Follow these guidelines when paraphrasing and summarizing from sources:

Exercise: read these pages from the book Scott & Amundsen, and on note cards do the activities below.

1. Paraphrase the passage on page 488 giving Amundsen’s explanation of why he wanted all five men to plant the flag together.
2. Paraphrase the passage in the first paragraph on page 487 describing how the Norwegians felt as they approached the South Pole.
3. Summarize the passage from page 488 telling how the explorers commemorated their arrival at the Pole in words and photographs.
4. Summarize the passage on page 487 telling how and why Hanssen arranged to have Amundsen reach the Pole first.
5. Quote the paragraph containing the actual words of Amundsen as they planted the flag.

December 15^th, a Friday, dawned—if one can speak of dawn when the sun circles overhead—bright and clear. They finished breakfast and packed up a little quicker than usual, and set off on the last few miles. The going was mixed: sometimes good, sometimes heavy in patches of loose snow. They strained their eyes, staring, staring to see what lay ahead, pretending to each other, but not to themselves, they were not nervous or worried—what if, after all, a Union Jack was there to greet them? But hard as they stared, they could see nothing but the endless, unbroken snow ahead.

Helmer Hanssen, as usual, was leading: the best dog-driver and the best navigator. With about eight miles to go, he called back to Amundsen to go up into the lead.

"Why?" asked Amundsen.

"Because, " Hanssen slowly replied, "I can’t get the dogs to run if nobody runs in front." This was a lie of sorts. The dogs were spurting so the snow flew up; they needed no forerunner now. But Hanssen had no wish to be first at the Pole. That honour belonged to Amundsen. So Amundsen went ahead. He was still there, when the dog drivers, who had been carefully watching their sledge-meters the last few miles cried out, in chorus: "Halt!" The time was three o’clock in the afternoon.

It was the journey’s end; they had reached the Pole.

And Amundsen? "So we arrived and were able to plant our flag at the geographical South Pole," he wrote. "God be thanked!"

That was all.

Scott was 360 miles behind, still fighting his way up Beardmore Glacier.

When the navigators cried "Halt!" and the Norwegians had arrived as close to the so desirable point as they were provisionally able to decide, this is what happened:

Without a word, they shook hands with each other. Then Amundsen got out the Norwegian flag, which had been bent to a pair of ski sticks lashed together the night before in readiness. But as he put it,

I had decided that we would all take part in the historic event; the act itself of planting the flag. It was not the privilege of one man, it was the privilege of all those who had risked their lives in the fight and stood together through thick and thin. It was the only way I could show my companions my gratitude here at this desolate and forlorn place . . . . Five roughened, frostbitten fists it was that gripped the post, lifted the fluttering flag on high and planted it together as the very first at the Geographic South Pole.

As the improvised flagstaff entered the snow, Amundsen pronounced these words: "So we plant you, dear flag, on the South Pole, and give the plain on which it lies the name King Haakon VII’s Plateau."

Amundsen then photographed the scene.

Bjaaland, who had brought along a snapshot camera as part of his personal gear, also took some pictures. It was as well that he did. Afterwards, it turned out that Amundsen’s camera was damaged and Bjaaland’s photographs were all that remained. Thus it was that attainment was recorded by snapshots at the Pole.

The Eskimo-like figures of four Norwegians stand in their Netsilik pattern of anorak under the Norwegian flag streaming in the breeze, next to a pair of skis, and a dog: not forgetting the dog. It is artless, but it neatly sums up all the whys and wherefores.