Listener Appreciation Week: The Pourquoi Pas and Roald Amundsen
The French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charcot joined the search for Roald Amundsen.
Listener Appreciation Week Day 4
Renowned French explorer Jean-Baptiste Charcot explored the polar regions for many years aboard his ship, the Pourquoi Pas. When fellow explorer Roald Amundsen's plane went missing in 1928, Charcot joined the search for the Norwegian. Amundsen himself was searching for the crashed Italian airship, Italia, and its captain Umberto Nobile.
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Written, edited, and produced by Rich Napolitano. Original theme music for Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs by Sean Sigfried.
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Rich Napolitano: On September 16th, 1936. The French barque Porquoi Pas was sunk off the southwest coast of Iceland near Alftanes, built in 1908 at St. Malo for an Antarctic expedition led by Jean Baptist Charcot. This impressive ship was designed for polar expeditions and was equipped with a motor, three laboratories, and even a library.
Charcot took the  Porquoi Pas on his polar expedition from 1908 to 1910 while spending winters in the Antarctic at Peterman Island. During his expedition, he made scientific discoveries, mapped Alexander Island and discovered a new island, which he named Charcot Island After himself. From 1918 to 1925, Charcot took the  Porquoi Pas on several missions in the North Atlantic, the English Channel, the Mediterranean, and the Faroe Islands gathering scientific data.
After 1925, [00:01:00] an aging Charcot no longer commanded the ship, but he continued on its Arctic voyages as the head of the expeditions. Aboard the  Porquoi Pas . He additionally visited Eastern Greenland and collected samples of flora and fauna. Jean Baptiste Charcot has a connection to another legendary explorer Norwegian rolled Amundsen.
In 1928, the  Porquoi Pas participated in the for the lost French Seaplane Latham 47 which had Amundsen and five others on board. The Latham 47 itself was searching for the missing expedition led by General Umberto Nobile of Italy, who was attempting to cross the North Pole in his dirigible Italia.
The occupants of the plane, including Amundsen, were never found. You can hear that entire story of Roald Amundsen in episode 67 of Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs. Later In 1934, Charcot was involved with a project in Greenland to study its indigenous people and their culture headed by Paul-Émile Victor. [00:02:00] Victor, along with Robert Gessain, Michel Perez, and Eigil Knuth trekked from the west coast of Greenland to the East Coast in just 44 days and lived among the peoples there.
In 1935, Charcot aboard the Pourqoui Pas returned to Greenland to reconnect with  Paul-Émile Victor, and other men, and he began mapping the island. Later that year on September 16th, Charcot and the Pourquoi Pas barely escaped a raging cyclone off the coast of Iceland by taking shelter at a small port town. In September of 1936, Charcot returned to Greenland again where he delivered supplies to Victor's mission and did some additional surveying.
On the 13th of September, the Pourquoi Pas stopped at Reykjavik to receive additional fuel and departed for St. Malo on September 15th. The following day, exactly a year after barely avoiding disaster. The ship was caught in another cyclone off of Iceland and was wrecked on the reefs of Ãlftanes at Mýrar, Iceland. Twenty-three crew were killed at the time of the wreck.
[00:03:00] Seventeen Others survived the wreck, but died before help could arrive. Only one man survived, Eugène Gonidec, master Steersman. Pourquoi Pas Point, Pourqoui Pas Island, and Terre Charcot in Antarctica were named in honor of the vessel and its storied captain. The wreck of the Pourquoi Pas was discovered by a diver in the 1960s, but it was not publicized and was soon forgotten.
In 1984, after the death of the diver who originally found the wreck archeologist, Jean-Yves Blot rediscovered the wreck in 12 meters of water laying flat on the ocean floor. The strong currents have battered the ship to pieces. Artifacts from the Wreck are housed in the National Museum in Reykjavik and the Musee de la Marine in Paris.
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