WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.740 If you really sit down and look at the history 00:00:01.740 --> 00:00:04.599 of exploration, I mean, really look at the popular 00:00:04.599 --> 00:00:08.160 narrative of it, you start to notice a very specific 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.009 aesthetic. You definitely do. It's particularly 00:00:11.009 --> 00:00:14.029 true of the so -called heroic age at the turn 00:00:14.029 --> 00:00:16.329 of the 20th century. You usually see a lot of 00:00:16.329 --> 00:00:18.609 tragedy. Oh, absolutely. It was almost a cultural 00:00:18.609 --> 00:00:21.390 requirement of the time, especially in, you know, 00:00:21.390 --> 00:00:23.789 the British tradition. Right. You see starving 00:00:23.789 --> 00:00:26.769 men dragging these heavy wooden sledges through 00:00:26.769 --> 00:00:29.730 blizzards, ships getting crushed by pack ice, 00:00:29.890 --> 00:00:34.329 poets dying in tents, and just this general vibe 00:00:34.329 --> 00:00:38.100 of romantic heroic doom. It was this idea that 00:00:38.100 --> 00:00:40.460 the struggle itself was the point. If you weren't 00:00:40.460 --> 00:00:42.340 suffering, if you weren't fighting nature with, 00:00:42.420 --> 00:00:44.539 I don't know, grit and wool sweaters, were you 00:00:44.539 --> 00:00:46.539 really exploring? It was exploration as a sort 00:00:46.539 --> 00:00:48.840 of moral play. Exactly. It's like they wanted 00:00:48.840 --> 00:00:52.060 it to be hard. But then there's this one guy, 00:00:52.159 --> 00:00:55.880 a guy who looked at the most hostile environments 00:00:55.880 --> 00:00:58.859 on Earth places that had literally killed hundreds 00:00:58.859 --> 00:01:01.119 of people before him. And he didn't just survive 00:01:01.119 --> 00:01:03.140 them. No, he mastered them. He mastered them. 00:01:03.159 --> 00:01:05.140 He turned the struggle into a logistic spreadsheet. 00:01:05.769 --> 00:01:08.109 It really is a different caliber of success. 00:01:08.450 --> 00:01:11.530 We are talking about a man who essentially looked 00:01:11.530 --> 00:01:14.090 at the globe and said, checkmate. Checkmate. 00:01:14.189 --> 00:01:16.810 That is the perfect way to put it. We are diving 00:01:16.810 --> 00:01:20.269 deep today into the life of Roald Amundsen. And 00:01:20.269 --> 00:01:22.790 the more I looked into his resume for this, the 00:01:22.790 --> 00:01:25.370 more I found myself just shaking my head in disbelief. 00:01:25.469 --> 00:01:27.549 It's pretty wild. It reads like an adventure 00:01:27.549 --> 00:01:29.969 novel that a publisher would reject for being 00:01:29.969 --> 00:01:33.129 too unrealistic. Yeah. He wasn't just the first 00:01:33.129 --> 00:01:35.489 to the South Pole, which is, you know. the headline 00:01:35.489 --> 00:01:37.549 everyone knows. That's a big one. He was the 00:01:37.549 --> 00:01:40.150 first to navigate the Northwest Passage. Yeah. 00:01:41.069 --> 00:01:43.329 If you look at the fine print of history, he 00:01:43.329 --> 00:01:46.109 was arguably the first verified person to reach 00:01:46.109 --> 00:01:48.769 a North Pole, too. That's a bold claim, but the 00:01:48.769 --> 00:01:50.890 data really backs it up. And we'll get into why 00:01:50.890 --> 00:01:53.349 the other claimants fall short later. But what's 00:01:53.349 --> 00:01:55.549 so fascinating about Amundsen is that he represents 00:01:55.549 --> 00:01:58.129 this massive shift in the philosophy of exploration. 00:01:58.590 --> 00:02:02.870 How so? He is a figure of transition. He bridges 00:02:02.870 --> 00:02:06.790 the gap between that romantic heroic age and 00:02:06.790 --> 00:02:09.270 the modern mechanical age. He wasn't just brave. 00:02:09.330 --> 00:02:12.229 He was a meticulous. planner. He treated exploration 00:02:12.229 --> 00:02:15.430 not as some poetic struggle against the elements, 00:02:15.689 --> 00:02:18.750 but as a scientific problem to be solved. A problem 00:02:18.750 --> 00:02:21.389 with a solution. I love that. So our mission 00:02:21.389 --> 00:02:24.550 today is to unpack exactly how a boy from Norway 00:02:24.550 --> 00:02:27.490 became the most successful polar explorer in 00:02:27.490 --> 00:02:30.750 history by doing the exact opposite of what everyone 00:02:30.750 --> 00:02:32.669 else was doing. Yeah, we're going to see how 00:02:32.669 --> 00:02:35.530 he traded romance for efficiency and how that 00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:38.409 decision, that mindset, made all the difference 00:02:38.409 --> 00:02:40.830 between life and death. Okay. So to get to the 00:02:40.830 --> 00:02:42.830 method, we have to understand the obsession. 00:02:43.110 --> 00:02:45.169 You do. And to do that, we have to go back to 00:02:45.169 --> 00:02:47.289 the beginning. We need to start in Borgia, Norway 00:02:47.289 --> 00:02:50.349 in the late 19th century. Right. Born in 1872. 00:02:50.509 --> 00:02:52.090 And the funny thing is, for a guy who became 00:02:52.090 --> 00:02:54.849 the ultimate sailor and explorer, his start was, 00:02:55.009 --> 00:02:57.639 well, let's call it reluctant. That's a good 00:02:57.639 --> 00:02:59.560 word for it. He came from a family of ship owners 00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:02.099 and captains. You'd think he'd be on a boat from 00:03:02.099 --> 00:03:04.800 day one, hauling ropes and tying knots. But there 00:03:04.800 --> 00:03:07.680 was a pretty big obstacle. His mother. She had 00:03:07.680 --> 00:03:10.659 seen what the sea does to men. The shipwrecks, 00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:14.360 the drownings, the endless absences. She wanted 00:03:14.360 --> 00:03:17.159 a very different life for her fourth son. She 00:03:17.159 --> 00:03:19.319 made him promise to avoid the maritime trade 00:03:19.319 --> 00:03:21.759 entirely. What did she want for him instead? 00:03:22.270 --> 00:03:25.189 She wanted him to be a doctor. The classic be 00:03:25.189 --> 00:03:28.409 a doctor pressure. It's universal. And honestly, 00:03:28.530 --> 00:03:30.750 it makes sense given the era. Being a ship captain 00:03:30.750 --> 00:03:33.789 was high status, but high risk. Being a doctor 00:03:33.789 --> 00:03:36.870 was pure safety. It was. And Amundsen, being 00:03:36.870 --> 00:03:39.189 a dutiful son, actually kept that promise. He 00:03:39.189 --> 00:03:41.629 went to university. He studied medicine. He was 00:03:41.629 --> 00:03:44.030 on track for a safe, respectable life on land. 00:03:44.270 --> 00:03:46.699 But his heart wasn't in it. Not at all. The sources 00:03:46.699 --> 00:03:48.719 tell us that even while he was memorizing anatomy, 00:03:49.039 --> 00:03:51.599 his mind was elsewhere. He was sleeping with 00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:54.120 his windows open in the freezing Norwegian winter, 00:03:54.300 --> 00:03:57.560 supposedly to harden his constitution. He was 00:03:57.560 --> 00:04:00.240 secretly training. That is incredible dedication. 