3d history - Polar Exploration

1594-1597	Willem Barents – completed 3 voyages north between 1594 – 1597 and discovered Spitsbergen and had the Barents Sea named after him
1607-1610	Henry Hudson – makes 3 trips to Greenland, Spitsbergen and the Hudson Bay / River is named in his honour.
1725-1742	The Great Northern Expedition – the expedition is led by Bering,Cherikov,Khariton and Lepev who explore the Bering Sea and Arctic Siberia
1778	Captain James Cook – confirms the separation of the American and Asian continents on his voyage to NE Siberia and Alaska
1819-1820	William Edward Parry – one of the leading Arctic explorers reaches Melville Island on his first voyage to discover the Northwest Passage
1819-1822	John Franklin – at the same time as Parry, Franklin also starts to search for the Passage, travelling by canoe down the Coppermine River and overland to Point Turnagain unfortunately eleven members of his expedition die along the way.
1821-1823	William Parry – completes his second voyage and this time reaches Fury and Hecla Strait from Hudson Bay
1824-1825	William Parry – his final journey to find the Passage ends in disaster when one of his vessels is wrecked on Somerset Island
1825-1827	John Franklin launches his second expedition to the Arctic Sea by canoe and overland from Canada. His party explores over a thousand miles of coastline up to Prudhoe Bay in Alaska.
1827	820 45’ North is reached by Parry when he attempted to reach the North Pole from Spitsbergen, this is the farthest North traveled to date and will not be passed for another 50 years.
1831	The magnetic North Pole, is reached by James Clark Ross
1845-1847	John Franklin (now Sir John) commences his search again for the Northwest Passage but disappears
1848-1854	Over 10 expeditions are sent to try and discover the fate of Franklin without success
1854	Dr John Rae whilst completing a coastal survey for the Hudson Bay Company comes across property belonging to Franklin in the hands of Eskimo’s – the fate of the Franklin expedition is at last resolved.
1871-1873	Charles Hall attempts for the third time to reach the North Pole but he dies in mysterious circumstances aboard his vessel Polaris. During the return voyage, his crew is stranded on the ice for 6 months after a storm and has to be rescued by whalers 1875-1876 The British commence their last attempt at the Pole under George Nares but fail
1878	The Northeast Passage, is navigated by Baron Nordenskiãld
1881-1884	A Lieutenant Lockwood, who was part of Adolphus Greely’s American expedition, establishes a new farthest North, but only six of the twenty-four expedition members survive.
1886	Robert Peary commences his first Arctic expedition when he attempts and fails to cross Greenland.
1888	Fridtjof Nansen the great Norwegian explorer succeeds where Peary failed and successfully crosses Greenland
1891-1895	Peary mounts 2 further Greenland expeditions in four years
1893-1895	Fridtjof Nansen with Otto Sverdrup establish a new farthest North in their boat the Fram
1898-1902	Peary attempts the Pole again but his third expedition also fails
1899-1900	A Lieutenant Cagni claims a new farthest north 22 miles beyond Nansen's.
1903-1905	The Northwest Passage, is finally navigated by Roald Amundsen
1905-1906	Robert Peary establishes a new farthest north but his fourth Arctic expedition again fails to reach the Pole.
1908-1909	Peary reaches the North Pole on April 6, 1909, accompanied by his chief assistant, Matthew A. Henson, and four Inuit Eskimos. Upon returning to the United States, Peary learned that another American explorer, Frederick A. Cook, claimed that he had reached the pole a year before Peary, on April 21, 1908. But after being questioned by Peary and investigated by Danish scientists no proof could be found to corroborate his claims and it was decided that Peary's story was more believable than Cook's but the dispute has never been definitely settled NB Cook also claimed that he had reached the summit of Mount McKinley, Alaska but this claim was also was disputed
1926	Richard E. Byrd becomes the first person to fly over the Pole in a Fokker trimotor plane.
1958	U.S.S. Nautilus (nuclear submarine) passes under the Pole.
1958	The Skate becomes the first submarine to surface through the ice at the Pole.
1968	Ralph Plaisted reaches the Pole using snowmobiles with air support.
1969	Wally Herbert leads a dogsled expedition from Alaska to Svalbard with air support.
1979-1982	Ranulph Fiennes completed the 52,000-mile Transglobe Expedition the first surface journey around the world’s polar axis, he and his partner Charles Burton became the first men to reach both poles
1986	Paul Schurke and Will Steger lead a dogsled expedition to the Pole without resupply. Ann Bancroft becomes the first woman to complete such an expedition.
1990	Ranulph Fiennes sets a new record for the furthest North unsupported
1992	Helen Thayer does a one-woman solo trek to the Pole.
1993	Ranulph Fiennes with Mike Stroud complete the first unassisted Trans-Arctic journey, the longest unassisted journey in history at 97 days.

