The North-West Passage

"Amundsen was a pioneer in the selection of his companions. He carried out what we would call psychological screening of a simple kind. If somebody was married he would ask if they had asked their wife, and if the answer was “no” they couldn’t come. He didn’t want any drifters, failures or people at odds with society. The other reason I chose this book was because Amundsen says something very interesting in it, when he describes his principles of command. He writes: “We have established a little republic on board. After my own experience I decided to use a system of freedom on board, let everybody feel independent in his own sphere. There arises in that way among sensible people a kind of voluntary discipline which is worth far more than compulsion. Every man thereby has the consciousness of being a human being and is treated as a rational being and not as a machine.” This is a quite astonishing declaration of the principles of command. The accomplishment of the northwest passage on one and the same keel – that is, sailing from the Atlantic to the Pacific across the north American Arctic – was the third of the classic polar goals. Amundsen spent a lot of time with the Eskimos and showed himself to be a born anthropologist. He could put himself in the Eskimos’ position, and he used the expedition to learn their lore of survival in a cold climate. He learnt how to cut an anorak so it keeps you warm without making you sweat, and how to use furs. How you must never hurry, because if you hurry you use energy faster than you can renew it and if you sweat you lose the insulation of the furs. He learnt how to build igloos, and he applied that knowledge to his South Pole expedition. The interest in the northwest passage was that of a civilised person learning the skills of a highly adaptive tribe who had learnt how to survive in a very hostile environment."