Inspired by Fridtjof Nansens, who had allowed his ship “Fram” to be immured by the pack ice of the Eastern Arctic in 1893, in the hope of thus drifting to the North Pole, Roald Amundsen sails out of Tromsø aboard the “Maud” on 16 June 1918. But the expedition turns into a disaster: excessive drift ice forces the expedition to spend the winter in Siberia, where the expedition leader is injured by a bear and suffers from poisoning. The second winter, too, is spent in Siberia, where Amundsen “adopts” his now famous "Eskimo children" - they were actually Chukchi. The plan to reach the Pole by sled is rejected. Instead, the “Maud” heads for Alaska in 1920. From here, Amundsen makes his first attempts at reaching the Pole by aeroplane in 1923.