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00:02Roald Amundsen was one of the greatest polar explorers in history.
00:08In 1911 he won the race to the South Pole,
00:12famously beating a much larger expedition led by Britain's Robert Scott.
00:18Amundsen succeeded thanks to vital lessons he'd learned eight years earlier
00:22during his first great adventure,
00:26a voyage through the Northwest Passage.
00:30This ice-choked waterway across the Canadian Arctic
00:33had defeated every previous attempt to sail through it,
00:37killing many brave explorers over the centuries.
00:41Then in 1903 Amundsen devised a novel approach
00:45and set out to beat the passage once and for all.
00:49He led his men into uncharted waters, braved the cruel Arctic winter
00:55and forged a powerful bond with the native Inuit,
00:59who helped him become a master of ice and snow.
01:06How was this maverick explorer, with only a handful of companions and a modest fishing boat,
01:12able to achieve what so many others had failed to do for 400 years?
01:19What was the secret behind the record-breaking journey that started it all?
01:23Arctic Passage, Ice Survivor, right now on NOVA.
01:33Corporate funding for NOVA is provided by Google and by BP.
01:39Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute,
01:43serving society through biomedical research and science education, HHMI.
01:49major funding for NOVA is also provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
01:54and by PBS viewers like you. Thank you.
02:18On a summer night in 1903, a small fishing boat slipped unnoticed out of Oslo Harbor.
02:25The man at the helm, a 30-year-old Norwegian named Roald Amundsen.
02:34He'd set out in search of the fabled Northwest Passage,
02:38a long-sought route to the Pacific Ocean that winds through the Canadian Arctic.
02:47The passage was infamous as one of the most perilous waterways in the world.
02:52No ship had ever made it all the way through its frozen maze of ice,
02:57and many had lost their lives trying.
03:00Yet this lone pioneer believed that he could succeed
03:04where the mightiest navies of the world had failed time and again.
03:10To many, the voyage seemed suicidal.
03:14But for Amundsen, this was the fulfillment of a dream that had gripped him since childhood.
03:23As a boy, he'd been drawn to stories of fearless men who pitted themselves against the harsh Arctic wilderness.
03:32The hero he most revered was Sir John Franklin, the 19th century British explorer, famous for his courage in the
03:39face of adversity.
03:42Franklin had made several failed attempts to sail the passage.
03:46Each time, he and his men grappled with starvation and other hardships.
03:52On his third attempt, his ships became locked in the ice.
03:55He and 128 crewmen all died.
04:05Franklin's harrowing experiences didn't dissuade Amundsen.
04:09Rather, they inspired in him a desire to test himself in the harsh Arctic.
04:15Strangely, it was the suffering that Sir John and his men experienced that appealed to me most.
04:28In his day, the Northwest Passage was the great unknown with its ever-shifting ice pack.
04:35Today, it remains treacherous and is kept under constant surveillance.
04:45The data they collect is a vital lifeline for navigators, who must thread their way through an ice maze that
04:53is constantly shifting with the wind and currents.
04:56We provide a daily chart of where the ice is and where we think it's going to go.
05:03Every day, a ship will get a warning of what kind of dangerous conditions are there.
05:10We regularly issue ice warnings due to pressure or ice warning due to rapid closing of leads.
05:19Ships get stuck. Ships get stopped.
05:2375,000 horsepower icebreakers get stuck in the ice.
05:32That's the difficulty of Arctic navigation.
05:35It's knowing where the ice, this shifting maze, matrix of ice, is going to be at the time when I
05:43want to get my ship through.
05:47The ice had defeated every previous expedition.
05:51But in his tiny ship, Amundsen was determined to conquer it.
05:55He wanted to be a hero who sacrificed something to explore these extremely difficult parts of the world.
06:08The youngest of four boys, Amundsen was born in Oslo in 1872.
06:13When he was only 14, his father, a ship owner, died suddenly.
06:18As a consequence, Roald became the focus of his mother's ambitions.
06:23She decided he would stay out of the family maritime business and become a doctor instead.
06:30He bowed to her wishes.
06:33But in his heart, he wanted a different future for himself, a dream he pursued in secret.
06:40Amundsen was a man who very early learned to hide his ambitions.
06:47And I think his own mother was the first one he betrayed.
