Farthest North

Farthest North (sometimes known as Furthest North) describes the most northerly latitude reached by explorers before the conquest of the North Pole rendered the expression obsolete. The northern (Arctic) polar regions are much more accessible than those of the south, as continental land masses extend to high latitudes and sea voyages to the regions are relatively short.

A Dutch expedition led by Willem Barentz reached 79°49’ N on 16 June 1596 to register the first recorded Farthest North. On 13 July 1607 Henry Hudson may have passed the 80°N mark.

One of the first expeditions with the explicit purpose of reaching the North Pole was that of William Edward Parry in 1827, who reached 82°45’ N, a record that stood for several decades. In 1895, Norwegians Fridtjof Nansen and Fredrik Hjalmar Johansen reached latitude 86°14' N. In 1900, Umberto Cagni of the Italian Royal Navy left the base camp established by Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi and reached latitude 86° 34’ on April 25, beating Nansen's 1895 mark by 35 to 40 kilometres.

Two American explorers claimed to reach the North Pole in 1908 (Frederick Cook) and 1909 (Robert Peary). Cook's claim was widely judged to be fraudulent, but Peary was credited as the discoverer of the North Pole for most of the 20th century. In recent decades, however, Peary's claim has become widely doubted, though he did certainly set a new record for Farthest North (his support party was dismissed at 87° 45’ N latitude). Whatever the merits may be of Peary's claim to have reached the Pole, overland expeditions to the North Pole came to an end. Roald Amundsen of Norway redirected his planned Arctic expedition and instead aimed for the South Pole, which he achieved in 1911.

On 9 May 1926, Richard Evelyn Byrd attempted to fly over the North Pole in an airplane. He was widely credited with achieving this first, but he also has become widely doubted in recent decades.

Finally, on 12 May 1926, the airship Norge carried Roald Amundsen and fifteen other men (including the craft's designer and pilot Umberto Nobile, helmsman Oscar Wisting, navigator Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen, and the expedition's sponsor Lincoln Ellsworth) over the North Pole, en route from Spitsbergen to Alaska, the first achievement of the Pole about which there is no controversy.

See also

• Farthest South
• Polar exploration
• List of Arctic expeditions

Sources

• Fleming, Fergus (2001). Ninety Degrees North. Granta Books, London. ISBN 1 86207 449 6.
• Holland, Clive (1999). Farthest North. Robinson Publishing Ltd, London. ISBN 1 84119 099 3.