roaldamundsen@mia.no
1899–1901
Cycle tour and new preparations
In September 1899, Roald Amundsen cycled with his brother Leon from Kristiania (Oslo) to Paris. Roald’s diary from this bike ride is kept today at the National Library of Norway 📜.
From France, Roald travels on to the United States. On the journey, he reads Fredrick Jackson’s A Thousand Days in The Arctic, and fills two books with his own notes. 📜 📜
In the autumn of 1900, Roald Amundsen travels to Hamburg, Germany, to study geomagnetism with Georg von Neumayer at the Deutsche Seewarte. When he returns home, he seeks out Fridtjof Nansen and talks about his plan to sail through the Northwest Passage and explore the North Magnetic Pole.
In January 1901, Amundsen buys the sloop Gjøa in Tromsø and takes her out the same summer on a test cruise in the Arctic Ocean. While in Tromsø he gets to know Fritz Gottlieb Zapffe, who becomes a close friend for life.
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