06:55He spent much of his free time at the city library.
06:59While his mother may well have thought he was studying medicine,
07:02he was actually dissecting accounts of failed expeditions to the passage,
07:07preparing for the day when he would become an explorer in his own right.
07:12His studies convinced him that previous expeditions had all suffered from the same flaw.
07:19They'd relied on big ships built to bully their way through the ice.
07:25And the more he read of the disastrous Franklin Expedition,
07:28the more he became convinced that this brute force method could never succeed.
07:33And he burned for the chance to prove that there was a better way.
07:40Then, in 1888, 27-year-old Fritjof Nansen, a fellow Norwegian,
07:46became a national hero when he and a handful of companions crossed Greenland on skis.
07:53Nansen's systematic approach was a radical departure in polar exploration.
07:58With specially designed equipment, he traveled light
08:01and relied on skis to move as quickly as possible.
08:06Gone was the old idea of the siege, where you took your world with you
08:10and set about defeating the place.
08:14Instead, Nansen had the approach of a modern mountaineer.
08:17You hone your techniques to absolute perfection,
08:21you master your environment as well you can,
08:24but above all, you remain flexible, both physically but also mentally.
08:31Amundsen greatly admired Nansen and wanted to follow his example.
08:36Every day my interest grew.
08:39Night and day I dreamt of being out in the polar snow and ice.
08:46But his family obligations prevented him from fulfilling his dream,
08:51and it seemed that he might never get his chance to prove himself.
08:55Then, when he was 21, Amundsen's mother died,
08:59releasing him from the sense of duty that had held him back.
09:07He first began the arduous process of training to become a ship's captain.
09:12He spent three years working as a sailor,
09:16followed by two years as a mate to earn the right to command his own vessel.
09:21And he didn't stop there.
09:24He also immersed himself in the science of magnetism,
09:28hoping to settle a debate about whether the magnetic pole was fixed or shifted over time.
09:34So, sir, for the past centuries,
09:37navigators have found their way by using magnetic fields.
09:43Doubting that he would be able to raise money simply for a trip through the passage,
09:47he told backers that his voyage would resolve the controversy once and for all.
09:54Meanwhile, he took many cross-country excursions into the mountains of Norway.
09:59Following in nonsense footsteps, he was hoping to improve his stamina on skis.
10:05One time on a trip with his brother,
10:07he learned firsthand just how unforgiving the icy north can be.
10:12We had a northwest storm upon us.
10:15The only correct thing would have been to turn around,
10:18but our ski tracks were already drifted over and the weather surrounded us on all sides.
10:24With blizzard conditions closing in, they became desperate for shelter.
10:30Amundsen and his brother dug snow caves where they spent a cold, uncomfortable night.
10:36When the first daylight came, he discovered I was frozen in.
10:41The snow had been wet when it fell and had frozen into a compact mass around me.
10:47Only after frantic digging was he able to set me free.
10:52While buried in the snow, he nearly suffocated and almost lost several fingers to frostbite.
10:58But he learned how dangerous and unpredictable the icy wilderness could be,
11:03and he became more determined than ever to master it.
11:07In the young Amundsen, in a way you see the classic young explorer.
11:12He's pitting himself against the world in this dangerously self-centered way.
11:17He sees almost a romance in the pain he's going to experience.
11:23Amundsen's forays into the mountains strengthened his resolve to challenge the Arctic.
11:29Eventually, he managed to borrow enough money to buy supplies,
11:32and to purchase a sturdy, square-stern, 29-year-old herring boat called the Joa.
11:38It was tiny compared to the ships the British had deployed into the passage,
11:43but that was all part of Amundsen's plan.
11:46What has not been accomplished with large vessels and brute force?
11:50I will attempt with a small vessel and patience.
11:55He knew he was going into uncharted waters,
11:58and the smaller the ship, the easier it is to handle.
12:02So when he was searching for a vessel, he wanted something which he knew was strong enough
12:07to withstand considerable ice pressure,
12:11but at the same time so small that a small crew would be able to handle this vessel.
12:20To learn how to manage his small boat in the ice,
12:23he studied with fishermen and others habituated to Arctic waters.
12:27He was looking for people who had an experience coping with ships and with ice,
12:33to familiarize with the nature, the landscape, the weather, everything up there.
