Amundsen Arrives at South Pole | Picture This: Library of Congress Prints & Photos

[Discovery and explorations of the South Pole by Capt. Roald Amundsen and crew, 1910-11]: A photograph of another of the expedition's camps on the way to pole

Amundsen Expedition's Camp on the Way to the South Pole, photograph copyrighted by United Newspapers, Ltd., London, copyrighted May 23, 1912. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b17881

One hundred years ago, on December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen and four members of his Norwegian expedition team arrived at the South Pole. Originally, Amundsen intended to be the first to reach the North Pole, but upon learning that Robert Peary and Frederick Cook had already achieved the feat, he made a historic change of plans and set his sights on the South Pole. The late 19th and early 20th centuries race to reach the poles, in which nations vied to be the first to reach the North Pole and subsequently the South Pole was that era’s version of the more recent “space race.”

Two dogs rest on snow during Roald Amundsen's 1911 Antarctic expeditions.

Amundsen's Favorite Dogs, Fix and Lassesin. Copyright by United Newspapers Ltd., London, 1912. http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c01002

Learn More:

View images of and associated with explorer Roald Amundsen in the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog to see not only portraits of him, but also pictures of his various adventures as a polar explorer.

Roald Amundsen’s account of the Race to the South Pole may be available at a library near you. [View this title in WorldCat.]

The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the “Fram,” 1910-1912, Volume 1 is available online from Google Books.

One Comment

Mary
December 18, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Thanks for posting these.

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