Items

A fairly straightforward autobiography of his life, from childhood adventures on the ice, the Belgica expedition and its problems with scurvy, his secret departure for the NW Passage to avoid his creditors, the two years on King William Island, another year near Herschel Island, and completion in 1906. Next he planned a North Pole expedition, but Peary’s claim there clandestinely shifted his focus to the South Pole. He passes over the SP trip quickly, before moving on to his attempt to drift across the North Pole, his interest in aerial exploration (1922), his business difficulties with H.J. Hammer as well as his brother Leon, his dirigible work with Lincoln Ellsworth, and the flight of the Norge in 1926. Throughout he claims he has been misrepresented and sometimes his apologia is convincing, sometimes not; either way it is a lengthy (over 100 pages) exercise in self-justification. He is particularly incensed at Nobile for claiming the Norge expedition was his idea (later attributed to Mussolini), and for any number of contractual difficulties. The work concludes with miscellaneous chapters on Stefansson, on Amundsen’s views on the business of exploration, on food and equipment, and finally an appendix of notes by Riiser-Larsen further refuting Nobile’s claims; these are more dispassionate than Amundsen and therefore more convincing.