On a personal note, I grew up in England and was familiar with the heroic story of "Scott of the Antarctic" from an early age, although I wasn't aware of the details at the time. I subsequently lived in Norway for several years, where Scott is regarded as little short of a lunatic, although yet again at the time I didn't take the trouble to examine the details of either expedition. On moving to Canada the emphasis shifted back to Scott and it was there that I first started reading about the Scott expedition in particular. After reading several accounts including Scott's own and Cherry-Garard's superb book "The Worst Journey in the World", and after reading numerous oblique references to "The Professionals", I decided it was time to investigate the other side of the story. I was expecting to read something similar to the British experience, except obviously a more successful one, but, nonetheless, one with a similar degree of hardship and misery. I have to say that I was completely dumbfounded by the contrast between the two expeditions. To say that Scott was out-classed is a major understatement. It is hard to imagine two similar expeditions, taking place at the same time in the same region, being so completely different in terms of attitude, preparation and execution. Much has been made of Amundsen's duplicity in hiding his plans until they were under way, but it is clear that it was the only way in which he could have done it, given the political climate of the time, with Norway being a fledgling country of barely five years' duration at the outset of his expedition, and highly dependent on the support and recognition of Britain as the imperial superpower of the time. His initial goal was to be the first to reach the North Pole, but was preempted by Frederick Cook and Robert Peary, and so he switched his ambitions and his attention to being the first to reach the South Pole. The irony is that there is a good chance that neither Cook nor Peary actually got to the North Pole, which would mean that Amundsen was actually the first to reach both poles after his subsequent over-flight of the North Pole in the airship Norge ("Norway" in Norwegian).

There are some other little known details of the expedition, which Amundsen chose to ignore or gloss over in his account, and there was considerably more friction in the team than one would be led to believe from the official accounts. Let's not forget that Amundsen reserved the right to being the only public spokesperson for the expedition, which was enforced by the legal contract that he made each member sign before joining, and it was not until many years later that other accounts began to surface publicly. So many years after the event these other accounts went largely unnoticed and remained in relative obscurity.

Now here's a question that has always puzzled me about the Norwegian expedition. Sverre Hassel is always described as the expert dog-driver and it was in large part this qualification which made Amundsen recruit him for the expedition. Olav Bjaaland was the expert skier, having been a top-rank competitive skier back home in Norway prior to the expedition. Again, it was this skill which recommended him to Amundsen for the expedition. Yet it was Hassel who was the first to depot his sledge at the "Butcher's Shop" camp at the top of the Heiberg Glacier, and continue on skis, while Blaaland continued to drive his sledge for several more weeks all the way to the pole. Logic would say that it should have been the other way around, based on skill and expertise, and I have often wondered what the background was to this decision. The only plausible explanation that I can come up with is that Bjaaland's dog-team was stronger than Hassel's, and therefore it was Hassel's team in particular that was culled at the Butcher's Shop. This is also questionable, because Hassel's expertise with the dogs should have meant that his dogs were less played-out. I would be interested in anyone else's opinion on this particular point.