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  • Carl Hagenbeck. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Amundsen has a bold plan

He wants to train polar bears so that they can pull his sledges. The German animal trainer Carl Hagenbeck gets the job.

Hagenbeck is an optimist. He tells journalists that it will also be possible to teach the bears to sleep in tents at night, so that Amundsen and the others can lie next to a soft and warm polar bear every time they camp.

When the newspapers ask Amundsen about the polar bear plan, he replies:

The experiment will succeed best in the South Polar regions, where the trained animals would not encounter wild polar bears.

Source: Norges Sjøfartstidende. 28.8.1907/ Nasjonalbiblioteket

But even though he is optimistic, the polar bears are never used on any expedition.

As early as the summer of 1908, Amundsen gives up. He believes the bears have become far too domesticated.


«When I last saw them at Hagenbeck's they were so over-cultivated that they used iron bars from the cage as toothpicks, no, it does not work, you see, when they become such bon vivants»​

Amundsen experiments not only with draft animals

To the newspapers, Amundsen admits that he plans to have a bicycle on board, intended to generate electricity. "There will be light and heat on board," he says.

But the bicycle project also comes to nothing.

In July 1909, he tests specially made kites near Horten. These can take a human several hundred metres up into the air, which will be useful for reconnaissance on the journey across the Arctic Ocean.

The expedition's second-in-command, Ole Engelstad, describes the equipment to the assembled journalists:


«It all consists of two bottomless boxes of a light fabric, connected by thin rods. Wings are attached to one end to strengthen the lifting capacity. By the way, six more kites are needed, which are set up on top of each other, in order to lift man and gondola.»

Engelstad explains that the kites can lift a person 500 metres into the air.

«And then one can get a good reconnaissance of the landscape. It can probably be useful when it comes to finding a way through the ice. But if we send up a kite alone without weight, it can reach 8000 metres. Then one can hang instruments on it and take measurements of the temperature high up and much more.»

Thursday, July 22, 1909

Roald Amundsen receives a visit from the expedition's deputy leader Ole Engelstad and marine scientist Bjørn Helland-Hansen.

It will be the last time Amundsen sees Engelstad alive.

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    Ole Engelstad was intended to have an important role in the expedition and was heavily involved in the preparations. Photo: Roald Amundsen's House, MiA

The following day Engelstad goes out to Vealøs off Horten to test fly the kites, together with the aviation pioneer, Einar Sem-Jacobsen. 

They send up a kite, fastened to the ground with a long copper wire.

At four o’clock the thunderstorm hits Horten.

Engelstad touches the copper wire that is attached to the kite.

«There's quite a lot of electricity in the air now. I grabbed the cable and got a real shock,» he said to Sem-Jacobsen.

To avoid any greater injury, they decide to let the kite hang in the air until the storm is over.

No one wants to risk a major shock.

But it still happens that Engelstad changes his mind.

He watched the clouds for a while and then began to crank in the kite that was up. A blinding flash suddenly lit up the whole kite string, the winch was enveloped in smoke, and they saw Engelstad collapse.

Einar Sem-Jacobsen recounted the accident in the book "Til veirs på norske vinger" [“Aloft on Norwegian wings”] (Gyldendal, 1930) by Odd Arnesen and Einar Sem-Jacobsen.

Lightning strikes his body and exits through his hands and feet. His boots almost burn up and the grass beneath is left charred.

It is over in seconds.

Unconscious, Engelstad falls backwards. There is a burnt smell and smoke comes from the body. People run forward – there is still a pulse – but time is short.

Engelstad is carried aboard a motorboat. But it is in vain.

Ole Engelstad never regains consciousness and is declared dead when he comes ashore.

Engelstad's body is later transported to Porsgrunn where his funeral takes place.

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    During the South Pole journey, Amundsen named a mountain in Ole Engelstad’s honour. After he returned to Norway in 1912, he also contributed to the erection of a memorial in Engelstad’s hometown of Porsgrunn. Photo: Roald Amundsen's House, MiA.
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