12:40Amundsen recruited a six-man team of Arctic experts to help him sail his converted fishing boat.
12:47But after eight years of preparation, he was deeply in debt.
12:51His creditors threatened to seize the Joa.
12:54At the 11th hour, his second cousin came through with the money.
13:03And on June 16th, 1903, Amundsen and his men quietly sailed out of Oslo Harbor,
13:10under the light of the midnight sun.
13:13The smallest and most daring assault on the Northwest Passage was on its way.
13:20That morning in his cabin, he wrote,
13:23It was glorious.
13:26No anxiety.
13:27No troublesome creditors.
13:29No tedious people with foolish prophecies or snares.
13:33The world seemed again to be full of spirit and delight.
13:47Amundsen's confidence was that of a man used to relying on his own resources.
13:53Entering the Arctic, he had nothing but a compass, a sextant, and a half-map chart.
14:00He had no radio, no means of calling for help.
14:05Only the combined instincts and experience of seven men trying to outwit the ice.
14:13This was a group of people who realized that these environments were too big, too great, too strong to defeat.
14:20You had to use them.
14:22You had to almost do a dance with these elements.
14:25And this new form of exploration is not without risks because you're very vulnerable.
14:36The Joah's journey into the ice maze brought them first to Beachy Island.
14:43This was the site where Amundsen's boyhood hero, Sir John Franklin, and his men spent their first winter back in
14:501845.
14:53For Amundsen, being there was an extraordinary experience.
14:57A chance to tread in the footsteps of the most famous and catastrophic polar expedition in history.
15:03He always paid his historic debts.
15:09When he came to Beachy Island, he says that he sat out meditating about these people who had paid with
15:19their lives.
15:20And that's why he always used to say he was not going to accomplish the Northwest Passage.
15:27He was going to complete the Northwest Passage, which had been pioneered by other people before him.
15:37I had the feeling I was on holy ground.
15:41I pictured the expedition in all its splendor.
15:45The English colors flying.
15:48The officers in dazzling uniforms.
15:51Sir John's clever face full of character and gentleness.
15:57He had a word for everyone and was loved by his men.
16:08But now sadness hangs over the island.
16:13From this point the expedition passed into darkness.
16:16And death.
16:20After the famous British expedition disappeared, the Royal Navy dispatched dozens of search parties throughout the 1850s.
16:29Their cartographers filled in many of the blank areas on their maps.
16:35Giving Amundsen an advantage that Franklin never had.
16:40From Beachy Island, the charts offered Amundsen several possible routes.
16:45But his own research had convinced him that the key to the passage lay to the south through a notoriously
16:51icy channel called Peel Sound.
16:56Amundsen knew that Franklin had become locked in the ice at the end of Peel Sound on the coast of
17:01King William Island.
17:03But the Norwegian believed that he could avoid that fate.
17:07He was betting that his fishing boat, so much smaller and lighter than Franklin's massive ships, would allow him to
17:14slip through the ice without getting stuck.
17:18A small ship can not only squeeze between narrower leads between ice flows, but can also go in shallower areas.
17:26Often where the ice recedes away from the coastline because of the heat generated by the shore.
17:31There will be a narrow lead of open water, very shallow, very treacherous.
17:36But a shallow draft ship like Amundsen had is much more likely to get through that kind of an environment
17:42than the big ships of Franklin's era.
17:45And another reason to turn into Peel Sound?
17:48His instruments told him the magnetic north pole lay in that direction.
17:53So he steered his ship south into waters where some of the worst pack ice in the passage was known
17:59to collect.
18:01For the first 350 miles, the journey passed uneventfully.
18:06But then Amundsen faced a difficult choice.
18:11At the northern tip of King William Island, two routes lay before him.
18:16When Franklin reached this point, he had veered to the west.
18:21Blundering right into the path of pack ice flowing down from the north.
18:27Ice that trapped his ships.
18:31But Amundsen knew something that Franklin didn't.
18:34There was another way around the island.
18:37A narrow channel to the east, discovered in the 1850s during the search for Franklin.
18:46Amundsen didn't know if this route was open.
18:49The men who had found it had passed on a warning.
18:53The channel appeared to be very narrow and exceedingly shallow.