00:04:00.659 --> 00:04:02.939 It really speaks to a repressed obsession, doesn't 00:04:02.939 --> 00:04:04.840 it? And he wasn't just studying medicine. He 00:04:04.840 --> 00:04:07.039 had been reading the narratives of Sir John Franklin. 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:10.479 Okay, so Franklin was the British explorer who 00:04:10.479 --> 00:04:13.969 famously disappeared. with two ships and 129 00:04:13.969 --> 00:04:16.589 men trying to find the Northwest Passage in the 00:04:16.589 --> 00:04:19.769 1840s. The very same. And most people would read 00:04:19.769 --> 00:04:21.990 about Franklin. We're talking starvation, lead 00:04:21.990 --> 00:04:24.410 poisoning, cannibalism, freezing to death and 00:04:24.410 --> 00:04:26.170 think, wow, I'm definitely staying inside where 00:04:26.170 --> 00:04:29.930 it's warm. Not Amundsen. He read them with, and 00:04:29.930 --> 00:04:33.769 this is his quote, fervid fascination. He decided 00:04:33.769 --> 00:04:35.810 that suffering in the Arctic was his destiny. 00:04:35.990 --> 00:04:38.670 That fervid fascination is key. He wasn't looking 00:04:38.670 --> 00:04:40.329 for comfort. He was looking for the crucible. 00:04:40.509 --> 00:04:43.930 He was. But he respected the promise to his mother. 00:04:44.009 --> 00:04:46.129 He stayed in school until he was 21 years old. 00:04:46.350 --> 00:04:49.129 And then his mother passed away. And this is 00:04:49.129 --> 00:04:51.009 the part that I find so relatable in a kind of 00:04:51.009 --> 00:04:53.810 a dark way. It's that moment where the external 00:04:53.810 --> 00:04:56.910 pressure valve just releases. Yeah. The second 00:04:56.910 --> 00:04:59.930 he was released from that promise, he quit university. 00:05:00.209 --> 00:05:02.959 Dropped out. Immediately. Traded the stethoscope 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.860 for the sea. He didn't hesitate. He signed on 00:05:05.860 --> 00:05:07.759 to various ships to get his hours in to learn 00:05:07.759 --> 00:05:10.879 the ropes. But he knew he needed real polar experience. 00:05:11.240 --> 00:05:13.300 You don't just, you know, walk to the North Pole. 00:05:13.560 --> 00:05:16.839 So where does he get it? In 1897, he signs on 00:05:16.839 --> 00:05:19.399 as first mate on the Belgian Antarctic expedition 00:05:19.399 --> 00:05:23.240 aboard a ship called the Belgica. And this voyage, 00:05:23.480 --> 00:05:26.779 the Belgica, this isn't just a job for him. This 00:05:26.779 --> 00:05:28.980 is the training ground. This is where he earns 00:05:28.980 --> 00:05:32.040 his stripes. But it sounds like a complete nightmare. 00:05:32.319 --> 00:05:35.259 It was a trial by fire, or I guess a trial by 00:05:35.259 --> 00:05:38.540 ice. The expedition was led by Adrian de Gerlache, 00:05:38.740 --> 00:05:41.220 a Belgian officer. They went down to the Antarctic 00:05:41.220 --> 00:05:43.399 Peninsula for scientific research, but they made 00:05:43.399 --> 00:05:45.899 a critical error. What was that? They stayed 00:05:45.899 --> 00:05:47.560 too late in the season. They became the first 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:50.319 expedition in history to overwinter in Antarctica. 00:05:50.660 --> 00:05:53.000 They got locked in the sea ice at 70 degrees 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:55.120 south. And just to clarify for everyone listening. 00:05:56.000 --> 00:05:57.959 Overwintering in Antarctica isn't like renting 00:05:57.959 --> 00:06:00.259 a cabin for the season. We're talking about the 00:06:00.259 --> 00:06:02.399 ship being frozen solid into the drifting pack 00:06:02.399 --> 00:06:05.839 ice. You are completely trapped. Trapped in total 00:06:05.839 --> 00:06:08.819 darkness for months. The sun goes down in May 00:06:08.819 --> 00:06:11.139 and it doesn't come back until July or August. 00:06:11.399 --> 00:06:14.120 The temperature drops to 40 below zero. And the 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:16.819 noise, the ice is constantly shifting and grinding 00:06:16.819 --> 00:06:18.519 against the hull. It must sound like the ship 00:06:18.519 --> 00:06:20.620 is being chewed up. That's what they said. The 00:06:20.620 --> 00:06:23.120 psychological toll was just immense. I can't 00:06:23.120 --> 00:06:26.240 even imagine. And the crew. Was not prepared. 00:06:26.439 --> 00:06:28.300 They didn't have the right clothing. They didn't 00:06:28.300 --> 00:06:31.060 have enough food. And morale just, it collapsed. 00:06:31.339 --> 00:06:34.360 Men were going insane. The commander, Digger 00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:38.019 Losh, fell ill. But the real killer was scurvy. 00:06:38.139 --> 00:06:39.819 Which is a death sentence in those days. Yeah. 00:06:39.939 --> 00:06:42.420 We know now it's a vitamin C deficiency. But 00:06:42.420 --> 00:06:44.199 back then, the science was still pretty murky. 00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:46.360 Right. They knew fresh food helped, but they 00:06:46.360 --> 00:06:48.560 didn't really understand why. They were relying 00:06:48.560 --> 00:06:51.740 on European preserved foods, canned meats, dried 00:06:51.740 --> 00:06:54.519 biscuits. These have zero vitamin C. So what 00:06:54.519 --> 00:06:56.939 happens to them? The men's gums started swelling, 00:06:57.199 --> 00:06:59.839 their teeth loosened, old wounds reopened, and 00:06:59.839 --> 00:07:02.160 they became lethargic. They were dying. And this 00:07:02.160 --> 00:07:04.939 is where we see the first aha moment for Amundsen. 00:07:05.259 --> 00:07:08.000 And strangely, it comes from the ship's doctor, 00:07:08.199 --> 00:07:10.459 an American named Frederick Cook. Frederick Cook 00:07:10.459 --> 00:07:12.819 is a, well... He's a very complicated figure 00:07:12.819 --> 00:07:15.000 in polar history, often remembered as a fraudster 00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:17.459 later in life. But on the Belgica, the man was 00:07:17.459 --> 00:07:20.360 a hero. He realized that the canned food was 00:07:20.360 --> 00:07:23.339 killing them. He formed a hypothesis that fresh 00:07:23.339 --> 00:07:25.579 meat, any fresh meat, would stop the scurvy. 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:29.240 So what was on the menu? Penguin and seal. There 00:07:29.240 --> 00:07:31.500 were animals around the ship on the ice. Cook 00:07:31.500 --> 00:07:33.920 ordered the crew to hunt them. But here's the 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:36.839 catch. He wanted them to eat the meat fresh. 