Roald Amundsen

Roald Amundsen was born near Oslo, Norway, into a family of shipowners. His mother wanted him to be a doctor, but after her death he left his studies for the sea. He served on a Belgian expedition that spent the winter of 1898 trapped in Antarctic ice. From 1903 to 1906 he sailed the small ship Gjøa through the Northwest Passage, the first to do so, learning from the Netsilik Inuit how to dress in furs and drive sled dogs. He planned to reach the North Pole, but when he heard that Americans claimed to have reached it, he secretly turned south. With four companions and dog teams, he reached the South Pole on December 14, 1911, five weeks before the British party of Robert Falcon Scott, whose men all died on the return. Amundsen's careful planning, skis and dogs were key to his success. In 1926 he flew over the North Pole in the airship Norge with Umberto Nobile and Lincoln Ellsworth. In 1928 he flew north to help search for Nobile, whose airship had crashed, and his plane disappeared in the Barents Sea.

Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia