13 Poles want to become the first from their country - and the one of the youngest crews ever - to travel from one end of the Northwest Passage to the other.

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