19:00The waters that Amundsen was planning to sail into had never been charted, of course.
19:06They knew where the coastlines were.
19:08They knew where the islands were.
19:09But they didn't know where the rocks were, the submerged rocks.
19:11So sailing a ship into that is every mariner's nightmare.
19:15The only thing that's worse than hitting ice in a ship is hitting rocks on the bottom.
19:19And if the ice can drive you against those rocks, that's a nightmare scenario.
19:24Now, as the Joa crept forward through the ice, the ship's compass grew erratic.
19:33It was an encouraging sign that they were closing in on the magnetic pole.
19:37But it also meant that they were now sailing blind.
19:43The compass, which had gradually been losing its capacity for self-adjustment, was now useless.
19:50We were steering by the stars like the Vikings.
19:58For five weeks, Amundsen and his men had been sailing through this Arctic labyrinth of ice and islands.
20:06Their search for the Northwest Passage was now taking them into uncharted waters.
20:11Then, one night after dinner, an alarming incident occurred.
20:16I was writing in my journal when I heard something that chilled me to the bone.
20:20Fire! Fire! Fire!
20:27Fire!
20:28In a moment, all hands were on deck.
20:30It's safe, it's safe, it's safe. I'm sorry, it was my fault.
20:33What about the oil?
20:34A fire had broken out in the engine room, right among tanks holding 2,000 gallons of petrol.
20:40We all knew what would happen if the tanks got heated.
20:42The Joah and everything on board would be blown to atoms like an exploded bomb.
20:49The fire was out before it caught, but it served to remind the men of how far they were from
20:54help of any kind.
20:57It was now September, just three months into the voyage.
21:02The Joah had traveled a remarkable 600 miles, nearly half the length of the passage.
21:11But weather conditions were deteriorating.
21:14The Joah was still within the dangerously narrow channel, when three days after the fire, the first winter storm swept
21:21in.
21:27Then Amundsen heard the sound he feared most.
21:36The Joah had run aground, and her hull was splintering on the rocks.
21:43In storm force winds, it was safer to ride out the battering with the sails furled.
21:50But Amundsen gave an order that must have seemed foolhardy.
21:54Raise the canvas.
21:58He risked losing the mast and the rigging in a desperate effort to use the gale winds to blow the
22:04Joah off the rocks.
22:08Wind came in gusts howling through the rigging.
22:12Then we started a method of sailing that none of us is ever likely to forget.
22:19The sleet and spray washed over the vessel.
22:22The mast trembled, yet one thump, worse than ever, and we slid off.
22:33He had taken an almost suicidal risk with his ship, but he never doubted that it was the only way
22:39to save her.
22:44His decisiveness reinforced his authority as the unchallenged captain of the expedition.
22:51He is as stubborn and fanatical as any of his rivals.
22:55You have to be his kind of polar explorer, because he wants to do, in cold, saber fact, what other
23:02people are quite content to dream about.
23:07They survived with the Joah intact, but time was running out.
23:12There were signs that within weeks the water would be frozen solid.
23:16It was time to find a winter harbor.
23:20On the south end of King William Island, they found a sheltered bay where the Joah could be safely frozen
23:26in.
23:28They christened their new home, Joahhaven.
23:33Today there is a small settlement here, home to more than a thousand Inuit.
23:38They live in modern houses and are linked to Canada by a daily supply plane.
23:44But in some ways, these people continue to live life according to ancient traditions.
23:51For thousands of years we survived here.
23:53We are the igloo society people.
23:56You have to be able to know how to hunt and survive from the animals that you hunt here.
24:02You have to know the animal movement, the migration route of the caribou.
24:08You have to live with the seasons to know the dangers of the land as an Inuk.
24:16Amundsen made camp with the idea that he would try to learn to live off the land like the locals
24:21do.
24:23He had read accounts from Inuit who had tried in vain to help some of Franklin's stranded men some 50
24:29years before.
24:33The Inuit reported that the British sailors lacked basic survival skills.
24:39But even if they had been able to fend for themselves, with 129 men, they were simply too many mouths
24:46to feed.
24:49The Inuit rarely traveled in groups of more than 20, because that was all this landscape could support.
24:58Three days after his arrival, Amundsen encountered Inuit hunters for the first time.
