The South Pole

"The problem here is one of language. I’ve only read this in the original, and when it is translated you lose 95% of what was really said. This happens in any language but it’s particularly pronounced with Scandinavian languages. The thing about The South Pole is that it’s the opposite of the heroic delusion – it’s the search for achievement. It’s full of a very subdued, ironic humour, and Amundsen wanted to remove any form of drama from it – he saw it as perfectly natural. The way it turned out, it wasn’t an expedition in our sense of the word. Rather, it was the longest ski race in the world. Among his men he’d chosen a ski champion, Olaf Bjorland, who was totally unimpressed by the prospect of going to the Pole. It was just a ski race to him. He was runner up in the 50km cross-country in Oslo in 1908, and when you look at it that way getting to the Pole was no big deal. That was the attitude of all the men there. They were doing something that came naturally. Yes, but they were at home in the environment, they felt part of the nature. It’s an interesting difference. In [Britain] man is outside of nature looking in, but their view is that you are part of nature, and in the grand scheme of things man is a tiny little insect – you forget that at your peril. Because of that, they avoided the psychological pressure of the people who didn’t have that attitude. Here we regard nature as the stage manager for the Chelsea Flower Show, but they knew nature was the founding member of the dirty tricks brigade. If there’s a storm she’s in a bad mood, so let’s hunker down and wait for her to get into a good mood again. You only have to look at Scott. When nature was less than desirable, there was a lot of complaint and moaning and beefing on about bad luck. They didn’t take things in their stride because they expected nature to be on their side."