Norman Vaughan

Norman Vaughan (born December 19, 1905 in Salem , Massachusetts , † December 23, 2005 in Anchorage , Alaska ) was an American polar explorer and sled dog handler.

Life

Vaughan was the son of a wealthy tanner and cobbler . In his youth he became enthusiastic about reports of the first polar expeditions and dropped out of his studies at Harvard in 1928 when he heard that Richard Evelyn Byrd was planning an Antarctic expedition. Byrd took him on to his team. In recognition of Vaughan's achievements during the Byrd Antarctic Expedition , which lasted from 1928 to 1930 , an Antarctic mountain, Mount Vaughan , was named after him.

With the knowledge gained on the expedition, he took part in a sled dog race as part of the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid ( New York ) in 1932.

During the Second World War , Vaughan was a Colonel sled dog handler in the US Army and was involved in rescue operations in Greenland .

At the age of 68 years Vaughan moved to Alaska after the divorce of Carolyn Muegge and its bankruptcy to start a new life. He then took part 13 times in the Iditarod , the longest dog sled race in the world, and caused an uproar at the presidential swearing in 1976, when he appeared as a representative of Alaska with sled dogs. In 1980 and 1984, he and the Alaskan ambassadors also officially took part in the parade.

In 1994, at the age of 88, he took part in an expedition that climbed Mount Vaughan, which was named after him. Three years later he organized the Norman Vaughan Serum Run to commemorate the delivery of diphtheria serum from Nenana to Nome in 1925 (see diphtheria epidemic in Nome ).

His plans to return to Mount Vaughan at the centenary in December 2005 failed in August of that year due to a lack of capital, so he postponed them until 2006.

Since Vaughan had promised his mother that he would never drink alcohol until he was 100, he drank his first glass of champagne on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2005 while preparing for this expedition. A few days later, Vaughan died on the morning of December 23, 2005 at the Alaska Medical Center.

plant

With Byrd at the Bottom of the World: The South Pole Expedition of 1928-1930 . Macmillan / McGraw-Hill School Pub. Co., 1992, ISBN 0-02-274969-1 .
My Life of Adventure . Stackpole Books, 1995, ISBN 0-8117-0892-6 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME	Vaughan, Norman
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Vaughan, Norman D.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American polar explorer and dog sled handler
DATE OF BIRTH	December 19, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH	Salem , Massachusetts , USA
DATE OF DEATH	December 23, 2005
Place of death	Anchorage , Alaska , USA