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L’arrivo del dirigibile Norge il 7 maggio 1926 nella Baia del Re (Ny-Ålesund)
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[Paper read on the 15 May 1997 at the
International Workshop held at Ny Ålesund (Spitsbergen Island, Svalbard),
during the Official Opening of the Italian Arctic Base of the CNR
"Dirigibile Italia", Part I]
Nobile and the North Pole
In the last months [of the year 1996] more than
once I referred, after the discovery of the "false" flight of Byrd,
to what gradually revealed to be the Italian record, not only a symbolic-one
(but of enterprise and science), in the "conquest" of the North Pole.
Thanks to the 1926 Norge N-1 airship expedition of Nobile, Amundsen and
Ellsworth.
As regards myself, I only remember that in the by now far 1983,
within the First North Pole International Congress it was approved an important
resolution, that so recited: "les données dont nous disposons
aujourd'hui ne permettent pas en vérité, de parvenir à des conclusions
scientifiques certaines à propos de la controverse sur Peary et Cook. Le
premier conquérant indiscutable du Pole par voie de surface, en l'état de question,
en moto-neige, est l'Américain Ralph Plaisted, le 20 avril 1968. Le Britannique
Wally Herbert conquiert le Pole en traineau à chiens, le 6 avril 1969".
Therefore, the moment is arrived for the historians of all the world to take
hand to encyclopaedias, handbooks and schoolbooks to review and, then, rectify
what, for so long, has been kept unchanged.
Without holding in due
consideration what showed itself to be the historical truth.
This extraordinary
circumstance, also if for many experts didn’t arrive at all unexpected,
couldn't not offer to our country new responsibilities, greater engagements and
further duties.
Not only from a moral point of view.
But, above all, in the
field of scientific research, and of the deepening of Arctic world knowledge. From
a physical and naturalistic point of view, as from a human and cultural one. In
collecting "in the field" the essential data and background
materials.
But also, in carrying out observations, comparisons, works and
detailed studies on Arctic aspects and problematical areas with well delimited
scientific and significant borders, both theoretical and applied. A region of
the world generally, if not at all, ignored by Italian researchers of yesterday
and today.
And not only by them!
The Italian science is called, now, to offer a
contribution of quality, starting from next future. This is another challenge,
that must not be only limited to the heuristic field, but should especially aim towards more practical and applied goal.
Seen the importance, at all
prominent, that the polar region holds in the ecological equilibrium of the
planet, and for its diversified micro and macro-territorial realities, that
invest the same future of the numerous peoples that from time immemorial live
there.
The Base "Dirigibile Italia"
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La Base di ricerca italiana del CNR Dirigibile Italia
(© Franco Pelliccioni) |
The name, its specific location, the
contemporaneousness of today celebrations: all this attest clearly the
indissoluble connection binding, not only for a formal and merely logistic
aspect, the two Nobile flights to the National Research Council (CNR) Base. And the same central position of this well-equipped station, from a
geographical point of view, as from a scientific-one, in future it will become,
according me, one of its best characteristics.
As we know, the island of
Spitsbergen, not too far away from the Pole, is placed in an archipelago that
for centuries for several explorers and navigators was the starting point along
the "European route" to the North Pole. As from here they launched
their final attack.
From a more strictly scientific point of view, we are now
included in the head group together, not only with the Nordic Countries, but
also with those, like English and French, that from long time are in the van of
the so-called Polar studies, with a long continuous tradition in Arctic
exploration.
The mission, that could become permanent, could act, indeed, as a
precious "fly-wheel" at not much distance from the Polar ice cap.
An
eventual future availability of air or naval (on the pattern of those owned, or
upon which the Norskpolarinstitutt crafts may always rely on), from
Longyearbyen or Ny Ålesund, would offer to our research further and rich
prospects.
Allowing us to start from these places to carry out prominent
scientific "attacks", towards East and South East (Franz Jozef Land,
Arctic Russia, Siberia), as well as towards west (Greenland, Arctic Canada and
Alaska).
As we are well aware how solid pack-ices are, so to be able to make
land four-engined aircrafts!
Using the same Trans-Polar Route so brilliantly
inaugurated from the Norge flight (1926), that since many years enabled
commercial airlines to get advantage just from the Polar centrality.
Otherwise
"areal scientific reconnaissances", or low cost regional
surveys would become possible.
It could also be thinking to the attendance of
Italian researchers to Arctic cruises, like scholars from other countries do.
First
of all It could quietly been said that from this Base a strong impulse to a
better knowledge of the archipelago should be given. Especially from an
etno-anthropological point of view (and not only).
In this field, researches
were totally non-existent, at least up to the one carried out by me in 1994.
In
a second time the international airports of Oslo and Copenhagen (in addition to
Tromsø) could be used as relay, to carry out missions beyond the Svalbard, in
other Arctic regions, Euro-Asiatic as well as American.
When the economic and
financial situation of our country will return to "normalization," we
will be able, perhaps, to range more autonomously in the Arctic.
My deeper and
sincere wish is that from here we will able to make a scientific good job.
Like
the excellent-one our colleagues in Antarctic and on the Everest-K2 have
already done and they are still going on in doing it.
From: QUI BASE ARTICA DIRIGIBILE ITALIA, SVALBARD. DALLA TERRA DEGLI ORSI POLARI UNA RASSEGNA E UN INVENTARIO CULTURALE DEI POPOLI DEL GRANDE NORD
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E-Book e versione cartacea di grande formato - 16,99 x 24,41 - a colori e in bianco e nero (241 pp., 232 immagini, di cui 106 a colori, 204 note), I ediz.
(versione in bianco e nero: https://www.amazon.it/dp/152075048X )
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II ediz. cartacea (15,6 x 23,39), a colori e in bianco e nero (263 pp.).
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