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:39.579 And barely cooked. Oh, I can see where this is 00:07:39.579 --> 00:07:42.000 going. And this was a huge problem for the crew. 00:07:42.060 --> 00:07:44.079 You have to remember, these were European sailors 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:47.379 in the 1890s. They were used to salt beef and 00:07:47.379 --> 00:07:52.040 bread. The idea of eating semi -raw penguin steak, 00:07:52.259 --> 00:07:55.639 which is dark, oily, and fishy. was repulsive 00:07:55.639 --> 00:07:58.439 to them. I can imagine. De Gerlach actually forbade 00:07:58.439 --> 00:08:01.180 it at first. He thought it was uncivilized. Uncivilized. 00:08:01.180 --> 00:08:02.579 That's the word that gets you killed in these 00:08:02.579 --> 00:08:05.079 situations. Precisely. But Amundsen didn't care 00:08:05.079 --> 00:08:07.240 about being civilized. He cared about surviving. 00:08:07.779 --> 00:08:10.639 He saw that the men who ate the fresh meat, specifically 00:08:10.639 --> 00:08:12.740 the organ meat, the offal, were getting better. 00:08:12.839 --> 00:08:15.879 He ate it. He ate it. He forced it down. And 00:08:15.879 --> 00:08:17.819 he recovered. And that seems to be the light 00:08:17.819 --> 00:08:21.100 bulb turning on. He realizes that European conventions, 00:08:21.319 --> 00:08:24.120 this is how we do things in civilization, are 00:08:24.120 --> 00:08:27.259 actually liabilities in the wild. Exactly. It 00:08:27.259 --> 00:08:29.800 was his first great lesson in pragmatism over 00:08:29.800 --> 00:08:33.080 tradition. If the local resources, even if it's 00:08:33.080 --> 00:08:36.019 raw seal meat, keep you alive, you use them. 00:08:36.500 --> 00:08:39.100 You ignore what is proper and you do what works. 00:08:39.580 --> 00:08:42.340 This mindset became the foundation of his entire 00:08:42.340 --> 00:08:46.179 career. He realized the Arctic doesn't care about 00:08:46.179 --> 00:08:48.360 your manners. So he survives the Belgica, comes 00:08:48.360 --> 00:08:50.539 back to Europe, and now he's ready for the big 00:08:50.539 --> 00:08:52.620 leagues. He sets his sights on the Northwest 00:08:52.620 --> 00:08:56.000 Passage. The Northwest Passage. The holy grail 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:58.639 of navigation for centuries. Right. For 400 years, 00:08:58.779 --> 00:09:01.399 since the time of Columbus almost, sailors had 00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:03.679 been trying to find a route over the top of Canada, 00:09:03.899 --> 00:09:06.440 connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. It was 00:09:06.440 --> 00:09:09.190 the shortcut to the riches of the East. But the 00:09:09.190 --> 00:09:11.870 map of that area is just a nightmare. It's thousands 00:09:11.870 --> 00:09:14.730 of islands shifting ice, fog, dead ends. And 00:09:14.730 --> 00:09:16.929 it had claimed hundreds of lives, including his 00:09:16.929 --> 00:09:19.889 hero, Franklin. The British Royal Navy had thrown 00:09:19.889 --> 00:09:22.590 everything at it. Massive ships, hundreds of 00:09:22.590 --> 00:09:25.210 men, huge supplies of coal. They tried to brute 00:09:25.210 --> 00:09:27.269 force their way through. And they failed every 00:09:27.269 --> 00:09:29.269 time. So how does Amundsen approach this? Does 00:09:29.269 --> 00:09:31.669 he get a bigger battleship, a bigger crew? He 00:09:31.669 --> 00:09:33.870 does the complete opposite. And this is where 00:09:33.870 --> 00:09:37.480 his genius for strategy starts to shine. He realized 00:09:37.480 --> 00:09:39.659 that the massive British naval vessels failed 00:09:39.659 --> 00:09:42.480 because they were too deep. They had deep drafts. 00:09:42.480 --> 00:09:44.740 They got stuck in the shallow, uncharted channels 00:09:44.740 --> 00:09:46.840 of the archipelago. Okay, so he needs a smaller 00:09:46.840 --> 00:09:49.500 boat. A much smaller boat. Amundsen bought a 00:09:49.500 --> 00:09:52.840 tiny 47 -foot fishing sloop called the Jija. 00:09:53.220 --> 00:09:56.480 47 feet? That is incredibly small for an Arctic 00:09:56.480 --> 00:09:58.980 expedition. That's smaller than many recreational 00:09:58.980 --> 00:10:01.940 yachts today. It was tiny. It was 45 tons. It 00:10:01.940 --> 00:10:05.250 had a crew of only six men. plus Amundsen, and 00:10:05.250 --> 00:10:07.590 it had a shallow draft, meaning it could ride 00:10:07.590 --> 00:10:09.809 high in the water and hug the coast, slipping 00:10:09.809 --> 00:10:11.669 over rocks that would tear the bottom out of 00:10:11.669 --> 00:10:14.259 a larger ship. Did have an engine. It even had 00:10:14.259 --> 00:10:17.960 a small 13 horsepower kerosene engine. 13 horsepower. 00:10:18.159 --> 00:10:19.620 My lawnmower might have more power than that. 00:10:19.700 --> 00:10:21.700 It was modest, just enough to push them through 00:10:21.700 --> 00:10:24.500 calm water or help steer in the ice. But the 00:10:24.500 --> 00:10:27.419 ship was only half the story. The real breakthrough 00:10:27.419 --> 00:10:29.919 of the Northwest Passage Expedition, which launched 00:10:29.919 --> 00:10:32.639 in 1903, was what happened when they stopped. 00:10:32.779 --> 00:10:35.809 Where did they stop? They spent two full winters 00:10:35.809 --> 00:10:39.090 at King William Island in a small natural harbor 00:10:39.090 --> 00:10:41.370 now known as Gijoa Haven. And this is what I 00:10:41.370 --> 00:10:43.789 like to call his Inuit MBA. That's a fantastic 00:10:43.789 --> 00:10:46.090 way to describe it. He didn't just sit on the 00:10:46.090 --> 00:10:48.210 boat waiting for the ice to melt, playing cards 00:10:48.210 --> 00:10:50.549 and eating biscuits. He went ashore and lived 00:10:50.549 --> 00:10:53.649 with the local Netsilik Inuit. So this was the 00:10:53.649 --> 00:10:56.159 key. This was arguably the most important period 00:10:56.159 --> 00:10:58.960 of his life. He approached them not as a superior 00:10:58.960 --> 00:11:01.740 European who had come to civilize them, but as 00:11:01.740 --> 00:11:04.320 a student who knew nothing. So what specifically 00:11:04.320 --> 00:11:06.360 did he learn? Because this is the stuff that 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:08.100 ends up winning him the South Pole later, right? 00:11:08.159 --> 00:11:11.039 Oh, directly. The first major lesson was clothing. 00:11:11.259 --> 00:11:13.759 The British explorers were obsessed with wool. 00:11:13.980 --> 00:11:16.419 They wore layers of heavy wool and windproof 00:11:16.419 --> 00:11:19.559 gabardine cloth. Which sounds warm. It is until 00:11:19.559 --> 00:11:22.220 it's not. Wool has a fatal flaw in the Arctic. 00:11:22.419 --> 00:11:25.080 When you work hard -hauling sleds, building camps, 00:11:25.320 --> 00:11:28.320 you sweat. Wool absorbs that moisture. When you 00:11:28.320 --> 00:11:30.899 stop moving, that wet wool freezes. It becomes 00:11:30.899 --> 00:11:33.639 like a suit of ice armor, hard and cold. It sucks 00:11:33.639 --> 00:11:35.840 the heat right out of your body. So while the 00:11:35.840 --> 00:11:38.139 British are freezing in their damp wool sweaters, 00:11:38.259 --> 00:11:40.820 what are the Inuit wearing? Loose -fitting animal 00:11:40.820 --> 00:11:44.539 furs? Caribou skin, mostly. The Inuit design 00:11:44.539 --> 00:11:47.519 was ingenious. It was loose so air could circulate. 