Abstract
Using personal letters from Roald Amundsen, Leon Amundsen, Captain Thorvald Nilsen, and talent agent Lee Keedick, as well as contemporary newspaper articles and interviews of the time, this chapter presents an account of the activities of the three surviving sled dogs in Norway in 1913, and the ways in which they were now further used for commercial purposes as well as for urgent rescue missions. Included are accounts of Leon Amundsen’s efforts to breed the dogs for progeny and profit, and to utilize Obersten in promotional campaigns. Featured in this chapter is the life-saving expedition of the two younger dogs Lussi and Storm, who embark on an Arctic rescue mission led by the Norwegian Captain Arve Staxrud to rescue members of Lieutenant Herbert Schröder-Stranz’s German Arctic Expedition, whose ship the Herzog Ernst is trapped in the ice in Spitsbergen, and who are now stranded and facing death. As part of the rescue mission, Lussi and Storm are instrumental in finding and retrieving expedition members who otherwise most likely would not have survived. Their arduous efforts and journey are documented here.
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References
Amundsen Letters of Correspondence, Manuscripts Collection. Oslo: National Library of Norway.
Amundsen Photographs, Picture Collection. Oslo: National Library of Norway.
Amundsen’s Home in Svartskog, Norway, author’s visits 12 March 2011 and 25 August 2012, Uranienborg—Roald Amundsen’s Home, (Stein Barli, director during that time), Follo Museum, Norway.
Arctic Tragedy. Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1894, 31 October 1913. National Library of New Zealand. https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19131031.2.34. Accessed 4 Aug 2014.
Hjælpeexpeditionen paa Spitsbergen. Kaptein Staxruds beretning til “Aftenposten”. [The rescue expedition on Spitsbergen. Captain Staxrud’s account to “Aftenposten”.]. Aftenposten (Christiania [Oslo]), 15 May 1913, evening edition. (Translated from Norwegian.) National Library of Norway, Oslo, online archives, https://www.nb.no. Accessed 28 Aug 2012.
In the Fatherland: Interesting bits of news from the great German Empire. Lake Benton Valley News (Lake Benton, Lincoln County, Minnesota), 20 August 1913. https://news.google.com. Accessed 4 August 2014.
Nansen, F. (1914). Through Siberia, the land of the future, (Chater, A. G. Trans.). New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company; London: William Heinemann. Digitized by Google. https://books.google.com. Accessed 4 Aug 2014.
Nilsen, T. (2011). Thorvald Nilsens dagbøker: Sydpolsekspedisjonen 1910–1914 [Thorvald Nilsen’s Diaries: The South Pole Expedition 1910–1914] (Kløver, G. O. Ed.). Oslo: The Fram Museum.
Staxruds unnsetningsekspedisjon etter Schrøder-Stranz 1913 [Staxrud's rescue expedition after Schrøder-Stranz 1913]. NorskPolarHistorie.no (Norwegian Polar Institute, University of Tromsø, et al.). http://www.polarhistorie.no/ekspedisjoner/Staxruds%20unnsetningseksp.html. Accessed 22 August 2012.
Tahan, M. R. (2019). Roald Amundsen’s sled dogs: The sledge dogs who helped discover the South Pole. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
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Notes on Original Material and Unpublished Sources
Notes on Original Material and Unpublished Sources
All Roald Amundsen letters of correspondence quoted in this chapter, written from and to Roald Amundsen and Leon Amundsen, are in the Manuscripts Collection at the National Library of Norway (NB) in Oslo. (The excerpts quoted were translated from the original Norwegian for the author by Anne Melgård during the author’s research at the National Library of Norway.)
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1.
L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 6 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:3 “R.A. 6”.
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2.
L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 10 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1 “R.A. 6”.
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L. Amundsen to C. Doxrud, letter, 12 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:3 “R.A. 6”.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 13 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1.
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L. Amundsen to Rederi A/B Nordstjernans Direktion [Management of the Shipping Company A/B Nordstjernan], ca 17 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:3:7.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 13 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1.
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R. Amundsen to L. Amundsen, letter, 28 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 15 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1.
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L. Amundsen to L. Keedick, letter in English, 18 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:3 “R.A. 6”.
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L. Keedick to L. Amundsen, letter in English, 6 March 1913, NB Brevs. 812:2:g.
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Author’s viewing of Obersten portrait photographs, in the Amundsen Photographs archives, photographer Anders Beer Wilse, URN_NBN_no-nb_foto_NF_WA_02081, 02,082, 02,083, 02,084, & 02,085, Picture Collection, National Library of Norway, Oslo.
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L. Amundsen to L. Keedick, letter in English, 18 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:3 “R.A. 6”.
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L. Keedick to L. Amundsen, letter in English, 25 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:2:g.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 18 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 23 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1; and R. Amundsen to L. Amundsen, telegram, 10 June 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 15 February 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1.
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Observations made during author’s private tours of Roald Amundsen’s Home in Svartskog, Norway, 12 March 2011 and 25 August 2012.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 1 March 1913, NB Brevs. 812:3 “R.A. 6”.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 10 March 1913, NB Brevs. 812:3 “R.A. 6”.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 1 April 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1.
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L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 10 April 1913, NB Brevs. 812:1.
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Author’s viewing of Obersten and Rex photograph, in the Amundsen Photographs archives, URN_NBN_no-nb_digifoto_20150127_00224_bldsa_NPRA3113, Picture Collection, National Library of Norway, Oslo.
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23.
L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 25 April 1913, NB Brevs. 812:3 “R.A. 6”.
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24.
L. Amundsen to R. Amundsen, letter, 28 May 1913, NB Brevs. 812:3 “R.A. 6”.
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Tahan, M.R. (2021). Lussi, Storm, and the Staxrud Rescue Expedition: Saving the Lives of Expeditioners in the Arctic. In: The Return of the South Pole Sled Dogs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65113-8_16
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