What makes a hero? Is it courage under fire, self-sacrifice, physical endeavor? Or is it something else? Stephen R. Bown calls Roald Amundsen "one of the greatest explorers of all time," so the Norwegian must surely qualify. He was, after all, the first man to sail the Northwest Passage, the first to reach the South Pole, and the first to see the North Pole. He said he was glad he hadn't been born later, because there would have been nothing left for him to do but go to the moon. But even Mr. Bown, a committed admirer, reveals a distinctly unheroic side to the man the Norwegian press called "the last Viking."
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