00:11:47.659 --> 00:11:50.820 As you moved, the warm air stayed in, but the 00:11:50.820 --> 00:11:52.960 moisture could vent out through the neck and 00:11:52.960 --> 00:11:56.279 the openings. It created a perfect microclimate 00:11:56.279 --> 00:11:58.980 around the body. So it was lighter, warmer, and 00:11:58.980 --> 00:12:02.480 crucially, it kept you dry. Exactly. Amenson 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:05.559 swapped his wool for fur immediately. He essentially 00:12:05.559 --> 00:12:07.879 adopted the local technology. And what was the 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:10.529 second thing? Transport. The Inuit taught him 00:12:10.529 --> 00:12:13.370 how to manage dog teams. Now, Europeans had used 00:12:13.370 --> 00:12:16.450 dogs before, but usually pretty badly. The Inuit 00:12:16.450 --> 00:12:18.950 taught him the nuance, how to feed them high 00:12:18.950 --> 00:12:21.090 -fat diets to keep their energy up, how to breed 00:12:21.090 --> 00:12:24.269 them, how to hitch them. The Inuit used a fan 00:12:24.269 --> 00:12:26.389 hitch where the dogs spread out, which is much 00:12:26.389 --> 00:12:28.710 safer on thin ice. And you have to contrast that 00:12:28.710 --> 00:12:30.610 with the British method. Well, the British often 00:12:30.610 --> 00:12:32.850 preferred manhauling. Which is exactly what it 00:12:32.850 --> 00:12:35.450 sounds like. It is literally strapping men into 00:12:35.450 --> 00:12:37.529 harnesses and having them pull the sleds like 00:12:37.529 --> 00:12:40.529 horses. They thought it was more noble. It showed 00:12:40.529 --> 00:12:43.250 the superiority of the human spirit. But Amazon 00:12:43.250 --> 00:12:44.970 just thought it was inefficient. Completely. 00:12:45.250 --> 00:12:47.629 Why burn your own calories when a dog can do 00:12:47.629 --> 00:12:50.730 the work better? There's that word again. Efficient. 00:12:50.990 --> 00:12:53.610 He doesn't care about looking noble. He cares 00:12:53.610 --> 00:12:55.769 about calories and speed. And that efficiency 00:12:55.769 --> 00:12:59.129 paid off. The Guerra successfully navigated the 00:12:59.129 --> 00:13:01.809 passage. It took three years, weaving through 00:13:01.809 --> 00:13:04.090 the islands, mapping the magnetic pole as they 00:13:04.090 --> 00:13:06.889 went. They finally cleared the archipelago in 00:13:06.889 --> 00:13:10.350 August 1905. They saw a whaling ship from San 00:13:10.350 --> 00:13:12.549 Francisco, and they knew they had made it. They 00:13:12.549 --> 00:13:14.769 had connected the oceans. But he couldn't just 00:13:14.769 --> 00:13:17.429 tweet about it. And this leads to one of my favorite 00:13:17.429 --> 00:13:20.309 anecdotes about his obsession. He completes this 00:13:20.309 --> 00:13:22.970 historic feat, something people have died trying 00:13:22.970 --> 00:13:26.080 to do for centuries. But he's frozen in the ice 00:13:26.080 --> 00:13:28.019 near the finish line in Alaska for the winter. 00:13:28.500 --> 00:13:31.100 He needs to tell the world. So what does he do? 00:13:31.279 --> 00:13:34.279 He can't sit still. He travels 500 miles over 00:13:34.279 --> 00:13:37.440 land in the dead of winter from the ship to a 00:13:37.440 --> 00:13:40.379 telegraph station in Eagle, Alaska. 500 miles 00:13:40.379 --> 00:13:44.000 just to send a telegram. On skis and dog sleds. 00:13:44.159 --> 00:13:47.320 And then, after sending the message, he traveled 00:13:47.320 --> 00:13:50.830 500 miles back to the ship. That's just unbelievable. 00:13:51.190 --> 00:13:53.450 It shows his drive for recognition. He needed 00:13:53.450 --> 00:13:56.070 to be the one to break the news. And the political 00:13:56.070 --> 00:13:58.429 context is interesting here, too. Norway had 00:13:58.429 --> 00:14:00.909 just dissolved its union with Sweden in 1905. 00:14:01.470 --> 00:14:04.210 It was a brand new independent country with a 00:14:04.210 --> 00:14:07.690 new king, Hakon VII. So he dedicates the win 00:14:07.690 --> 00:14:10.850 to the new king. He does. It was a massive moment 00:14:10.850 --> 00:14:13.750 for Norwegian national identity. So he's a national 00:14:13.750 --> 00:14:16.269 hero. He's conquered the Northwest Passage. He's 00:14:16.269 --> 00:14:18.870 got the Inuit survival skills. Naturally, he 00:14:18.870 --> 00:14:20.529 thinks, OK, I've done the West. Let's go north. 00:14:20.629 --> 00:14:22.649 He wants the North Pole. That was the original 00:14:22.649 --> 00:14:25.450 dream. He spent years preparing to drift a ship 00:14:25.450 --> 00:14:28.330 across the North Pole. He had the funding. He 00:14:28.330 --> 00:14:31.019 had the ship, the famous Fram, which was. designed 00:14:31.019 --> 00:14:33.440 by Fritjof Nansen to withstand ice pressure. 00:14:33.860 --> 00:14:37.080 But then in 1909, everything changed. The news 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:40.139 drops. The news drops. Americans Frederick Cook, 00:14:40.279 --> 00:14:42.539 his old doctor friend from the Belgica, and Robert 00:14:42.539 --> 00:14:45.019 Peary both claim to have reached the North Pole. 00:14:45.200 --> 00:14:46.919 We'll talk about the validity of those claims 00:14:46.919 --> 00:14:48.700 later because that's a whole other can of worms. 00:14:48.860 --> 00:14:52.919 But for Amundsen, at that moment, the prize was 00:14:52.919 --> 00:14:57.059 gone. The shop was closed. Right. And most explorers 00:14:57.059 --> 00:14:58.940 would have canceled the expedition, or they would 00:14:58.940 --> 00:15:01.740 have gone anyway just for the science. But Amundsen 00:15:01.740 --> 00:15:04.059 wasn't just a scientist. He was a conqueror. 00:15:04.080 --> 00:15:07.200 He needed a first. So he pivoted. Instantly. 00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:09.360 If he couldn't be first to the north, he would 00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:11.840 be first to the south. But he didn't tell anyone, 00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:14.399 did he? This famous South Pole deception. It 00:15:14.399 --> 00:15:17.419 was a massive secret. He knew that Robert Falcon 00:15:17.419 --> 00:15:20.340 Scott, the British explorer, was publicly preparing 00:15:20.340 --> 00:15:23.259 for a South Pole run. Scott had announced it. 00:15:23.320 --> 00:15:26.279 He was raising money for it. Amundsen feared 00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:28.279 that if he announced his plans, the Norwegian 00:15:28.279 --> 00:15:30.799 government might stop him to avoid a diplomatic 00:15:30.799 --> 00:15:33.460 incident with Britain. Or his backers might pull 00:15:33.460 --> 00:15:35.460 out because they paid for a North Pole trip. 00:15:35.720 --> 00:15:39.039 Exactly. So he lied. He literally set sail from 00:15:39.039 --> 00:15:42.320 Norway in the Fram, heading south, and his crew 00:15:42.320 --> 00:15:44.179 still thought they were going around Cape Horn 00:15:44.179 --> 00:15:46.679 to get to the Bering Strait and then the Arctic. 