Roald Amundsen: The Man Who Reached Both Poles

This audiobook is narrated by an AI Voice.
Roald Amundsen: The Man Who Reached Both Poles

He conquered both ends of the Earth — and died flying to the rescue of the man he hated. Roald Amundsen was a Norwegian sea captain's son who abandoned medicine for the ice and became, by any measure, the greatest polar explorer who ever lived: the first man through the Northwest Passage, the first to the South Pole, and the first to reach the North Pole. He did it not by heroics but by study — wintering with the Netsilik Inuit to learn their clothing, their diet and their dogs, and planning every expedition to the last biscuit.

Over eleven hours of listening follow the whole unmatched career: the Belgica's nightmare winter in the Antarctic night; the little Gjøa's three-year transit of the Passage; the secret switch at Madeira that turned a North Pole expedition into the race against Scott, and the ninety-nine-day dash that won it; the Maud's Northeast Passage, the broken arm and the polar bear; the flying boats lost on the ice in 1925 and the Norge airship over the North Pole in 1926. It ends with debt, feud and bankruptcy — and with June 18, 1928, when Amundsen took off from Tromsø to search for his rival Umberto Nobile and never returned.

He planned like a scientist, endured like a sailor, and reached both ends of the Earth. This is his story.

From Bedtime Biographies — history's most fascinating lives, told for modern listeners.