1599	Dirk Gerritsz spots snow covered mountains when blown off course rounding Cape Horn. It is likely these were the South Shetland Islands.
1772-1775	Captain Cook discovers the South Sandwich Islands, South Georgia Island and reports large populations of seals, which prompts sealers to start exploring the Antarctic
1806	Thanks to Captain Cook sealers discover the Auckland Islands and wipe out the fur seals within a few years.
1820	The Antarctic is finally discovered but who discovered it is still disputed.
1821	John Davis an American sealer lands at Hughes Bay and becomes first person to set foot on the continent.
1823	Another sealer, Briton James Weddell, reaches the farthest south at 74º15'S
1840	Jules Dumont d'Urville discovers Adélie Land, mapped the South Shetland Islands, sections of the Antarctic and carried out measurements of the earth’s magnetic field.
1840	Charles Wilkes leads an American scientific expedition to the Antarctic and proves that Antarctica is a continent.
1841	A British expedition led by James Clark Ross to find the South Magnetic Pole finds instead the Ross Ice Shelf and Mount Erebus, Antarctica’s most active volcano.
1882-1883	12 nations establish bases to observe the climate and earth’s magnetism during the first International Polar Year.
1898	For the first time a party led by Carston Borchgrevink spend the winter at Cape Adare.
1901	Robert Scott leads his first expedition in the Discovery and with Edward Wilson and Ernest Shackleton reaches 82ºS.
1907	Ernest Shackleton leads his own expedition to reach the South Pole but fails.
1910	Roald Amundsen and Robert Scott both set out in a race for the South Pole.
1911	Amundsen wins the race reaching the Pole on 14^th December
1912	Scott and his team reach the Pole but find Amundsen had beaten them. Heartbroken, they all perish on the return journey hampered by extreme weather.
1914	Shackleton's expedition ends in disaster when his ship the Endurance gets trapped in the ice and sinks. Shackleton and his crew launch lifeboats with supplies and finally reach Elephant Island. Shackleton with 5 companions set off in the largest boat and reached the whaling station on South Georgia; returning to Elephant Island in a Chilean vessel to rescue the remainder of his men.
1928-1929	Sir Hubert Wilkins, an Australian, explores 2,100 kilometers of Antarctica by air.
1928-1930	Richard Byrd carries out his first Antarctic expedition and flies over the South Pole in November 1929.
1933-1935	Byrd takes his second expedition to Antarctica undertaking a great deal of scientific and geographic research. In addition he remains alone in an advance base the whole of the winter.
1935	American millionaire Lincoln Ellsworth completes the first flight across the Antarctic continent.
1939	Byrd takes the United States Antarctic Service expedition to Antarctica where they build a base Little America III.
1946	Operation Highjump a US Navy expedition is led by Byrd – the largest ever expedition included 10 ships, 1 aircraft carrier, 1 submarine, 23 aircraft and nearly 5,000 men.
1947-1948	Explorer Finn Ronne establishes that the Antarctic Peninsula was connected to the rest of Antarctica.
1958	Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary lead the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic – this was the first overland continental expedition.
1979-1982	Ranulph Fiennes completed the 52,000-mile Transglobe Expedition, the first surface journey around the world’s polar axis, he and his partner Charles Burton became the first men to reach both poles

FAMOUS POLAR EXPLORERS

Charles Wilkes (1798-1877)

Charles Wilkes born in New York City was a US Navy Lieutenant and explorer. Between 1838 – 1842 Wilkes led a US Navy expedition more than 1500 miles along the coast of Antarctica and was the first person to prove that Antarctica was a continent rather than just one massive ice pack.

In 1842 he was court-martialed by the Navy for illegally whipping members of his crew.

Richard E. Byrd (1888-1957)

Richard E. Byrd was born in Winchester, Virginia; he graduated from the US Naval Academy in 1912 and was a Navy aviator in WWI where he helped plan the transatlantic flights of Navy seaplanes. He later became a US Navy rear Admiral and a highly respected Polar explorer, aviator and navigator.

Byrd led expeditions to both the Arctic and Antarctic but he his best remembered for the extensive work he carried out in the exploration of Antarctica between 1928 and 1957.

In 1925 Byrd made his first Arctic flight over Greenland and Ellesmere Island. On 9^th May 1926 he and another pilot Floyd Bennett claim to have flown to the North Pole but this has not been ratified.

In 1928 he took his first expedition to Antarctica and flew to the South Pole with fellow pilot Bernt Balchen on 28^th November 1929.

Between 1933 and 1935 his second expedition carried out scientific experiments on many subjects including meteor study, weather, geography and seismology.

In 1939 he built a base called Little America III which sent out five major Antarctic expeditions until it was abandoned due to WWII. After completing his war service the Navy appointed Byrd leader of Operation Highjump mapping vast areas of Antarctica and included a second flight over the South Pole in February 1947.

In 1955 and 1956 Byrd saw a new base Little America V built, he died still planning expeditions in 1957.

Admiral Robert Peary (1856-1920)

Robert Peary was born in Cresson, Pennsylvania in 1856 before moving to Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1877 as a draughtsmen in the US Coast and Geodetic Survey with which he entered the Navy as a civil engineer and a rank of lieutenant.