00:15:46.980 --> 00:15:50.039 Imagine that. You're on the ship thinking you're 00:15:50.039 --> 00:15:51.980 heading for the North Pole drift. Yeah. And he 00:15:51.980 --> 00:15:54.159 only told them the truth when they reached Madeira. 00:15:54.570 --> 00:15:57.269 an island off the coast of Africa. He gathered 00:15:57.269 --> 00:15:59.690 the men on deck and revealed the new plan. The 00:15:59.690 --> 00:16:01.909 North Pole is gone. We're going to Antarctica. 00:16:02.169 --> 00:16:05.370 We're racing Scott. And their crew to the Muni. 00:16:05.429 --> 00:16:07.929 They were Vikings at heart. They cheered. They 00:16:07.929 --> 00:16:09.809 were competitive. They agreed to the change. 00:16:10.129 --> 00:16:12.450 And then he sends that famous telegram to Sky. 00:16:13.370 --> 00:16:16.750 It's so cold. So to the point. Beg to inform 00:16:16.750 --> 00:16:20.289 you, frame preceding Antarctic. That's it. Polite, 00:16:20.289 --> 00:16:22.529 curt, and devastating. Scrape was still making 00:16:22.529 --> 00:16:24.549 his preparations in Australia when he got that. 00:16:24.669 --> 00:16:26.889 He suddenly realized he wasn't on a scientific 00:16:26.889 --> 00:16:28.889 survey with a bit of exploration on the side. 00:16:28.929 --> 00:16:31.429 He was in a race. And he was racing against the 00:16:31.429 --> 00:16:33.730 fastest polar traveler on Earth. The race is 00:16:33.730 --> 00:16:37.669 on. 1911. Amundsen sets up base camp. And again, 00:16:37.769 --> 00:16:40.529 he breaks the rules. Scott sets up at McMurdo 00:16:40.529 --> 00:16:44.529 Sound on solid volcanic rock. Safe. secure. While 00:16:44.529 --> 00:16:46.889 Amundsen sets up at the Bay of Wales, which was 00:16:46.889 --> 00:16:49.009 on the floating ice shelf, this is a huge gamble. 00:16:49.169 --> 00:16:50.850 The British had looked at that area and said, 00:16:50.929 --> 00:16:53.710 no way. The ice could break off and float out 00:16:53.710 --> 00:16:56.529 to sea. If that happened, the base and everyone 00:16:56.529 --> 00:16:59.659 in it would be lost. So why take the risk? Because 00:16:59.659 --> 00:17:02.759 it was 60 miles closer to the pole than Scott's 00:17:02.759 --> 00:17:05.480 camp. He started the race with a 60 mile head 00:17:05.480 --> 00:17:07.799 start just by choosing a riskier parking spot. 00:17:08.039 --> 00:17:10.920 He called the camp Framheim. And now we see the 00:17:10.920 --> 00:17:13.539 Inuit MBA in full effect during the preparation. 00:17:13.839 --> 00:17:16.480 Oh, absolutely. While Scott was bringing motorized 00:17:16.480 --> 00:17:18.779 sledges that broke down almost immediately in 00:17:18.779 --> 00:17:22.279 the cold and ponies, Manchurian ponies that sank 00:17:22.279 --> 00:17:24.480 into the snow and sweat through their coats. 00:17:24.700 --> 00:17:27.920 Amundsen had dog teams. Greenland dogs. And he 00:17:27.920 --> 00:17:30.519 dressed. his men in those loose furs the whole 00:17:30.519 --> 00:17:33.099 system was tested and proven. We have to talk 00:17:33.099 --> 00:17:35.200 about the dogs though because this is the part 00:17:35.200 --> 00:17:36.880 of the story that usually makes modern listeners 00:17:36.880 --> 00:17:39.380 uncomfortable but it is the mathematical reason 00:17:39.380 --> 00:17:42.279 he won. It is difficult to hear, but we have 00:17:42.279 --> 00:17:44.559 to look at it through Amundsen's lens of cold, 00:17:44.660 --> 00:17:48.319 hard efficiency. He started with 52 dogs. He 00:17:48.319 --> 00:17:50.539 planned the route mathematically. He created 00:17:50.539 --> 00:17:53.660 a schedule. He calculated exactly how much weight 00:17:53.660 --> 00:17:55.819 the dogs could pull and how much food they needed. 00:17:55.980 --> 00:17:57.839 And the equation didn't balance if he kept all 00:17:57.839 --> 00:18:00.680 the dogs alive, did it? It did not. As the sleds 00:18:00.680 --> 00:18:02.880 got lighter because the men were eating the supplies, 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:06.839 they needed less pulling power. So the plan included 00:18:06.839 --> 00:18:09.720 killing the weaker dogs at specific milestones. 00:18:10.140 --> 00:18:13.319 So they kill the dogs and then... They fed the 00:18:13.319 --> 00:18:16.160 carcasses to the remaining dogs. And to be clear, 00:18:16.279 --> 00:18:20.200 the men ate the dog meat as well. Wow. He called 00:18:20.200 --> 00:18:22.359 the main depot the butcher shop, didn't he? He 00:18:22.359 --> 00:18:24.839 did. It sounds horrific to us. But look at the 00:18:24.839 --> 00:18:27.829 thermodynamics of it. It ensured a constant supply 00:18:27.829 --> 00:18:30.289 of fresh meat for the dogs, keeping the engine 00:18:30.289 --> 00:18:33.029 of the expedition strong. It provided fresh meat 00:18:33.029 --> 00:18:35.630 for the men, which prevented scurvy, and it kept 00:18:35.630 --> 00:18:37.609 the load light. And you have to compare that 00:18:37.609 --> 00:18:40.630 to Scott. Scott refused to use dogs in this way. 00:18:40.730 --> 00:18:43.900 He relied on manhauling for the final push. His 00:18:43.900 --> 00:18:46.240 men were dragging hundreds of pounds of supplies. 00:18:46.519 --> 00:18:49.079 They were burning something like 6 ,000 calories 00:18:49.079 --> 00:18:51.839 a day and eating maybe 4 ,000. They were literally 00:18:51.839 --> 00:18:54.059 starving. Their bodies were consuming their own 00:18:54.059 --> 00:18:56.900 muscle mass. Exactly. Amundsen's team. They were 00:18:56.900 --> 00:18:58.519 actually deigning weight on the return trip. 00:18:58.740 --> 00:19:01.960 That is a staggering contrast. Scott's team is 00:19:01.960 --> 00:19:04.640 dying of exhaustion and hunger, and Amundsen's 00:19:04.640 --> 00:19:07.220 team is eating fresh meat and riding the sleds. 00:19:07.380 --> 00:19:10.380 It wasn't even a contest in the end. Amundsen's 00:19:10.380 --> 00:19:13.730 team established supply depots at 80. 81 and 00:19:13.730 --> 00:19:16.470 82 degrees south. When they made the final push, 00:19:16.670 --> 00:19:18.890 the weather held, the dogs performed perfectly, 00:19:19.109 --> 00:19:22.410 and on December 14, 1911, Amundsen and his team 00:19:22.410 --> 00:19:24.690 planted the Norwegian flag at the South Pole. 00:19:25.029 --> 00:19:28.029 Checkmate. Checkmate. They named the camp Paulheim, 00:19:28.230 --> 00:19:31.470 home of the Pole. And in a final gesture of confidence, 00:19:31.529 --> 00:19:34.490 or perhaps insurance, Amundsen left a small tent. 00:19:35.329 --> 00:19:37.769 Inside was some gear, a letter addressed to King 00:19:37.769 --> 00:19:40.670 Hakon, and a note for Scott. What did the note 00:19:40.670 --> 00:19:43.200 say? He essentially asked Scott to do him a favor. 