Gjøa

Gjøa was the first vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. With a crew of six, Roald Amundsen traversed the passage in a three-year journey, finishing in 1906.

History

Construction

The 70 by 20 ft (21.3 by 6.1 m) square-sterned sloop of 45 net register tonnage (4,500 cu ft or 130 m³) was built by Knut Johannesson Skaale in Rosendal, Norway in 1872, the same year Amundsen was born. She was named Gjøa after her then owner's wife. (Gjøa is a modern form of the Norse name Gyða - this again is a compressed form of Guðfríðr, a compound of guð 'god' and fríðr 'beautiful'.) For the next 28 years the vessel served as a herring fishing boat.

Purchase by Amundsen

On March 28, 1901, Amundsen bought her from Asbjørn Sexe of Ullensvang, Norway, for his forthcoming expedition to the Arctic Ocean. Gjøa was much smaller than vessels used by other Arctic expeditions, but Amundsen intended to live off the limited resources of the land and sea through which he was to travel, and reasoned that the land could sustain only a tiny crew (this had been the cause of the catastrophic failure of John Franklin's expedition fifty years previously). Her shallow draught would help her traverse the shoals of the Arctic straits. Perhaps most importantly, the aging ship was all that Amundsen (who was financing his expedition largely by spending his inheritance) could afford.

Roald Amundsen

Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen (Norwegian: [ˈɾuːɑl ˈɑmʉnsən]; 16 July 1872 – c. 18 June 1928) was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the Antarctic expedition of 1910–12 which was the first to reach the South Pole, on 14 December 1911. In 1926, he was the first expedition leader for the air expedition to the North Pole.

Amundsen is recognized as the first person, without dispute, as having reached both poles. He is also known as having the first expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage (1903–06) in the Arctic.

In June 1928, while taking part in a rescue mission for the Airship Italia, the plane he was in disappeared. Amundsen was during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration among key expedition leaders, in the class of Douglas Mawson, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton.

Early life

Amundsen was born to a family of Norwegian shipowners and captains in Borge, between the towns Fredrikstad and Sarpsborg. His parents were Jens Amundsen and Hanna Sahlqvist. Roald was the fourth son in the family. His mother wanted him to avoid the family maritime trade and encouraged him to become a doctor, a promise that Amundsen kept until his mother died when he was aged 21. He promptly quit university for a life at sea.

Gjoa Haven

Gjoa Haven (/ˌdʒoʊ ˈheɪvən/; Inuktitut: Uqsuqtuuq, syllabics: ᐅᖅᓱᖅᑑᖅ , meaning "lots of fat", referring to the abundance of sea mammals in the nearby waters) is a hamlet in Nunavut, above the Arctic Circle, located in the Kitikmeot Region, 1,056 km (656 mi) northeast of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. It is the only settlement on King William Island.

Etymology

The name Gjoa Haven is from the Norwegian "Gjøahavn" or "Gjøa's Harbour"; it was named by early 20th-century polar explorer Roald Amundsen after his ship Gjøa. This was derived from the old Norse name Gyða, a compressed compound form of Guðfríðr (guð 'god' and fríðr 'beautiful').

History

In 1903, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had entered the area on his ship Gjøa in an expedition intending to travel through the Northwest Passage. By October the straits through which he was travelling began to ice up. Amundsen put Gjøa into a natural harbour on the southeast coast of King William Island. He stayed there, in what Amundsen called "the finest little harbor in the world", for nearly two years. He and his crew spent much of that time with the local Netsilik Inuit, learning from them the skills to live off the land and travel efficiently in the Arctic environment. This knowledge proved to be vital for Amundsen's later successful exploration to the South Pole. He explored the Boothia Peninsula, searching for the exact location of the North Magnetic Pole.