With the Navy he surveyed the Nicaragua Canal before beginning his attempts to reach the North Pole. His first Arctic expedition was in 1886 when he tried but failed to cross Greenland and then carried out 2 further Greenland expeditions between 1891 and 1895.

In 1898 his third expedition to the Pole also fails and he only reached 840 17’ North but does make a detailed study of Ellesmere Land and the surface and drift of the Polar ice pack.

Peary finally reaches the North Pole on April 6, 1909, accompanied by his chief assistant, Matthew A. Henson, and four Inuit Eskimos.

His achievement was questioned but the US Congress finally recognised his claim in 1911 when he retired from the Navy with the rank of Rear Admiral.

The truth still remains unclear as a study of his diary and notes in the 1980’s revealed that due to some navigational mistakes he could have missed the pole by approx. 50 kilometres.

Raold Amundsen (1872-1928)

Raold Amundsen was born in 1872 near Oslo where he studied medicine for 2 years before going to sea in 1897. His medical training came in useful as he helped combat scurvy which had broke out amongst the crew. His ship the Belgica was the first to spend a winter in Antarctic waters in 1898.

In 1906 he completed the first voyage through the Canadian Arctic waters from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the infamous Northwest Passage had finally been breached he also on the same voyage plotted the precise position of the magnetic north pole.

His most famous triumph occurred in 1911 when he beat Robert Scott to the South Pole on December 14^th.

Amundsen continued to explore and between 1918 – 1920 he became the first person to sail through the Northwest and Northeast Passages when he sailed from Norway through the Arctic Ocean to the Bering Sea.

In 1926 he continued to make history when he flew in an airship ‘The Norge’ over the North Pole. The pilot of the airship was an Italian Umberto Nobile who later went missing in the Arctic in May 1928. Amundsen went to search for Nobile in June 1928 and disappeared, Nobile was later rescued.

Fridtjof Nansen (1867-1930)

Nansen was born in Oslo and made his first Arctic voyage in 1882 aboard a whaling ship where he was assigned the position of zoological collector.

In 1888 he completed the first east – west crossing of Greenland a journey, which many thought, was impossible at the time.

Nansen, to continue his scientific exploration of the Arctic, built a ship called the Fram, which was designed to rise above the crushing ice floes. In 1893 he sailed into Siberia where he allowed the Fram to become stuck in the ice. Over the next 3 years the ice drifted and carried the Fram across the Arctic Ocean to Svalbard.

During the second year he attempted to reach the North Pole and came within 272 miles (further than anyone else before them) before being forced to abandon the attempt.

On his return from the Arctic he became a professor of zoology in Oslo where he actively encouraged the breakaway of Norway from Sweden in 1905 and was appointed Norway’s ambassador to Britain until 1908.

Between 1910 and 1914 he led 4 further voyages to the Arctic and published a number of books on his adventures.

After WWI he increasingly became involved in politics and became Norway’s delegate at the League of Nations. In 1922 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his services to the repatriation of German and Soviet POW’s and his aid to Soviet refugees in Asia Minor.

Nansen was married twice and had five children it was also reported that he was womaniser and it is rumoured that he was having an affair with Robert Scotts wife Kathleen whilst Scott was dying in the Antarctic.

He died in Oslo in May 1930.

Sir Earnest Henry Shackleton (1874-1922)

From an early age Shackleton dreamed of becoming an explorer and rather than becoming a doctor as his father wanted he ran away to sea at the age of 16.

By the age of 24 he was a qualified master allowing him to Captain a British ship anywhere. In 1900 he volunteered for Scott’s first Discovery expedition, unfortunately Shackleton was taken ill and had to be sent home.

In 1907 he led his own expedition aboard the Nimrod, he claimed to have climbed Mount Erebus, came within 97 miles of the South Pole and carried out many scientific experiments.

He was knighted in 1909. In 1914 he set out on the ill fated Endurance expedition where the ship was crushed by ice. He led his men on an incredible 800 mile journey to safety when he and 5 others rowed to South Georgia and returned to rescue the others aboard a Chilean vessel.

He died in South Georgia in 1922 when he was planning his last voyage circumnavigating the Antarctic continent.

Robert F Scott (1868-1912)

Robert Falcon Scott was born in Devonport, Plymouth in 1868 and as most of his family came from a nautical background it was only natural he joined the Navy.

His interest in Polar exploration didn’t begin until 1901 when he took the Discovery to Antarctica where he carried out extensive exploration of the Ross Sea and King Edward VIII Land.

After the success of the Discovery expedition he wanted desperately to become the first man to the South Pole and he began his second and final expedition in 1910.

He reached the pole on 18^th January 1912 only to find that the Norwegian Raold Amundsen had beaten him to the prize by 33 days.

On their 800 mile return journey they encountered horrendous conditions and were forced to shelter in their tents where they died around 17^th March 1912.

Introduction

The North Pole