00:19:43.359 --> 00:19:45.400 Please deliver this letter to the king of Norway 00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:48.059 if we perish on the way back. Imagine being Scott. 00:19:48.359 --> 00:19:50.759 You arrive at the pole a month later. You are 00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:53.579 defeated, exhausted, frostbitten. You know the 00:19:53.579 --> 00:19:55.680 return journey is going to be hell. And you find 00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:58.000 a tent with a note from the guy who beat you 00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:00.559 asking you to be his postman. It must have been 00:20:00.559 --> 00:20:02.960 psychologically crushing. And as we know, Scott 00:20:02.960 --> 00:20:05.119 and his party tragically died on the return journey 00:20:05.119 --> 00:20:07.819 just 11 miles from their supply depot. While 00:20:07.819 --> 00:20:10.539 Amundsen's return. By contrast. Was smooth. He 00:20:10.539 --> 00:20:12.480 arrived back at Framheim on the exact day he 00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:14.380 had scheduled. So he's done the Northwest Passage. 00:20:14.380 --> 00:20:16.099 He's done the South Pole. He's the most famous 00:20:16.099 --> 00:20:18.599 explorer on Earth. The world is throwing parades 00:20:18.599 --> 00:20:21.400 for him. But he's not done. He still has that 00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:24.319 original itch, the North Pole. The obsession 00:20:24.319 --> 00:20:26.740 never left him. He felt like the job wasn't finished. 00:20:26.819 --> 00:20:29.960 But this next phase, this is where things get 00:20:29.960 --> 00:20:32.920 messy. The precision of the South Pole gives 00:20:32.920 --> 00:20:37.039 way to a decade of chaos. In 1918, he built a 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:40.049 new ship, the Maud. And the plan here was the 00:20:40.049 --> 00:20:43.009 drift, right? Yes, that's it. He wanted to replicate 00:20:43.009 --> 00:20:45.650 what Nansen had tried years earlier, freeze the 00:20:45.650 --> 00:20:48.130 ship into the ice north of Siberia and just let 00:20:48.130 --> 00:20:50.349 the natural current carry it over the North Pole. 00:20:50.490 --> 00:20:53.190 This sounds like an... agonizingly slow way to 00:20:53.190 --> 00:20:55.630 travel. It's terrible. You are passive. You are 00:20:55.630 --> 00:20:57.970 just sitting there. The expedition lasted from 00:20:57.970 --> 00:21:01.910 1918 to 1925, seven years. And it was largely 00:21:01.910 --> 00:21:04.589 a failure in terms of the primary goal. They 00:21:04.589 --> 00:21:06.670 never got the drift trajectory right. They just 00:21:06.670 --> 00:21:09.829 circled in the ice north of Russia. But Amundsen's 00:21:09.829 --> 00:21:12.529 life during this time reads like an action movie 00:21:12.529 --> 00:21:14.730 script written by a chaotic 12 -year -old. He 00:21:14.730 --> 00:21:17.029 just could not catch a break. It really does. 00:21:17.660 --> 00:21:19.920 In this period alone, he suffered a broken arm. 00:21:20.019 --> 00:21:22.779 He was poisoned by carbon monoxide from a faulty 00:21:22.779 --> 00:21:25.079 lamp and nearly died. It permanently damaged 00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:27.819 his heart. And in one terrifying incident, he 00:21:27.819 --> 00:21:30.440 was attacked by a polar bear. He fought a polar 00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:33.200 bear. The bear knocked him down and mauled him. 00:21:33.339 --> 00:21:35.880 His dog actually saved him by distracting the 00:21:35.880 --> 00:21:38.859 bear long enough for Amundsen to escape. He survived, 00:21:39.079 --> 00:21:41.180 but he was physically falling apart. He was aging. 00:21:41.440 --> 00:21:43.500 And financially, he was ruined, right? Completely. 00:21:43.599 --> 00:21:46.039 The Mon expedition was a black hole for money. 00:21:46.180 --> 00:21:48.839 He went bankrupt. He's dodging creditors. But 00:21:48.839 --> 00:21:51.500 amidst this chaos, there's this strange personal 00:21:51.500 --> 00:21:54.339 story that rarely gets told. What's that? During 00:21:54.339 --> 00:21:57.420 the drift near Siberia, he adopted or at least 00:21:57.420 --> 00:22:00.059 took guardianship of two young indigenous girls, 00:22:00.700 --> 00:22:03.220 Kakonita and Camilla. This is a side of him we 00:22:03.220 --> 00:22:06.259 don't often see. The family man, Emerson. It's 00:22:06.259 --> 00:22:08.819 strange, isn't it? He brought them back to Norway. 00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:12.079 He sent them to school. He truly seemed to care 00:22:12.079 --> 00:22:13.819 for them. It looked like he was trying to build 00:22:13.819 --> 00:22:16.019 a domestic life. But when the bankruptcy hit 00:22:16.019 --> 00:22:18.559 and he had to leave for his next expedition to 00:22:18.559 --> 00:22:21.559 make money and restore his reputation, he sent 00:22:21.559 --> 00:22:23.720 them back to Russia. That is heartbreaking. It 00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:26.460 is. It's a tragic, confusing chapter. It highlights 00:22:26.460 --> 00:22:28.680 how his obsession with the Poles always seemed 00:22:28.680 --> 00:22:31.079 to override his personal life eventually. The 00:22:31.079 --> 00:22:33.279 mission always came first. So the ship drift 00:22:33.279 --> 00:22:36.900 fails. The money is gone. He's in his 50s. Most 00:22:36.900 --> 00:22:39.539 people would retire. Amundsen looks at the calendar, 00:22:39.619 --> 00:22:42.019 sees it's the 1920s, and says, Chips are too 00:22:42.019 --> 00:22:44.619 slow. I need an airplane. The pivot to aviation. 00:22:44.640 --> 00:22:47.339 This is the final act of his career. He realized 00:22:47.339 --> 00:22:49.579 that the future of exploration was in the air. 00:22:49.759 --> 00:22:52.740 So in 1925, he scrapes together enough money, 00:22:52.859 --> 00:22:55.319 mostly from a wealthy American named Lincoln 00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:58.759 Ellsworth, to buy two flying boats, the Dornier 00:22:58.759 --> 00:23:01.559 Wall N24 and the N25. And this leads to what 00:23:01.559 --> 00:23:03.960 I think is the most intense survival story of 00:23:03.960 --> 00:23:06.220 his entire life. Forget the South Pole. This 00:23:06.220 --> 00:23:08.200 is the one that gives me anxiety. It's unbelievable. 00:23:08.500 --> 00:23:10.960 They fly these planes up to 87 degrees north. 00:23:11.039 --> 00:23:13.160 They are hunting for the pole. They land on the 00:23:13.160 --> 00:23:15.799 ice to take measurements. Which was a huge mistake. 