On 14 December 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his team became the first people to reach the South Pole. They beat Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s British expedition by over a month. One hundred years later and anniversary celebrations included Jens Stoltenberg, the Norwegian prime minister, unveiling an ice sculpture of the man at the south pole’s Amundsen-Scott scientific base.
It was to take several months for news of Amundsen’s success to reach Europe. Confirmation came at the beginning of March 1912 when his ship, the Fram, arrived at Hobart, Tasmania. On 10 March, the Manchester Guardian congratulated the Norwegian and, rather grudgingly, said: “We shall not grudge Amundsen his great success, which none but an explorer of great courage and resolution could win, but we look forward also with keen expectation to the solution of the questions which his success has raised.”
The next day, the Observer reprinted Amundsen’s own straightforward account of the journey to the pole.
By November 1912 Amudsen was in Britain to promote The South Pole, his book about the expedition. The Guardian and The Observer acknowledged the explorer’s success, devoting a number of columns to his conquest including praise from Sir Ernest Shackleton and a diary piece about him shaving off his beard.
Captain Scott reached the south pole on 17 January 1912 and news of his death appeared on 11 February the following year.
