The only one who showed signs of emotion at our departure was the sky, and it did so with great intensity. When we weighed anchor on the night of June 16th to 17th, it was raining heavily. Otherwise, the night was quiet and dark, and only our closest friends had come aboard to bid us farewell. The Norwegian polar explorer Roald Amundsen (1872 - 1928) set out in 1903 with his ship Gjöa to navigate the Northwest Passage. In this travelogue by Amundsen (translated into German by Pauline Klaiber), he recounts the thrilling and eventful journey through the labyrinth of Arctic islands in northern America. The journey with the former fishing vessel Gjöa lasted from 1903 to 1907. When the whaling ship Charles Hanson finally approached him in the Bering Strait, he was certain he was the first.