[R] GAM Penalised Splines - Intercept

[Lucas Holland]

Hey all,

I'm using the gam() function inside the mgcv package to fit a penalised spline to some data. However, I don't quite understand what exactly the intercept it includes by default is / how to interpret it. 

Ideally I'd like to understand what the intercept is in terms of the B-Spline and/or truncated power series basis representation. 

Thanks!