Roald Amundsen:

Roald Engebreth Gravning Amundsen of Norway took pride in being referred to as "the last of the Vikings." A powerfully built man of over six feet in height, Amundsen was born into a family of merchant sea captains and prosperous ship owners in 1872. As a youth he insisted on sleeping with the windows open even during the frigid Norwegian winters to help condition himself for a life of polar exploration. Amundsen developed a fascination with Antarctica from the time he first glimpsed its frozen terrain in 1897. Antarctica, a continent the size of Europe and Australia combined, had not yet been traversed by humans. Amundsen aimed to be the first. 

In 1903 he established himself as a sailor and explorer of the first order when he successfully led a 70-foot fishing boat through the entire length of the Northwest Passage, a treacherous ice-bound route that wound between the northern Canadian mainland and Canada's Arctic islands. The arduous journey took three years to complete as Amundsen and his crew had to wait while the frozen sea around them thawed enough to allow for navigation. Soon after his return to Norway, he learned that Englishman Ernest Shackleton was setting out of an attempt to reach the South Pole. Shackleton would be forced to abandon his quest a mere 97 miles short of the Pole. Amundsen studied all he could of Shackleton's attempt and began the long process of preparing for his own. He was as highly regarded for his skills in organization and planning as he was for his expertise as an explorer. Amundsen, who was thought to be "taciturn under the best of circumstances," took special measures to be sure members of his crew possessed personalities suitable to long polar voyages. Crew members onboard his ships knew he was firm but fair, and affectionately referred to him as "the chief." 

By August of 1910, Amundsen was ready to make his own attempt to reach the South Pole, although all the world thought he was headed in the complete opposite direction. He had secretly ruled out attempting to reach the North Pole, because Americans Robert Peary and Frederick Cook had already laid claim to that feat. Amundsen even kept his plans for a South Pole expedition a secret from officials within the Norwegian government. He feared that government officials would be hesitant to challenge Great Britain, upon whom they were highly dependent, in a race to the Pole. It was not until Amundsen's ship, "Fram", was well off the coast of Morocco that he announced to his crew that they were headed for the South, not the North, Pole. 

Crucial to Amundsen's success in reaching the South Pole was his use of carefully selected sled dogs. Amundsen's canine crew members had been superbly equipped by centuries of natural selection for survival in the Arctic. He referred to them as "our children," and revealed, "The dogs are the most important thing for us. The whole outcome of the expedition depends on them." On October 18, 1911 Amundsen's entourage set out from the Bay of Whales, on Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf, for their final drive toward the pole. His British counterpart, Robert Scott, dependent on Siberian ponies rather than on dogs, began his trip three weeks later. Aided by exceptionally cooperative weather conditions, Amundsen's party, passed the point where Shackleton was forced to turn back on December 7. At approximately 3pm on December 14, 1911, Roald Amundsen raised the flag of Norway at the South Pole, and naming the spot Polheim -- "Pole Home." He and his crew returned to their base camp on January 25, 1912, 99 days and 1,860 miles after their departure. 

Robert Scott's journey, on the other hand, was marred by tragedy. Scott wrote, "Our luck in weather is preposterous." From December 4 to December 8, 1911, Scott and his party were confined to their tents, forced to wait out a series of howling blizzards. As they ate away their precious rations, time slipped through their hands. By the time Scott's party reached the Pole on January 17, 1912, the Norwegians had come and gone. Scott's log records: "This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have labored to it without reward of priority." Scott and his men had lost crucial time in reaching the pole and now faced the grim prospect of heading back to their base camp during the increasingly frigid Antarctic autumn. It was a journey they would never complete. On March 29, 1912, having endured blizzards and temperatures that fell to 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, Scott crawled into a tent with his two surviving party members and put down his final words: "For God's sake look after our people." Eight months later a search party found the frozen corpses of Scott and his men. They were only 11 miles away from a food and fuel depot they had left on their trek out. 

Roald Amundsen lived to experience other polar adventures, including flying over the North Pole in a dirigible in 1926. But the Arctic would eventually claim his life, too. While flying on a rescue mission in 1928, Amundsen was killed when his plane crashed into the Arctic Ocean. That same year, speaking to a journalist about his love of the icy Arctic, Amundsen said, "If only you knew how splendid it is up there, that's where I want to die." 

Richard E. Byrd:

When Richard E. Byrd contemplated the vast unexplored regions of the South Pole and the Antarctic, a land thought only to be bleak, barren, and forbidding to most, he saw a place of promise. Byrd envisioned a spot that "God had set aside as man's future -- an inexhaustible reservoir of natural resources." Byrd himself could rightly be described as an inexhaustible reservoir of ambition and complexity. Alternately viewed by those who worked with him as part scientist and part showman, part hero and part egomaniac, Richard Byrd was driven by a desire to forge new paths and to constantly set himself apart as a man of bold accomplishment. 

Byrd's lofty goals were thought by many to have been inbred. He hailed from a family noted for producing citizens of distinction. Born in 1888 to a family of Virginian aristocracy, Richard Byrd could trace his lineage back to Renaissance Europe. In the New World, the Byrds of Virginia founded newspapers and went on to become wealthy landowners. The family's prestige suffered a setback when they lost nearly all they had during the Civil War. Byrd's mother, Eleanor Bolling, a gracious Southern belle, encouraged her three sons, Tom, Dick, and Harry, to restore the luster to the family name. Byrd's father, also named Richard, was known as a brilliant prosecutor, but an aloof and demanding father figure who fought a losing battle with alcoholism. 