00:23:16.039 --> 00:23:18.460 A huge mistake. The leads, the patches of open 00:23:18.460 --> 00:23:21.759 water, started to close. The ice shifted. One 00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:24.220 plane, the Ntona 4, was damaged and rendered 00:23:24.220 --> 00:23:27.859 useless. The other plane, the N25, was frozen 00:23:27.859 --> 00:23:30.839 into a bowl of ice. So you have six men, one 00:23:30.839 --> 00:23:33.589 functioning plane. And the ice is closing in. 00:23:33.650 --> 00:23:36.349 And they are 600 miles from civilization. No 00:23:36.349 --> 00:23:38.329 radio. No one knows where they are. They had 00:23:38.329 --> 00:23:40.710 to get that plane into the air. But you can't 00:23:40.710 --> 00:23:42.650 take off on jagged ice. They had to build a runway. 00:23:42.890 --> 00:23:45.230 With what? They didn't have bulldozers? Shovels. 00:23:45.349 --> 00:23:48.029 Wooden shovels and ice axes. For three weeks, 00:23:48.130 --> 00:23:51.309 these six men moved 600 tons of ice and wet snow. 00:23:51.609 --> 00:23:53.750 They had to level a strip long enough for the 00:23:53.750 --> 00:23:56.690 plane to gain speed. And here's the kicker. What 00:23:56.690 --> 00:23:58.809 were they eating? They had anticipated a short 00:23:58.809 --> 00:24:01.029 flight. They were on strict rations, about half 00:24:01.029 --> 00:24:03.789 a pound to a pound of food per day, mostly chocolate 00:24:03.789 --> 00:24:06.549 and biscuits. Moving 600 tons of ice on a pound 00:24:06.549 --> 00:24:08.970 of food a day. It was a desperate race against 00:24:08.970 --> 00:24:11.470 death. If the summer melt started in earnest, 00:24:11.630 --> 00:24:13.329 the ice would break up completely and they'd 00:24:13.329 --> 00:24:15.829 drown or drift away. If they waited too long, 00:24:15.890 --> 00:24:18.990 they'd starve. Finally, after several failed 00:24:18.990 --> 00:24:21.809 attempts, they crammed all six men into the one 00:24:21.809 --> 00:24:24.630 remaining plane. Six men in one small plane. 00:24:24.970 --> 00:24:27.809 A brilliant pilot. Hjalmar Reiser Larsson gunned 00:24:27.809 --> 00:24:30.069 the engine. They bounced over the uneven ice. 00:24:30.150 --> 00:24:31.710 They cleared the ice ridge at the end of the 00:24:31.710 --> 00:24:34.930 runway by inches, literally inches. They flew 00:24:34.930 --> 00:24:37.490 back to Svalbard on fumes. When they returned 00:24:37.490 --> 00:24:40.049 to civilization, everyone had assumed they were 00:24:40.049 --> 00:24:43.369 dead. It was a resurrection. It revived Amundsen's 00:24:43.369 --> 00:24:46.609 fame. He was back, but he still hadn't reached 00:24:46.609 --> 00:24:48.950 the North Pole. 87 degrees is close, but it's 00:24:48.950 --> 00:24:50.869 not the pole. He is stubborn. I'll give him that. 00:24:50.990 --> 00:24:54.099 So this sets the stage for 1926. the airship 00:24:54.099 --> 00:24:57.240 Norge. Now, this is a dirigible, a semi -rigid 00:24:57.240 --> 00:24:59.059 airship. It wasn't a plane. It was a lighter 00:24:59.059 --> 00:25:01.480 -than -air vessel. It was designed by an Italian 00:25:01.480 --> 00:25:04.660 engineer, Umberto Nobile. This was a joint expedition. 00:25:05.279 --> 00:25:08.180 Amundsen as the leader, Ellsworth as the financier, 00:25:08.180 --> 00:25:11.359 and Nobile as the pilot and designer. They flew 00:25:11.359 --> 00:25:14.500 from Svalbard over the North Pole to Alaska, 00:25:14.660 --> 00:25:19.119 and this flight on May 12, 1926. This is the 00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:21.519 moment that potentially rewrites the record books. 00:25:21.950 --> 00:25:24.730 It does. Because as we touched on earlier, the 00:25:24.730 --> 00:25:27.009 previous claims to the North Pole were shaky. 00:25:27.250 --> 00:25:30.009 Let's quickly debunk them. Frederick Cook, 1908. 00:25:30.440 --> 00:25:33.000 widely considered fraudulent. His descriptions 00:25:33.000 --> 00:25:35.440 of the sun and shadows didn't match the latitude. 00:25:35.960 --> 00:25:38.400 The Inuit guides later said they never went out 00:25:38.400 --> 00:25:40.720 of sight of land. He faked it. Robert Peary, 00:25:40.819 --> 00:25:44.240 1909. Heavily disputed. His navigational log 00:25:44.240 --> 00:25:46.460 has blank pages where the critical data should 00:25:46.460 --> 00:25:49.160 be. And his claimed speed, he claimed to travel 00:25:49.160 --> 00:25:51.380 three times faster than he'd ever traveled before 00:25:51.380 --> 00:25:53.079 on the return trip. It's just physically impossible. 00:25:53.480 --> 00:25:56.859 And Admiral Byrd. He flew a plane in 1926, just 00:25:56.859 --> 00:25:59.430 a few days before Amundsen. Modern analysis of 00:25:59.430 --> 00:26:01.509 his flight diary suggests he turned back early 00:26:01.509 --> 00:26:03.970 due to an oil leak. He likely fell short of the 00:26:03.970 --> 00:26:06.670 pole. So if Cook lied, Peary missed and Byrd 00:26:06.670 --> 00:26:08.509 fell short. Then Roald Amundsen and the crew 00:26:08.509 --> 00:26:10.609 of the Norge are the first people to verifiably 00:26:10.609 --> 00:26:13.450 reach the North Pole. They drop flags, Norwegian, 00:26:13.750 --> 00:26:16.630 American, Italian down onto the ice. That is 00:26:16.630 --> 00:26:19.279 the checkmate. He bagged the Northwest Passage, 00:26:19.319 --> 00:26:21.940 the South Pole, and technically he is the first 00:26:21.940 --> 00:26:24.240 true owner of the North Pole, too. He is the 00:26:24.240 --> 00:26:26.680 undisputed king of the ice. And yet he couldn't 00:26:26.680 --> 00:26:29.039 enjoy the victory. The aftermath of the Norwich 00:26:29.039 --> 00:26:32.079 flight was bitter. Amundsen and Noble hated each 00:26:32.079 --> 00:26:34.599 other. Why? What happened? It was a clash of 00:26:34.599 --> 00:26:37.599 personalities and cultures. Noble was flamboyant. 00:26:37.599 --> 00:26:40.819 He loved the press. He wore his uniform. Amundsen 00:26:40.819 --> 00:26:45.180 was stoic, grim, and felt Noble was just a hired 00:26:45.180 --> 00:26:48.240 driver. And Noble sighed. Noble Phil Amundsen 00:26:48.240 --> 00:26:50.720 was just a passenger who did nothing but sit 00:26:50.720 --> 00:26:53.319 there. They fought over credit in the newspapers 00:26:53.319 --> 00:26:55.980 for years. It got very, very ugly. Which makes 00:26:55.980 --> 00:26:57.980 the end of this story so incredibly ironic. It's 00:26:57.980 --> 00:26:59.819 like a Greek tragedy. It is the ultimate irony. 00:27:00.460 --> 00:27:03.480 Two years later, in 1928, Noble wants to prove 00:27:03.480 --> 00:27:06.059 he doesn't need Amundsen. He organizes a new 00:27:06.059 --> 00:27:08.839 Italian expedition with a new airship, the Italia. 