The Airship Norge Flew Over the North Pole in May 1926
The Norge over Ny-Ålesund. Source: Wikimedia Commons, National Library of Norway, CC BY 2.0
In 1926, Roald Amundsen and Lincoln Ellsworth set off on a new North Pole voyage aboard the airship Norge. The historic day was marked in Ny-Ålesund with Norwegian and Italian participants.
This happened between 11–13 May 1926, and they were the first to cross that area.
“Part of the mission was to check if there was land north of Svalbard and Alaska. It was clear that there was not,” explains Camilla Brekke, Director of the Norwegian Polar Institute.
100 years later, with far more knowledge at their disposal, participants from the Norwegian Polar Institute and an Italian delegation are present where it all began.
The expedition was a collaboration between Amundsen and the Italian aeronautical engineer Umberto Nobile—whose partnership with Amundsen would later give way to one of the Arctic’s most dramatic tragedies.
Ceremonial Commemoration
“We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. The Norwegian Polar Institute represents the long traditions in the Norwegian Sea—and polar history and science,” says Brekke.
The director says that this expedition has been important for both countries.
For Norway, it was important to strengthen the country’s image as a polar nation and a maritime nation.
“For Italy, it was of course important because they had built and constructed the airship Norge,” says Brekke.
Today’s commemoration was at the mooring mast, which remains as a cultural monument.
But the director can reveal that the mast didn’t really play a big role that day.
“Because they never moored to the mast. The conditions were right, and they could take this huge airship directly into the hangar that stood just above the mast.”
Big Changes
Camilla Brekke from the Norwegian Polar Institute says that Svalbard and the area around Ny-Ålesund have changed a lot since that historic day.
“Now that the temperature is rising with climate change, the ice on the fjord is disappearing and we see that the glaciers are retreating.”
“The Arctic landscape, as we know it, is about to disappear.”
Norwegian Polar Institute
The Polar Institute is now leading much of the work on future environmental challenges.
“It is incredibly important that we participate in providing the knowledge base that politicians will use to make important decisions for the future,” says Brekke.
The Polar Institute is involved in the extensive project “Arctic Ocean 2050,” where 18 Norwegian institutions will explore the Arctic Ocean in the coming years.
Source: NRK (in Norwegian)
Further reading:
- Airship Italia: Tragedy at the Pole, Tragedy at Home — the story of Nobile’s ill-fated 1928 expedition and its aftermath;
- Krassin: an Icebreaker at the Crossroads of History — the Soviet icebreaker that rescued survivors of the Italia crash.