A sense of adventure marked Richard Byrd from an early age. When he was only 11, he traveled alone halfway around the world to visit a relative in the Philippines. His dispatches along the way were published in local newspapers. As his brother Harry set out to build a political dynasty in Virginia, Richard chose the military as his path to accomplishment. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1912, and by 1916 had become a naval aviator, despite an unease about flying. During World War I, Byrd commanded U.S. air forces in Canada. During flight training in Pensacola, Florida, Byrd struck up a friendship with a man who would be pivotal to his future success, pilot Floyd Bennett. 

Byrd's fascination with polar exploration had been fueled during a Navy reconnaissance cruise to the coast of Greenland. After establishing himself as a naval aviator, Byrd concluded that he could use his knowledge of flight to help him realize his Arctic dreams. He took part in several unsuccessful Navy attempts to fly to the North Pole, and in the summer of 1925 decided to embark on an air expedition of his own. His initial attempt failed as his plane's landing skis collapsed just before take off. Adding to his frustration was his knowledge that he was locked in a competition to be the first to fly over the North Pole. Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, the first man ever to reach the South Pole, had set his sights on crossing over the North Pole in a dirigible. On May 9, 1926, Byrd made another attempt. Flying with Floyd Bennett in the "Josephine Ford", named after the daughter of a major contributor to his expedition, the 38-year-old Byrd this time met with success. According to Byrd, he and Bennett flew over the North Pole, despite having developed a dangerous oil leak. When he arrived back at the Spitsbergen airfield much earlier than expected and announced his feat, skeptics voiced their doubts. Those doubts would linger for decades. In spite of the naysayers, Richard Byrd had attained the status of American Hero. To maintain his momentum he turned his attention to the opposite end of the globe and announced his intention of flying over and claiming for America the vast uncharted spaces of Antarctica. 

In the fall of 1928, Byrd's Antarctic expedition was poised to get underway. Four ships were loaded down with three planes, 95 dogs, 650 tons of supplies, and 42 men headed for a place as unknown and treacherous as the far reaches of outer space. The expedition took two months to reach its destination. Upon arrival there was little time for celebration, as Byrd and his men had to work quickly to establish a base camp before the total blackness of winter descended. Expedition members, outfitted in kangaroo hide boots, caribou gloves, and fur parkas set up their base at a spot nine miles inland. Byrd christened it Little America. It was from this point that Byrd and bernt Balchen, the man whom Byrd chose as his pilot after the death of Floyd Bennett, made their successful, first-ever flight over the South Pole on November 29, 1928. After 14 months on the ice, Byrd and his men headed for home. Upon arrival, Byrd was once again given a hero's welcome. The Navy promoted him to the rank of Admiral. To millions of Americans, Byrd was now known as the Admiral of the Antarctic. But Byrd was not ready to rest. 

By 1933, Byrd had secured the funding for a second Antarctic expedition. This time he enlisted the help of corporate America, as well as the expanding mass media. The CBS radio network sent a correspondent as part of the expedition, while sponsors like General Foods proudly hitched their wagon to Byrd's star. Byrd felt he would have to out-do himself on this expedition to make it worthwhile. While his public plans included aerial mapping and scientific investigation, privately Byrd had decided on making a bolder statement. He would attempt to spend the winter in Antarctica's remote interior, and he would do it alone. This exploit nearly cost him his life. Suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, and barely coherent, Bird had to be rescued by a Little American crew that was nearly unable to make the 123 mile trek to his 9' by 13' hut. Byrd returned to Little America a weakened, discouraged man. 

When he returned to the U.S. six months after being rescued, the 47-year-old Byrd was said to have aged considerably. Despite having made huge contributions to the exploration and understanding of Antarctica, Byrd was haunted by his failure to complete his mission of solitary confinement. Before his death in 1957 at age 68, he would lead four more Antarctic expeditions. But these journeys, under the auspices of the U.S. government, lacked the wonder of his private expeditions. He would recall for audiences how during this time spent alone on the ice he had come close to attaining transcendent insights: "And here I was, near the axis of the world, in the darkness where the stars make a circle in the sky. At that moment the conviction came to me that the harmony and rhythm were too perfect to be a symbol of blind chance or an accidental offshoot of the cosmic process; and I knew that a Beneficent Intelligence pervaded the whole. It was a feeling that transcended reason; that went to the heart of a man's despair and found it groundless."

Lincoln Ellsworth:

Chicago-born Lincoln Ellsworth had experienced his share of adventure — exploring the Peruvian Andes, mapping the rugged Canadian wilderness, and surveying the towering Rockies -- when he became captivated by what he called the "gleam of the Northern Lights over the silent snow fields." 

An expert aviator, Ellsworth teamed up with Norwegian Roald Amundsen in an unsuccessful 1925 attempt to fly over the North Pole. A year later, he achieved greater results when he and Italian aviator Umberto Nobile soared over the North Pole in a dirigible called the "Norge" Ellsworth did not limit his means of adventure travel to flying machines, however. In 1931, he was part of a team seeking to reach to North Pole by submarine. They did not succeed. 

As he reached his mid-50s, Ellsworth was just hitting his stride. In 1935, at age 55, Ellsworth became the first man to have flown over both poles when he flew across the entire continent of Antarctica. During his final visit to the Antarctic, Ellsworth discovered two uncharted mountain ranges and established a base — called American Highland — on the little-known-of Indian Ocean coast.

During his career as an explorer and aviator, Ellsworth claimed for the U.S. some 380,000 square miles of Antarctica. He died in 1951, at age 71.