(CNN) — It really is May possibly 11, 1926, and a giant airship, the Norge (this means Norway), has just been unhooked from its mast at 1 of the world’s most remote settlements, Ny-Ålesund, in the Svalbard archipelago.

This cluster of rocky, barren islands, nearer to the North Pole than to the Norwegian mainland, is the natural jump-off point for any expeditions venturing into the frozen expanses of the Arctic and this is precisely what these on board the Norge have set to do.

Primary the 16-powerful expedition are none other than the most celebrated polar explorer of the time, the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, who in 1911 turned the to start with person to attain the South Pole, Umberto Nobile, the celebrated Italian airship engineer who created the Norge, and American coal heir and adventurer Lincoln Ellsworth.

If Amundsen’s before conquest of the South Pole had associated a months-long, grueling