Aeronautics -- Flights; Arctic regions; North Pole
For the last time we all dined together with Director Knutsen to-day.
A feeling of depression lay over us all in spite of our host’s sturdy
optimism. We should soon be parted, and no longer could we hope
in each other’s company to witness the great home-coming. As Dr.
Matheson thanked Herr Knutsen in a little speech for all his kindly
hospitality, we are not ashamed to admit that we were weak enough to
have lumps in our throats. As we sat there we heard the shriek of the
“Pasvik’s” siren. Two hours afterwards all the baggage, many hundreds
of photographs, and 2,000 meters of film taken in the north were put
on board the icebreaker. We exchanged handshakes and greetings. The
“Pasvik” drew off from the quay; there was a waving of handkerchiefs
and scarfs ... and the last we heard from those on board was the
remark of Schulte-Frohlinde: “Don’t come southwards before you have
Amundsen and his five companions with you.”
The “Pasvik” had brought several mail-bags for the expedition from
Green Harbour. Some were for the land party and some for those who had
left. There were private letters for every one of us, and several were
addressed to “Roald Amundsen, The North Pole,” from all corners of the
earth. There was a large pile of newspapers from different lands in
which we read with great interest comments on our plans for the flight
and the progress of our work before the machines started.
_Virgo-havn. Monday, 1st June_
We left Ny-Aalesund in the evening yesterday, and arrived here again
this morning after a fine trip along the coast past the seven glaciers,
to which we bowed as though they were old acquaintances. “Hobby” lay
in the bay--alone! We have given up hope of seeing the machines again.
Whether we see our six comrades again is a subject I dare not think
about. There are two possibilities: Either both machines have been
damaged hopelessly in a landing on the ice, and their crews have set
off on foot to Cape Columbia in Grant’s Land, west of Greenland’s
north point, or the petrol supply came to an end on the return journey
and they are now probably trying to cross the drift ice towards Syöene
north of Northeastland. If they have done this it is possible that one
of the vessels may catch sight of them when they begin patrolling the
ice border next Thursday--the fourteenth day from the start. We take
the charts from the boxes and study the long route over which they
will have to pass to reach Cape Columbia, and therefrom down to Thule
on the north coast of Greenland. It is a distance of 1,600 kilometers
to walk and to row, so we know that if the machines have been damaged
in the landing, we shall not see our comrades again till 1926. The
canvas boats they have taken with them are so small that there is no
possibility of them being used for a crossing between Greenland and
Grant’s Land over the Kennedy Channel, if the ice has broken up, which
it generally does in the month of July--and there is no chance of them
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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