First to South Pole 100 yr anniversary Amundsen-Scott Station Amundsen’s Youth

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1889
• Subjects: Belgica; Amundsen-Scott; Arctic; Borge; Fridtjof; Greenland; South Pole; Antarc*; Antarctica; Fridtjof Nansen; South pole
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.657.467; http://opl.ucsb.edu/tommy/pubs/Amundsen_Talk_Nordic_v3.pdf

~50 miles south of Oslo. * 4th son in a family of relatively affluent shipowners and captains. * Father died when he was 14. * Mother wanted him to be doctor. * Mother died when he was 21, freeing him to pursue life as explorer. * Loved outdoors and skiing. * Driven to be exceptionally physically fit. Trained in army. Borge is near Fredrikstad Amundsen as a young boy Amundsen’s Inspirations * As youth, he was inspired by Nansen‟s crossing of Greenland and later Arctic Fram expedition. * He was in crowd welcoming Fridtjof Nansen home. See photograph at right. * Nansen a continual influence for all of Amundsen‟s life: * Nansen provided advice, encouragement. * Nansen allowed him to use Fram for Arctic expedition. But he surreptitiously sailed Fram to Antarctica for polar expedition. * Other inspirations: Sir John Franklin: doomed NW Passage expedition. “Secretly … I irretrievably decided to be an Arctic explorer.” from Amundsen‟s autobiography. Frederick Cook, controversial polar explorer. Nansen, Liv Nansen, and