Norwegian activity in the southern Polar Regions began in 1892 with ship owner Lars Christensen’s Jason expedition led by Captain C. A. Larsen. Norway was also particularly active during the heroic age of the explorers, in which the achievement of the Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his team in being the first people to reach the South Pole on 14. December 1911 is well-known to many. Norway has since continued its interests in the frozen continent through its engagement in assuring the preservation and protection of Antarctica. Norway was, due to its active participation in IGY, among the original signatories to the Antarctic Treaty and one of the first 12 countries to form the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research in 1958. Norway played an active and important role in the preparation of the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, signed by the Antarctic Treaty Parties on 4 October 1991.
Norway’s recent Antarctic facilities include Troll station in Dronning Maud Land, a year-round facility that was first established as a seasonal station in 1990, then upgraded to a year-round station in 2005, and the 3000-m-long Troll Airfield. A small additional field station, Tor, is used for ornithological studies. They have also reestablished their station on Bouvetøya, an island between South Africa and Antarctica, which is the base of operations for a CEMP seal, penguin and bird monitoring program that started in the mid-1990s. The ice-strengthened vessel Lance has been used for research in polar waters since 1994. Norway is in the process of building a new national ice-strengthened research vessel, Kronprins Haakon, that will be operative both in the Arctic and the Southern Ocean from early 2018.