Oscar Wisting
Oscar Adolf Wisting (6 June 1871 – 5 December 1936) was a Norwegian Naval officer and polar explorer. Together with Roald Amundsen he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles.[1]
Biography
Oscar Wisting was born in Larvik, in Vestfold county, Norway. He was the son of Ola Martin Olsen Wisting (1843–1927) and Abigael Helene Andersen (1843–85). He became the eldest of 13 children. His father ran a trucking business. At the age of sixteen, he went to sea and in 1892 joined the Royal Norwegian Navy.[citation needed]
He was working as a naval gunner at Karljohansvern, the naval base in Horten during 1909 when Roald Amundsen asked him to go north with him on his forthcoming North Pole expedition. Amundsen later secretly changed his plans.[2] Wisting went to sea believing they were heading for the North Pole. Instead he learned that they were going south to pick up the race with Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole.[3]
As a participant in
In 1926 Wisting participated in Amundsen's successful attempt to fly over the North Pole. In the airship
In later years Oscar Wisting was an active force behind the preparations and building of the Fram Museum in Oslo, a museum built to store and display the polar ship Fram. On 5 December 1936 Wisting was found dead from heart attack in his old bunk on board the Fram, a few days before the 25th anniversary of the successful South Pole expedition.[6]
For his participation in the expedition, he was awarded the South Pole Medal (Sydpolsmedaljen), the Royal Norwegian award instituted by King Haakon VII in 1912 to reward participants in Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition.
Sources
Oscar Wisting wrote about his experiences with Roald Amundsen in 16 år med Roald Amundsen (Oslo: Glydendal Norsk Forlag, 1930). Roald Amundsen wrote about the expedition in Sydpolen published in two volumes in 1912–1913. The work was translated into English by A. G. Chater, and published as The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the "Fram" 1910–1912.[7]
Legacy
- Mount Wisting – the northwesternmost summit of the massif at the head of Amundsen Glacier in the Queen Maud Mountains.
References
- ^ "Oscar Wisting". Store norske leksikon. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
- ^ Roald Amundsen: The South Pole, An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the "Fram" 1910 – 1912 Chapter II. From Works by Roald Amundsen at Project Gutenberg
- ^ Susan Barr. "Oscar Wisting". Norsk biografisk leksikon. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
- ^ "Oscar Wisting". Borreminne. Archived from the original on August 13, 2007. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
- ^ "The Norge flight (1926)". The Fram Museum. Archived from the original on May 19, 2017. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
- ^ Oscar Wisting (1871–1936) (The Fram Museum) Archived 2011-07-19 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Oscar Wisting (1871–1936)". larviksguiden. Retrieved May 1, 2017.
Other sources
- Hansen, Jan Ingar (2001) Oscar Wisting: Amundsens betrodde mann (Schibsted Forlag) ISBN 978-82-516-1867-0