|
 Norway has renovated Amundsen's telegraph station at Ny-Aalesund,
the world's northernmost permanent settlement on the remote Svalbard
archipelago, and tourists, arriving mostly on cruise ships, will
from next week be able to use it to send electronic messages around
the world.
Amundsen, the first to reach the South Pole in 1911, had his sights
on the North Pole but settled for Antarctica when American Robert
Peary beat him to the top of the world.
When credible doubts later emerged about Peary's feat Amundsen took
up the quest again. In 1926, along with Italian airship designer
Umberto Nobile, he sailed over the North Pole in a zeppelin,
becoming the first to officially reach the pole.
 "This station was their only connection," says Dag Blakkisrud, who
heads the telecom firm Telenor’s heritage programme, which paid for
the refurbishment.
"Amundsen sent several messages to Ny-Aalesund from the journey and
a few years later when he got lost in a plane searching for Nobile,
who was himself lost out in the ice. The station also received two
telegraphic messages from him, which was the last we ever heard from
Amundsen," Blakkisrud said.
Those would be the last messages ever received from Amundsen, whose
remains or his airplane have never been found.
[to top of second column] |
The town transformed into a mining colony after the expeditions but
was abandoned after a 1962 accident killed 21 workers. It now
functions as a research station.
"We brought back all the original equipment left when the town was
abandoned 50 years ago. The telegraph will be the only way for
tourists to send a message home as there is no mobile phone
reception here," said Aasne Dolve Meyer, an adviser at Kings Bay AS,
which runs the town.
Kings Bay expects around 30,000 visitors to Ny-Aalesund this year.
(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Susan Fenton)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
