To obtain strong financial backing for the next expedition, Roald Amundsen came up with a scientific purpose – to determine the North Magnetic Pole. But the expedition was mainly in search of the North-West Passage.
In 1903, Amundsen set out from Christiania with a crew of six. The ship passed through the west coast of Greenland, Baffin Island, and Canada. The expedition had to put in strenuous efforts to overcome the hurdles of ice flows, fog and shallow water. They made their first landfall at a natural harbour on King William Island. The expedition stayed there for two years to do research, and to build observatories.
After two years, they left the island, and travelled to their destination. They had highly accurate instruments to determine the North Magnetic Pole. They included observations of such high accuracy that they provided the experts on polar magnetism with sufficient data.
Unfortunately, it was later found that Amundsen never reached the real North Magnetic Pole as it had moved about 48 kilometres to the north of where he thought it was. However, the fact that the pole had been moving was of huge scientific significance.