The community welcomed the gift from the Fram Museum in Oslo, the photographic exhibit on Amundsen which contains 48 separate panels showing his photos and texts on the voyage through the Northwest Passage. The exhibition will eventually be set up in the new Community center in Gjoa Haven, after having been shown at the Fram Museum and other museums. The community celebrated the achievements of Amundsen, with drum-dancing and a feast honoring his two years living there before successfully navigating the Northwest Passage Nunatsiaq News reports August 23.
A special flag-raising ceremony was held near the Amundsen Centenary Cairn in Gjoa Haven August 23, with the flags of Norway, Canada, Gjoa Haven and Nunavut. Together with the residents of Gjoa Haven, were minister counselor Sletbak and museum director Kløver present. Kløver brought a collection of Amundsen’s photos, as well as books and DVDs on Amundsen’s life and expedition as a gift to the community. Kløver and Sletbak also visited schools on their trip to Gjoa Haven. Sletbak from the Norwegian embassy in Ottawa said the link between Amundsen and Gjoa Haven underlines the close relationship between “two Arctic countries” which share common interests and history Nunatsiaq News reports.
A group of Gjoa Haven residents will travel to the Fram Museum in Oslo next year, which is the Nansen and Amundsen year in Norway celebrating that it has been a century since Amundsen reached the South Pole and the 150th anniversary of the birth of Fridtjof Nansen. The community is also working with the museum to repatriate some of the Inuit artifacts that Amundsen had gathered, Gjoa Haven mayor Joanni Sallerina told CBC news.
Roald Amundsen (1872-1928) was the first person to navigate through the Northwest Passage, as well as the first to reach the South Pole and fly across the Arctic Ocean.
Amundsen set out from Oslo in the summer of 1903 with his small, but sturdy sloop, the Gjøa and six crew members. The goals for the trip were firstly to record magnetic elements during one year at least, observations and relocation of the magnetic north pole, and secondly to find the Northwest Passage, which the English had been searching for. Recordings of the magnetic elements should preferably be done at a distance of 100 miles from the North Pole, so when the crew found a little bay on King Williams Island, they anchored up and stayed for 23 months, and the bay has since been known as Gjoa Haven. While in Gjoa Haven the crew built a magnetic observatory and collected data, later to be used by polar experts. Meteorological observations made by the crew added much knowledge to the climatology in the arctic. A large ethnographic material was also collected while the crew was in Gjoa Haven, and what Amundsen learned from the Inuit in terms of clothing became very useful for later expeditions.
On August 13th 1905 the Gjøa set out from Gjoa Haven going west. Endangered by fog, ice and shoals the Gjøa completed the Northwest Passage on August 17th and reached Nome in Alaska August 31 1906 after having spent another winter in the Arctic.
After having learned that the North Pole had been reached by both Frederick A. Cook and Robert E. Peary in 1908 and 1909, Amundsen secretly set out on a race against Robert Falcon Scott for the South Pole, which he was the first to reach December 14th 1911, five weeks before Scott. Amundsen returned to the Arctic in 1918 with the Maud on the best equipped geophysical polar expedition at the time. He was also the first to fly across the Arctic, which he did in 1926 with the airship Norge.
Read more:
Nunatsiaq News: http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/230810_Norway_brings_Amundsen_photo_exhibit_to_Gjoa_Haven_/
CBC news: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/north/story/2010/08/25/nunavut-gjoa-haven-norway-amundsen.html
Siku News: http://www.sikunews.com/News/Canada-Nunavut/Norway-brings-Amundsen-exhibit-to-Nunavut-7926
TV2 nyhetene: http://www.tv2nyhetene.no/utenriks/norge-gir-roald-amundsenutstilling-til-canada-3274663.html
Fram Museum: http://www.frammuseum.no/Home.aspx
Norsk Polarhistorie: http://www.polarhistorie.no/personer/roald_amundsen