Near the Top of the World: Stories of Norway, Sweden & Denmark

by Nelle E. Moore

People had known for a long time then that the earth is a big ball. The spot at the very top of the big ball is called the North Pole and the spot at the very bottom of the ball is called the South Pole. No matter which way a person standing at the North Pole looked he would be looking south toward the other end of the ball. If he stood at the South Pole, no matter which way he looked, he would be looking north towards the top of the ball. But when Roald was dreaming his dreams no one had stood at either the North Pole or the South Pole. Roald thought, “Perhaps I can be the first to visit the North Pole.”

How would he know when he reached a spot which no one had seen? Roald had seen the instrument which sailors use to tell direction when out at sea. It is a needle that always points toward the north star and that star is almost directly overhead at the North Pole. Roald knew that he could carry such a needle with him. With it he would be able to tell when he came to the North Pole. For there the needle could no longer point north, so it would move about trying to find north.

But Roald was then too young for such an adventure. Ten years passed after Nansen’s return before he began to prepare for a journey to the North Pole. He was to sail in the same boat that Nansen had used, the Fram. Amundsen’s party was almost ready to start from Norway when news came that an American, named Peary, had reached the North Pole. Already the Stars and Stripes floated over that spot at the top of the earth.

Roald Amundsen still longed to visit the North Pole, but he decided not to go at that time. He said, “No one has yet reached the South Pole—at the bottom of the earth. We will go to the South Pole. Perhaps the Norwegian flag may be the first to float there.”

On a bright sunny day in August, 1910, about a year after Peary found the North Pole, Amundsen and his men set out on the long journey from Norway to the South Pole at the bottom of the earth. He knew that the Antarctic (ant ark tic)—the land and water at the bottom of the earth—is a place of ice and snow. Amundsen knew much about cold lands of ice and snow as he had always lived in Norway. He had traveled on skis ever since he was a small boy. He had read many books about the land to which he was going.

He planned everything very carefully so that he and his men would have every chance to succeed. He said, “If a person starting on a hard task prepares for the task carefully, he is likely to succeed—and then people say he had good luck. If a person does not prepare carefully, he is likely to fail—and then people say he had bad luck.”

On the deck of the Fram were ninety-six Eskimo dogs. Amundsen said, “The Eskimo dog is the best animal to endure the cold and to pull sledges over the ice and snow.” Amundsen gave each man in the crew a number of dogs to be in his care. The men named their dogs and began making friends with them as soon as the journey began. They must have the dogs ready to work well with them by the time they reached the Antarctic.

On the deck of the boat too were skis and snowshoes, heavy blankets, suits of Eskimo clothes, suits of reindeer skins, canned meat and other foods, and lumber ready to fit together for a house. Amundsen had tried to make sure that he and his men would be lucky.

The first part of the journey was through the North Sea along the coast of Norway. Then the Fram sailed into the Atlantic Ocean. As they traveled farther and farther south, the weather got warmer each day. The men saw the sun get higher and higher in the sky each noon. Then they came to a place where the sun at noon was almost directly over their heads. They were then halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole.