Voyages of a Modern Viking

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A very pleasant autobiography of someone who sailed with Amundsen on the Gjoa, the Fram, and the Maud, based on his diaries and presumably translated from Norwegian (though there is no indication).

Voyages of a Modern Viking.

 Preview 

For someone who participated in Amundsen’s three major expeditions, went to the South Pole with him in 1910, and was captain of Maud on the later Northeast Passage expedition, Hanssen sounds generally as boring as extreme weather reports, at least in this version. There is no indication of a translator, nor any indication that Hanssen and Amundsen may have had a falling out on the 1918-1920 Northeast Passage trip. So the Fram Museum suggests on its website, citing the journals of other participants as claiming Amundsen fired Hanssen because the designation of Hanssen as captain went to his head. If so, even that excitement is concealed in this book.