Gjøahavn

On September 9, 1903, Amundsen sailed into Simpson Strait, south of King William Island in Canada’s central Arctic. The strait was free of ice to the west, and while he could have continued through the Northwest Passage in only one season, he was looking for a good wintering place, having decided to stay for two years to take continuous readings of the North Magnetic Pole. He found a small harbour, which he named Gjøahavn (meaning “Gjøa Harbour” and today called Gjoa Haven), at the right distance from the magnetic pole for a fixed magnetic station.

The Inuit

Near the end of October 1903, a small band of Inuit appeared at Gjøahavn. Soon an Inuit village grew nearby. These were Netsiliks, the most isolated of the Canadian Inuit. Their ancestors had encountered British explorers in the previous century, but this group had never seen a white man before. Amundsen immediately made friends with them and an amicable relationship developed. The Norwegians learned their language and were able to communicate fully with the Inuit. The friendliness and generosity of the Inuit was repaid by the white men’s goodwill and respect. The Inuit taught the Norwegians how to make igloos, to make their sledge runners slide at very low temperatures, the art of dressing warmly in loose furs and how to drive dogs.

In turn, the Norwegians provided the Inuit with knives, needles and matches, other tools of wood and metal and, when needed, food. They hunted together and a number of Inuit assisted in the Norwegians’ daily chores. They went on frequent visits to each other’s camps and studied each other’s cultures. Amundsen was fascinated by these people and their survival skills. He spent a lot of time studying all aspects of their culture and gathered a large collection of artifacts, including clothing, hunting tools, utensils, kayaks and sledges. His diary gives great insights into the lives of the Netsilik Inuit in the early 1900s. The Amundsen collection is today recognised as a major contribution to polar ethnography and was presented to the Cultural History Museum in Oslo.

Scientific research

The crew gathered data in a number of scientific fields, but their magnetic observations were most important. Magnetic instruments were soon in operation at Gjøahavn and Gustav Juel Wiik, the expert in magnetic observation on the crew, took the first readings on September 21. Amundsen was the first to demonstrate that the North Magnetic Pole does not have a permanent location, but moves in a fairly regular manner. In addition, his carefully organized measurements were the first and only observations of Earth’s magnetic field in the northern polar regions until modern polar observatories were established decades later, which makes his observations a significant contribution to the worldwide survey of the Earth’s magnetic field in the 20th century. It is a testimony to the scientific abilities of Amundsen and his crew that they designed and carried out the first continuous magnetic variation recording in the High Arctic for a period of 19 months under extremely difficult conditions.

The Northwest Passage

By spring of 1905, Amundsen was ready to resume the voyage westward. On August 13, they sailed out of Gjøahavn and began the difficult navigation of Simpson Strait, but had left the worst part of the voyage behind them and reached Cambridge Bay just four days later. Amundsen and his crew had navigated Gjøa through the “unsolved link” of the Northwest Passage — the part that had never been traversed by a ship. On August 26, 1905, the Charles Hanson, an American whaling vessel, came in sight, and her captain welcomed Amundsen and became the first to congratulate him on his navigation of the Northwest Passage. “The Northwest Passage was done,” Amundsen wrote in his diary. “My boyhood dream — at that moment it was accomplished.”

Lessons from the Arctic

Life with the Inuit, numerous sledging expeditions and three years in hostile conditions provided Amundsen and his men with an intense learning experience. This would become essential when the explorer was preparing for his next ambitious goal: the South Pole. Amundsen recorded much of this knowledge in his journal; the following are some fascinating highlights.

Igloos

Between -30 and -60 C, tents were very cold and damp, while igloos were much warmer, windproof and dry. The Norwegians spent several weeks learning how to make igloos quickly and efficiently.

February 3, 1904: “Built an igloo this morning together with Teraiu and H. approx 14 ft. in diameter and 10 ft. high. It is a great sight to behold. It is quite remarkable to watch the Eskimos’ skilled hands at work in the snow.”

February 6, 1904: “Built a 4-man igloo alone today. It took me 3½ hours.”

March 5, 1904: “The temperature sank to -61.5 C during the night. We had, however, a comfortable night in our igloo. Our sleeping garments had passed the test.”

Sledge runners

The colder the weather, the drier the snow. Below -25 C, snow feels like sand and it becomes extremely difficult to pull heavy-laden sledges. The Inuit taught Amundsen how to wipe thin layers of water onto the sledge runners, which froze immediately and made the sledges slide much better. The Inuit also covered the runners with moss.

March 7, 1904: “Teraiu taught us to prepare the sledge runners using ice. He does this by spitting a mouthful of water into a bearskin mitten, which he then rubs along the runners. It seems the sledges run smoother using this technique. We are going to experiment with it.”

Front runners

In conditions where the snowy landscape and the grey sky blended together, the dogs refused to move forward as they could not see where they were heading. The Inuit remedied this by having the women of the family run in front of the dogs or even harnessed in with the dogs. This way, the dogs were more than willing to pull in all kind of conditions.