Our polar flight

by Roald Amundsen; Lincoln Ellsworth

When we wakened in the morning the weather was good for flying. The sky blue, clear and high, the fjord ruffled a little by a slight breeze from the east, First-Lieutenant Horgen informed the airmen in Advent Bay that everything was all right for their reception here, and we received word that they had set off immediately on receipt of Horgen’s message. That was at 9:35. A little after eleven o’clock we expected them, and we had hardly begun to look for them over the entrance to the fjord when we heard their engines in the distance. Soon afterwards we saw them appear like two small specks 1,200–1,500 meters up in the air over the flat tongue of land at Quade Hook. A few minutes after F 18, piloted by First Lieutenant Lutzow-Holm, and F 22, piloted by First Lieutenant Styr, landed and moored by the buoys. We were naturally very pleased to see the boats and the airmen, but our pleasure was mixed with sadness. To-morrow, Thursday, 18th of June, it will be four weeks since N 24 and N 25 started. That day the weather was just as fine and ideal for flying as to-day.

In company with the newly arrived airmen we got by the starting place, which is quite free from snow. On the beach still lay some of the petrol cans from which we filled the tanks of the two machines the night before they started. We ask about the news from the south, and then we tell them what has happened up here. It seems that the opinions at home are the same as up here—nobody thinks that the six will be able now to come flying back; every one is of the opinion that most likely the machines have got damaged through landing in the ice region and that the airmen are now on their way to Cape Columbia. But as there is a possibility that the six may be on the way to the north coast of Spitzbergen, it is thought that the expedition which has arrived here must be sent there to search for them.

“Heimdal” arrived at 8 P.M. to-day. Captain Hagerup is on board and is now to lead the expedition. He has not got special instructions how long “Heimdal,” “Hobby” and the two flying-boats shall patrol, but probably we shall still be here for two more weeks. On Thursday, 2nd July, “the six weeks from the start” are up—the time limit which Amundsen laid down in his instructions for patrolling the ice-edge. Plans for the coming fourteen days are being made, and in accordance with the experience which “Hobby” has garnered on the two trips, it is agreed that Lavöen by the West coast of Northeastland is the best base for the two flying boats to operate from, and it is settled that the two vessels shall go northwards to Danskeöen at midnight. They will be there to-morrow 8–9 A.M., and the flyers are to follow.

The uniformed officers and the naval armaments remind us of a world from which we have been cut off for the last six weeks, and they have a stranger and more unfamiliar effect on us than one might have expected in such a short time. We have had a taste of both winter and spring up here and now we are experiencing the short summer of the Arctic regions. Our thoughts go back to the start—to the long weeks preceding it in Ny-Aalesund, and to the still longer weeks we have spent in the ice area since the six departed. We have seen men whom we (until they disappeared outside the fjord in two gray flying-machines) considered as ordinary mortals, but who are now regarded by us as something apart, since the light of adventure started to shine over them. Shall we see them again? We put the matter out of our minds, but the thought returns to us again and again. It is even stronger to-day than it has been recently because “Heimdal” and the flying-boats are lying here,—actual proof that the world at large is possessed by the same doubts and the same fears as we are.

We also think about all the types of humanity we have met in this frozen northern area. People who wrest their living from the ice. In milder climes they could earn more and live under better conditions, but the “unknown,” the danger, the ice and the love of adventure all call to them just as they called the six. With modest outfits and simple means they answered the call and set off to the sound of the enthusiastic jubilation of mankind: a jubilation that has turned into doubt and fear. But now an expedition fitted out with all the aid that science can offer is to look for the explorers or at least to try and find trace of them.

We have dined with the newly arrived flying-men and the officers of the “Heimdal” at Director Knutsen’s to-day. We were in the same room where we had been so often with those six, and where only two or three weeks ago we had said good-by to those comrades of ours who had first traveled south. Our host, who at that time had been very optimistic, tries to buoy us up with hope. But we notice that he himself is no longer confident, doubt has entered into his optimism. It has taken longer to come to him than to the rest of us, but it has come in spite of himself, all the same. Conversation drags. Here we sit—more than fifteen men—all different in mind and character, and all following different occupations, and we are trying to find a theme that will interest us all. But there are long intervals, because our thoughts are all on the one subject, which we do not want to mention. One after another goes down to the ships, which will soon carry us north again, where we are to wait for the end of the fourteen days when we can return to Norway. That will be a sign to the waiting world that all hope of finding the six in these regions has been given up. (Spitzbergen will then glide away out of our consciousness.)

Ny-Aalesund. King’s Bay. Thursday, June 18th

The last guests left Director Knutsen’s at 1 A.M. and went on board. “Heimdal” was under steam and ready to start. In a few minutes the third and last period of the reconnoitering was to begin. We approach the quay and can see the tops of the masts over the crown of a little hill. People from the mining village, who are not used to any great excitement, stand “en masse” on the high loading-pier. We are right down below them and only forty to fifty meters away from them. Then the great thing happens! A man comes tearing along the loading-pier towards the shore. He waves his hands to us, bends over the side of the railings and shouts: “Amundsen has arrived.” Then he dashes on and his voice is hoarse and rough. “Only a drunken man can make such a bad joke,” we say to each other, and continue on our way for another four or five steps.

What can be taking place?

People on the pier are waving their hats. We hear hurrahs and shouts and see a new vessel lying alongside the quay. We know immediately that they have come. We dash along the short distance so that the mud splashes over us whilst the cheers from down below increase. We spring on board the “Heimdal,” which lies nearest the quay, then onto the “Hobby,” which is lying outside.