00:27:09.160 --> 00:27:11.539 And it goes wrong. Horribly wrong. The Italia 00:27:11.539 --> 00:27:14.059 crashes on the return from the pole. The control 00:27:14.059 --> 00:27:17.200 car smashes onto the ice. Noble and several survivors 00:27:17.200 --> 00:27:19.759 are stranded on the drifting pack ice, wounded, 00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:23.079 with a radio, living in a red tent. A massive 00:27:23.079 --> 00:27:26.279 international rescue operation is launched. Ships, 00:27:26.339 --> 00:27:29.619 planes from everywhere. And Amundsen is sitting 00:27:29.619 --> 00:27:32.940 in Norway. He hears that his rival, the guy he's 00:27:32.940 --> 00:27:35.039 been trashing in the papers, the guy he despises, 00:27:35.160 --> 00:27:37.960 is dying on the ice. And what does he do? He 00:27:37.960 --> 00:27:41.099 stands up and volunteers. He joins the rescue 00:27:41.099 --> 00:27:43.240 effort. Why? Was it guilt? Was it honor? What 00:27:43.240 --> 00:27:45.940 was it? I think it was destiny. I don't think 00:27:45.940 --> 00:27:48.200 he could resist the call. He secured a plane, 00:27:48.359 --> 00:27:51.579 a French Latham 47 flying boat. It wasn't the 00:27:51.579 --> 00:27:53.299 best plane for the job, but it was what he could 00:27:53.299 --> 00:27:56.900 get. He took off from Tromsø on June 18, 1928, 00:27:57.099 --> 00:27:59.160 heading into the Barents Sea to save Nobile. 00:27:59.279 --> 00:28:01.019 And that's the last time anyone ever saw him 00:28:01.019 --> 00:28:04.240 alive. The plane never arrived. Nobile was eventually 00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:07.039 rescued by others, a Swedish pilot and a Russian 00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:09.539 icebreaker. But Amundsen vanished. Did they find 00:28:09.539 --> 00:28:12.039 anything? Any trace? Weeks later, a wing float 00:28:12.039 --> 00:28:14.700 and a fuel tank washed up on the coast. The float 00:28:14.700 --> 00:28:16.890 had been modified. It looks like someone had 00:28:16.890 --> 00:28:19.009 tried to attach a second float to it using a 00:28:19.009 --> 00:28:21.509 spare bolt. This suggests they survived the crash 00:28:21.509 --> 00:28:23.730 initially. They were in the water trying to stabilize 00:28:23.730 --> 00:28:25.869 the plane or make a raft. But the barren sea 00:28:25.869 --> 00:28:28.690 is freezing. Hypothermia would have set in within 00:28:28.690 --> 00:28:32.029 minutes. They likely died in the water. The search 00:28:32.029 --> 00:28:34.829 went on for months. Modern submarines have looked 00:28:34.829 --> 00:28:37.869 for the wreckage as recently as 2009. Nothing. 00:28:38.150 --> 00:28:42.210 The ocean kept him. It's a heavy ending. So when 00:28:42.210 --> 00:28:44.890 we look back at this incredible resume, Northwest 00:28:44.890 --> 00:28:47.990 Passage, South Pole, North Pole, what is the 00:28:47.990 --> 00:28:50.789 legacy? Well, scientifically and geographically, 00:28:50.869 --> 00:28:53.869 it's immense. The Amundsen -Scott South Pole 00:28:53.869 --> 00:28:57.230 Station stands there today, a permanent human 00:28:57.230 --> 00:28:59.650 presence at the bottom of the world. There's 00:28:59.650 --> 00:29:02.490 a crater on the moon named after him. He proved 00:29:02.490 --> 00:29:04.829 that polar travel wasn't about fighting nature, 00:29:04.950 --> 00:29:07.609 but adapting to it. And he validated the wisdom 00:29:07.609 --> 00:29:10.849 of indigenous peoples. In an era when most Europeans 00:29:10.849 --> 00:29:13.549 dismiss them as savages, that's a huge part of 00:29:13.549 --> 00:29:16.009 it. And personally, he remains a bit of an enigma, 00:29:16.029 --> 00:29:18.269 doesn't he? He was a lifelong bachelor. We know 00:29:18.269 --> 00:29:20.390 now he had secret romances. He was in love with 00:29:20.390 --> 00:29:22.670 a married woman, Kiss Bennett, for years. He 00:29:22.670 --> 00:29:24.930 was actually engaged to an American, Besmajigids, 00:29:25.029 --> 00:29:27.190 at the time of his death. No way. She was on 00:29:27.190 --> 00:29:29.450 a ship to Norway to marry him when the news came 00:29:29.450 --> 00:29:31.930 that he was lost. Oh, that's awful. And there's 00:29:31.930 --> 00:29:34.250 that persistent rumor about descendants in the 00:29:34.250 --> 00:29:38.039 Arctic. Yes, in Grijoa Haven. This is a sensitive 00:29:38.039 --> 00:29:40.519 but important part of the story. There have been 00:29:40.519 --> 00:29:43.019 claims for decades that Amundsen fathered children 00:29:43.019 --> 00:29:45.400 with Inuit women during those two winters in 00:29:45.400 --> 00:29:48.579 the Northwest Passage. Two men, Bob Canona and 00:29:48.579 --> 00:29:51.119 Paul Ikulak, grew up believing they were his 00:29:51.119 --> 00:29:54.480 sons. Did the science ever back that up? A Y 00:29:54.480 --> 00:29:57.579 -DNA analysis was done in 2012 on the Ikulak 00:29:57.579 --> 00:30:00.160 family line. It did not match Amundsen's direct 00:30:00.160 --> 00:30:03.059 male lineage. So genetically, the proof isn't 00:30:03.059 --> 00:30:05.819 there. But the stories persist in the community, 00:30:05.960 --> 00:30:08.720 and in a way, it speaks to how deeply he integrated 00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:11.119 with them. He wasn't just passing through. He 00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:13.220 was part of the fabric of the place for a time. 00:30:13.279 --> 00:30:15.019 It really does. You know, when I think about 00:30:15.019 --> 00:30:17.119 Amundsen now, I don't just see the guy in the 00:30:17.119 --> 00:30:19.859 fur coat with the flag. I see a guy who was almost 00:30:19.859 --> 00:30:23.180 trapped by his own competence. He was so good 00:30:23.180 --> 00:30:25.099 at the ice, he couldn't exist anywhere else. 00:30:25.549 --> 00:30:28.410 I think that's a very profound observation. Amundsen 00:30:28.410 --> 00:30:30.670 spent his entire life trying to conquer the frozen 00:30:30.670 --> 00:30:33.089 wasteland. He sacrificed his medical career, 00:30:33.250 --> 00:30:35.369 his financial stability, his relationships, and 00:30:35.369 --> 00:30:37.170 eventually his life. He went to save an enemy 00:30:37.170 --> 00:30:39.410 and died doing it. Perhaps he didn't view it 00:30:39.410 --> 00:30:42.190 as saving an enemy. Perhaps when the call came, 00:30:42.349 --> 00:30:45.009 he just saw an excuse to go back. To go back 00:30:45.009 --> 00:30:46.769 to the only place where he truly made sense. 00:30:46.990 --> 00:30:49.670 The civilization of banquets and debts and newspapers 00:30:49.670 --> 00:30:52.710 was messy. The ice was clean. It was binary. 00:30:52.789 --> 00:30:55.450 You survive or you don't. And here's a final 00:30:55.450 --> 00:30:58.369 provocative thought for you to chew on. Amundsen 00:30:58.369 --> 00:31:01.029 disappeared into the barren sea without a trace. 00:31:01.309 --> 00:31:05.509 No body. No grave. Just gone. Was that a tragedy? 00:31:05.920 --> 00:31:08.059 Or was that the only fitting end for a man who 00:31:08.059 --> 00:31:10.619 felt more at home in the white silence than he 00:31:10.619 --> 00:31:12.700 ever did in the noise of the world? A Viking 00:31:12.700 --> 00:31:15.099 funeral provided by the Arctic itself. Exactly. 00:31:15.359 --> 00:31:17.359 Thanks for diving deep with us today. We'll see 00:31:17.359 --> 00:31:17.960 you on the next expedition.