25:04They were members of the Netsilik, a people with very little history of contact with European travelers.
25:10Armed with a gun and two words of greeting, he approached.
25:15When they were 200 yards away, they halted.
25:20Then they flashed through my mind, heated with excitement of warfare, the word Tema, and I shouted it at the
25:28top of my voice.
25:29Tema!
25:30Tema!
25:32Tema!
25:35Tema!
25:37Tema!
25:37Tema!
25:38Tema!
25:38Tema!
25:39Tema!
25:40Tema!
25:41Tema!
25:41Tema!
25:42Tema!
25:44Tema!
25:54Tema!
25:54and the Amundsen returned with the Inuit to their camp.
26:00When we came within sight of the village, the Eskimos began to shout.
26:07I could catch only one word.
26:09Kabluna.
26:11White man.
26:17It was a strange scene.
26:19I shall never forget it.
26:25Out in the desolate snow landscape,
26:27I was surrounded by a crowd of savages,
26:30staring into my face and grabbing at my clothes.
26:39I was suddenly brought face to face with a people from the Stone Age
26:43who as yet knew no other method of making fire
26:47than rubbing two pieces of wood together.
26:50We came here with all our ingenious inventions and firearms
26:53to people who still used lances and bows and arrows.
26:58But their tools, apparently so primitive,
27:02were as well adapted to their conditions
27:04as experience and the test of many centuries could have made them.
27:11In the Victorian age, there was no use talking to the Eskimo.
27:16That didn't make you a great explorer.
27:19The Victorians wanted to prove that they were better than everyone else,
27:21that they had values to export.
27:24Perhaps it was a little bit ignoble to learn from people who ate their meat raw.
27:30In Amundsen, there was a totally different mentality.
27:34He saw the local people as people who offered the solution to that world.
27:40They belong to that landscape. There's no point in fighting it.
27:43It provides them with their food, their shelter, their medicine.
27:46It's all about seeing the place simply as a home,
27:51simply as a place that offers you everything.
27:58That night, Amundsen slept inside an igloo.
28:02The Inuit beside him were naked, covered only by animal skins.
28:07Outside it was minus ten, but inside they were comfortable.
28:14It was his first lesson in the Inuit art of survival, but not his last.
28:20After that experience, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the Inuit lifestyle.
28:27Amundsen began to dress in furs as his hosts did,
28:29and he encouraged his men to do so as well.
28:33And in doing so, he learned something vitally important.
28:37When he sweated in his old woolen clothes, they'd freeze as hard as bored.
28:43Warm.
28:44But in loose, light skins with fur, he found he was warm and hardly sweated at all.
28:49Thank you. Thank you.
28:52On one of the coldest places on earth, he remained warm and dry,
28:56wearing only animal skins and fur undergarments.
29:00It's a feat that no man-made fabric can quite match.
29:04Even today, we still don't have the technology to simulate the same insulation with the same weight.
29:12This is nature that we are not able to surpass.
29:17Scientists working for the Canadian military wanted to understand the thermal properties of animal skins.
29:24Experimenting in a climate chamber, they hoped to understand how the Inuit are able to protect themselves so effectively against
29:31extreme cold.
29:33Researchers discovered that the Inuit's preferred material, caribou fur, is anything but an accidental choice.
29:41The secret of the caribou skin or any skin clothing is trapping air in an effective manner.
29:51Air is nature's best insulator.
29:54The loose fit of animal skins traps air very effectively.
29:58But further examination reveals just why the fur is so effective.
30:04Each strand of hair is hollow, filled with air, yet remains super resilient because of its tough, honeycomb-like structure.
30:14The density of the fur is such that it traps air very effectively.
30:21Even if you apply some pressure to it, it will retain its characteristic and its insulation.
30:31The Inuit prefer caribou fur over seal or bear because it is lightweight and has excellent thermal properties.
30:38The genius part of it is they were able to find the animal with the best fur characteristics.
30:47In his quest to adopt the Inuit lifestyle, Amundsen didn't limit himself to wearing furs.
30:54He yearned to unlock all the Inuit's survival secrets.
30:58We set about learning the art of snow hut building.
31:02Taking hold of a monster knife with both hands, we cut the ice blocks.
31:06The snow must not be too brittle as all the blocks will crumble.
