Roald Amundsen

Roald Amundsen grew up near Oslo in a family of shipowners and promised his mother he would study medicine. When she died he abandoned the course within weeks and went to sea. His first polar experience was as mate on the Belgica in 1897, the first expedition to spend a winter trapped in Antarctic ice; the crew fell into depression and scurvy, and he never forgot how badly things went when nobody had planned for the dark.

In 1903 he sailed a tiny, second-hand herring boat, the Gjøa, into the Arctic with six men and spent two winters near King William Island. There he lived alongside the Netsilik Inuit, studying how they drove dogs, built snow houses and dressed in loose fur. By 1906 he had become the first to sail the whole Northwest Passage, but the lessons mattered more than the passage.

He planned to drift to the North Pole, then learned in 1909 that Peary and Cook both claimed it. He quietly turned his ship south instead, telling his crew only after they left Madeira and sending Scott a terse telegram. His party skied to the South Pole on 14 December 1911 with dogs, fur and depots laid in advance, and came back well fed.

He crossed the North Pole by airship in 1926 and died two years later, flying to search for the Italian rival he had fallen out with.