31:13The hut is built in a spiral like a beehive, so that one layer rests on the previous one and
31:20extends a little further forward.
31:24Many a snow block did I get on my head when I tried this work.
31:29Snow is full of air, so if you cut blocks of snow and pile them and make a house,
31:36it provides the best insulation against the environment.
31:39It can be minus 50 degrees Celsius outside, minus 60 degrees Celsius outside.
31:44Inside it's going to be about minus five. Amazing!
31:48As the long months of winter passed, the Inuit's lessons in Arctic living grew more intricate.
31:56The seal hunting begins sometime in February, when the snow falls heavily and the seal cannot hear the steps of
32:02the huntsman.
32:04They find the seal's breathing holes out on the ice, but to detect the seal they must use an ingenious
32:09device.
32:12They take a bunch of swans down and attach a single thread to a hook with two claws.
32:19Then they lean forward, keeping their eyes riveted to the hole.
32:24As soon as the seal comes within yards of the hole, the movement of the water sets the swans down
32:29in motion.
32:30This bit goes up. That is the signal.
32:32Hard.
32:41The Inuit were teaching Amundsen to respect the Arctic as they did.
32:46Within the frozen landscape that had destroyed the Franklin Expedition, Amundsen now saw a hidden world, sometimes teeming with life.
32:55In the spring, there are fat salmon and reindeer.
33:00In the autumn, unlimited cod.
33:04And yet in this Arctic Eden, those brave travellers died of hunger.
33:09They must have stopped here and seen for miles before them the snow-covered land and no sign of life.
33:16There is not another place in the world so abandoned and bare as this in winter.
33:38As fruitful as Amundsen's studies with the Inuit were proving, his crew began to feel that he was taking things
33:43too far.
33:46That his fascination with these indigenous people was distracting him from the true purpose of the voyage.
33:53The ice is clearing.
33:55So in the spring of 1904, when the first signs of a thaw appeared in the bay, the men were
34:00anxious to be on their way.
34:04But Amundsen had other plans.
34:07We should be able to move on in a couple of weeks, maybe a week if we're lucky.
34:11We're not finished here.
34:13He realised the skills he was learning would give him an expertise in polar survival unmatched by other explorers.
34:21We need to stay on.
34:23Becoming a master of ice and snow had turned into an obsession.
34:29The crew didn't really understand what was going on with Amundsen.
34:34He likes more to go with the Eskimos.
34:37And then he's forgetting his crew and have no interest in his work.
34:45He wanted to fight against hunger, coldness, to show his greatness as a man.
34:55It's a landscape of death in a way.
34:58And he wanted to win over the death.
35:03One reason Amundsen wanted to stay for another year among the Inuit was to master a skill that had so
35:08far eluded him.
35:10How to use Inuit sled dogs.
35:12The only efficient way for hunters to cover long distances on the ice.
35:18He realises what the key to exploration for him is going to be, and it's all going to be to
35:24do with energy.
35:26With these dogs, he could now pass quickly through the landscape.
35:30He could get away with so much more.
35:33He could choose his time, choose his moment, and pass through the landscape that much more effectively.
35:40During the bitterly cold weeks of the previous march, Amundsen had set out on a 90-mile trip to reach
35:45the magnetic north pole.
35:47He intended to use sled dogs as his means of transport.
35:51But he quickly learned that mastering the dogs and sled was far from easy, especially in temperatures that plunged to
35:58minus 60.
36:00The experiment soon came to grief.
36:03The first hour when we were all fresh, things went very well.
36:07But then the difficulties began.
36:10It seems as though we were driving the sledge through the sand of the desert.
36:15Every little snow drift meant we had to stop.
36:19The poor dogs suffered greatly.
36:24For three days, Amundsen pressed on, locked in a battle with the terrain.
36:30Only when the dogs could go no further did he finally admit defeat, dumping half his supplies in the snow
36:36and turning for home.
36:39I now saw there was little to be gained by going on in this way and decided to turn back.
36:45The dogs soon saw which way we were going, and we men were all glad we had given up our
36:50hopeless task.
36:51With the sledge lighter, we did the journey that had taken us two and a half days in just four
36:57hours.
37:01The Inuit elders, amused at Amundsen's disastrous journey, let him in on the secret of the Inuit's ability to glide
37:08over snow in all conditions.
37:11Coat the runners of the sled with frozen moss and water.
37:16Then, with water warmed in the mouth, apply fine new layers of ice using a bearskin mitt.
37:23Creating a surface that could run across any snow in the world.
37:30As their second winter wore on, it became clear that Amundsen's time in the Arctic was not only changing his
37:36life in profound ways,
37:37but the lives of the Inuit as well.
37:41He learned that some of his men had bartered with the Inuit for their wives.
37:46He reacted by banning the relationships.
37:50Gustav Wick wrote in his journal,
37:52The boss's mood is as sharp as a razor these days.
37:56He walks about, sulking like a little child, and Mendelssohn thinks he preferably should stay away from him.
38:01And from now on, we can expect the most peculiar plans, and heaven knows what else.
38:08Amundsen discovered that there was congenital syphilis amongst some of the Inuit, which showed, of course, that they must have
38:19been in contact with Europeans.
38:21And there were other tensions.
38:25He believed that a polar expedition should be absolutely sexless.
38:32The whole concept of women ought to be banished.
38:39Amundsen was an increasingly isolated figure.
38:43But while he may not have inspired much affection from his men,
38:46he had kept them alive, and they were succeeding in their quest.
38:51In the beginning, he needs people.
38:55He needs support.
38:59But later on, he's more and more selfish.
39:05He don't need them anymore.
39:08So he becomes more and more lonely.
39:12Amundsen's relationship with the Inuit was also growing more complicated.
39:16By now, more than 60 families had joined the camp beside the Joa.
39:21It was more than the land could support.
39:24There were so many mouths to feed that Amundsen feared a raid on the ship's stores
39:29if Inuit hunters ever returned empty-handed.
39:34There was a great number of them collected about us.
39:37We had to teach them to regard us with the greatest respect.
39:40I spoke to them about the white man's power.
39:44That we could spread destruction around us.
39:47And even at a great distance, accomplish the most extraordinary things.
39:54It was for them to behave properly and not to expose themselves to our terrible anger.
40:03He became a kind of a king in his crew, of course, but also with the Inuits.
40:10He made the laws. He could kill a man if necessary.
40:15He was a master, the big chief, the king.
40:21Amundsen had come in search of the Northwest Passage.
40:24But in delaying to learn the secrets of the Inuit,
40:27he'd brought his 20th century world to the Arctic
40:30and set in motion changes that could never be reversed.
40:34They changed him.
40:36But in the same way he understood that he was destroying their life,
40:41that he was beginning a process which is going to lead to the destruction of their culture.
40:49I believe the Eskimo, who live absolutely isolated from civilization,
40:53are the happiest, healthiest and most honourable.
40:58My sincerest wish is that civilization may never reach them.
41:05Amundsen had stayed long enough to learn the vital survival skills he'd craved.
41:12Now all that remained was to complete the final stretch of the passage.
41:17The shoals run across here.
41:20How far?
41:22Five miles to the east and the west.
41:25As the pack ice began to break up with the spring thaw,
41:28Amundsen sent several men overland to scout the route ahead.
41:34They reported a dangerous channel of shoals and drifting ice to the south of the island.
41:39So you're going through the middle?
41:40Yeah.
41:42But they also said that just 90 miles away lay a well-charted waterway that led to the open sea.
41:51If this route remained navigable, the passage was as good as one.
41:57On August 13th, 1905, the men set sail from Joahavn and headed down the strait that at one point narrowed
42:04to just nine miles.
42:08We call it Simpson Strait now, and it's a very, very narrow channel, and it's very, very shallow.
42:13And there's rocks sticking up all over the place.
42:16It's an area that modern ships just totally avoid.
42:19Starboard!
42:21For Amundsen to navigate through this channel, it was going one way, another, around rocks, around shallow areas,
42:28with very, very little room to maneuver.
42:30This is dangerous. This is dangerous work.
42:37The thought that here, in these troublesome waters, we risked spoiling everything, was anything but pleasant.
42:45I couldn't get rid of the thought of returning home having failed.
42:50I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat.
42:53I couldn't sleep.
43:00Los! Los!
43:01Vesseling site! Vesseling site!
43:10On the morning of the 26th of August 1905, Amundsen had finally gone below to sleep,
43:15when the crew sighted a vessel ahead and summoned him it was a whaler and she was
43:22flying the stars and stripes on her hull were painted the words San Francisco
43:31the Northwest Passage was done my boyhood dream was accomplished
43:40the American commander's greeting was simple you must be captain Amundsen congratulations
43:51Roald Amundsen as a young boy is reading about Franklin and he is saying to himself I'm going
44:01to do this where he failed where his men died and I'm going to make it for 400 years the
44:12search for a
44:12Northwest Passage destroyed ships and claimed the lives of hundreds of men Amundsen at last had found
44:20a route through the Arctic ice pack but nothing is permanent in the polar region today a century later
44:29a new force of change is at work in the passage one that neither Amundsen nor Franklin could have
44:35foreseen in the last 30 years global warming has dramatically thinned the Arctic ice by as much
44:43as 30% this is what rising temperatures did to one Canadian glacier in less than a decade many scientists
44:55consider such evidence a stark warning of great changes that will take place globally if temperatures
45:00continue to increase researchers now predict that in 50 years time the Arctic will be completely clear
45:07of ice in the summer if that happens the Northwest Passage could become passable but nevertheless there
45:15is a stark warning for any sailors contemplating a journey into the heart of the ice maze there's no
45:23new infrastructure available to support those ships yet no aids to navigation no search and rescue
45:30capability and the gradually reducing ice that we talked about is not a nice smooth thing it's it's
45:38very dynamic but they're still going to be those difficult ice years and there's going to be lots
45:43of them it's just that more and more frequently will be the years when there is less and less ice
45:49and
45:50that's the real danger for Arctic shipping is that this illusion of an open Arctic channel will attract
45:58people people who are unprepared perhaps to go into the Arctic with ships that are not capable times of
46:04the year when it can be dangerous to do so for the Inuits increased shipping through their territory will bring
46:15even more change to their culture a process that Amundsen helped set in motion and which
46:21accelerated during the century that followed his triumph you know education system came the Hudson's Bay
46:29Company came to trade with the Inuit no matter who they were they all changed the Inuit way of life
46:40the Canadian government claimed sovereignty over King William Island and eventually built a settlement
46:45for the Inuit at Joahavn ending thousands of years of a nomadic lifestyle
46:58as for the man who proved the passage was passable Amundsen went on to become an even more renowned
47:04explorer in 1908 he set his sights on the last great prize of polar exploration the South Pole
47:15the British had taken the lead in the race to be the first but once again their approach was flawed
47:23explorers Robert Scott and Ernest Shackleton had each gotten close in Shackleton's case to within 100 miles
47:30of the goal but both had been defeated partly because they'd relied on ill-suited techniques above
47:39all hauling sledges laden with thousands of pounds of gear Amundsen on the other hand applied the lessons
47:47he'd learned from Nansen and the Inuit on October 21st 1911 with a small contingent of men using skis and
47:55dogs to haul a minimum of equipment he set out and 55 days later on the 14th of December he
48:03became the
48:03first human being to reach the South Pole five weeks later Robert Scott matched Amundsen's feet but
48:11he and four others died of exhaustion and hunger on the way back
48:21beyond Amundsen's unrivaled success as a polar explorer he led a quiet life he never married he lived alone in
48:30Norway in a house filled with Arctic mementos the biggest man in the world a kind of an emperor of
48:39the
48:39Arctic and the Antarctic totally famous but also totally alone feeling the coldness the hunger always the same men
48:53around you make a strong impression
49:03the ice had its price
49:08man is going to win over nature but nature is also going to win over man the ice and the
49:18snow are going inside
49:24nearly 20 years after sailing the passage at age 55 Amundsen set out to help in the rescue of an
49:30airship missing in the Arctic his plane vanished without a trace he spent his final hours in the
49:40place his heart had called home since boyhood
50:12so
50:12the
50:12kid
50:13is
50:13all
50:13the
50:43Corporate funding for NOVA is provided by Google and by BP.
50:49Major funding for NOVA is provided by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute,
50:53serving society through biomedical research and science education, HHMI.
50:59Major funding for NOVA is also provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
51:04and by PBS viewers like you.
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