Andrée's North Pole expedition
In the summer of 1897, engineer Salomon August Andrée, together with Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel, embarks on a high-profile polar expedition that has a fateful outcome. Their goal is to be the first people to reach the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon. But something goes very wrong and after only two days they are forced to make an emergency landing on the ice. They find themselves in a place that is not on the maps and no one knows where they are. What happens next remains unknown until their camp and remains are found 33 years later on the remote and deserted Kvitøya.
The North Pole Race
At the end of the 19th century, everything north of Spitsbergen was considered unexplored territory, a white spot on the world map. The world was in a geographical race, marked by many failed attempts to reach the northernmost point on earth - the North Pole.
Engineer Salomon August Andrée has already made a name for himself as a bold pioneer through his solo flights with his own hot air balloon Svea and his scientific experiments. When he came up with the idea of reaching the North Pole with a hydrogen balloon, he quickly attracted the interest of the Swedish cultural and scientific elite. At this time, the hydrogen balloon is a modern design and there is enormous faith in the new technology.
Andrée is praised for being a visionary and innovative thinker, and with support from prominent financiers such as Alfred Nobel and King Oskar II, the project is launched with great enthusiasm and optimism.
The plan is for Andrée and his expedition members not to enter the desolate ice desert, but instead to travel above it in their balloon. Once at the North Pole, they will release a buoy bearing the Swedish flag as proof of their achievement. They also plan to document their journey with photographs to map the unknown landscape.
Photo from Wikipedia.
First attempt fails
After a year of extensive preparations, including construction of the balloon, recruitment of expedition members and farewell festivities, the Andrée expedition is ready to take off from Danes Island in Svalbard in the summer of 1896. Here, on a small inhospitable rocky beach in the middle of the Arctic wilderness, European society has come to witness this historic moment. In addition to Andrée, the expedition includes meteorologist Nils Ekholm and 23-year-old physicist and photographer Nils Strindberg. They have never tested the balloon, and the departure, which was supposed to take place with pomp and circumstance, is a total failure and an anti-climax. The favourable wind conditions they had expected never materialised, and after two months they were forced to cancel the expedition and return home. The problems continue when Nils Ekholm, the expedition member with the best knowledge of Arctic conditions, decides to drop out. He realises that the gas leakage from the balloon is greater than they expected and demands that the problem be fixed and that the balloon be test flown. Andre does not consider that any action is necessary and this results in their separation. They recruit a new third expedition member: civil engineer Knut Fraenkel.
The Eagle takes off from Danes Island
On 30 May 1897, the expedition returns to Danes Island to resume preparations, and on 11 July, when the winds finally seem to be on their side, the balloon that Andrée names the Eagle takes off with the intention of heading for the North Pole. But things do not go according to plan. An unexpected gust of wind at take-off causes the balloon to lose altitude. In an urgent attempt to regain altitude, they eject 200 kg of ballast, causing the Eagle to suddenly rise too high. It is then that they realise that the balloon's tow lines have come loose, meaning they have lost the ability to steer. Andrée and his expedition are now completely at the mercy of the winds, with no control over their direction of travel. The balloon soon disappears into the clouds, and that will be the last thing the expedition ever sees.
Alone in the ice desert
It is wet and foggy, and the expedition members struggle to keep the balloon, which is covered in hoarfrost, in the air. In an attempt to maintain altitude, they are forced to dispose of large amounts of cargo, including the buoy that was intended to be dropped over the North Pole. But after just two days, they are forced to give up. They make an emergency landing at the 82nd parallel, 480 kilometres from the rocky shore of Danish Island, in the middle of the ice, with no one knowing where they are.
For three months, the three men struggle to pull their sleds and supplies across the ice, hoping to reach solid ground. Despite their efforts, which are hampered by the movement of the ice with the ocean currents, they soon realise that they are making little progress. They have no previous experience of the Arctic climate, glaciology, wildlife or anything else related to the harsh reality they now find themselves in. They hunt wildly for food, and from Andrée's diary entries it is clear that they are constantly struggling with stomach problems, having to use morphine and opium to relieve the pain.
The expedition reaches Kvitøya
On 5 October 1897, the expedition finally reached solid ground and landed on what is now marked on maps as Kvitøya. After 88 days of survival on the ice, they seem to have all the conditions to make it through a winter on the island. They are equipped with warm clothes, working rifles, medicines and plenty of food. This is where Andrée's diligent diary entries end abruptly. Under mysterious circumstances, the expedition members die one by one, probably only a few days after arriving on the island.
The Andrée expedition rediscovered - after 33 years!
For 33 years there has been total ignorance about what actually happened to Andrée and his polar expedition. There are many speculations, but no one has seen any trace of them since they left Danish Island on that summer day in 1897. It is not until 6 August 1930 that the situation changes dramatically, when the Norwegian sealing ship Brattvaag arrives by chance on the inaccessible island. There, two crew members make a sensational discovery. On the island, they find the remains of what appears to be a camp. They soon realise that they have rediscovered the legendary Andrée expedition. In addition to the remains of the three expedition members, they find Andrée's diary and a camera with film rolls that they later manage to develop. A picture now emerges of the three young men's arduous journey across the Arctic ice. Everything is carefully documented - except what happens on Kvitøya.
Andrée expert Bea Uusma's theory on the cause of death
There are many theories as to why the three expedition members died shortly after arriving on Kvitøya: freezing to death, lack of oxygen in the tent, vitamin A deficiency, scurvy, carbon monoxide poisoning, trichinosis... Author and physician Bea Uusma has spent almost 20 years researching the fate of the Andrée expedition and believes that an important clue is how the men were found in relation to each other on the island. In her book "The Expedition
Solving the Mystery of a Polar Tragedy", she describes her theory about how the three men died suddenly one by one.
It has been established that Strindberg dies first sinche he is the only one who has been buried. By examining the clothes he was wearing at the time of the burial, Bea Uusma concludes that a likely scenario is that he was attacked by a polar bear. She also believes that Fraenkel was injured in the same attack and later died inside the tent. Andrée's remains are found on a set of rocks. Next to him are his rifle and his diary, which he has carefully wrapped in a woollen jumper, and at the far end, a water-repellent balloon fabric. As if he thinks it will be left for posterity, that his expedition will not have been in vain. Darkness is approaching and he is all alone. He will sit in this place in total darkness for months. Bea Uusama believes that at this moment André decides to fall into a permanent sleep with the help of morphine and opium.
Nils and Anna
In the autumn before the departure of the Eagle that will change the fate of the expedition members lives forever, the youngest of them, Nils Strindberg, gets engaged to his great love, the piano teacher Anna Charlier. Anna, whose surname means gas balloon in French.
During all the tumult that takes place when the balloon takes off from Danes Island on that July day in 1897, Strindberg forgets to throw his farewell letter to his loved one as he had promised to do on departure. He later throws it down on the inaccessible island of Fuglesangen in the hope that it will eventually reach Anna. To this day, the letter has not been found.
After Strindberg is declared dead, Anna eventually moves to England where she marries another man. When the sensational discovery that the missing expedition has been found reaches her much later, Anna recovers some of the letters Nils wrote to her on the ice. At Gränna Museum today, you can see extracts from one of the letters and the photo of Anna that Nils Strindberg carried with him across the ice. When she dies later, aged 78, she leaves behind one last wish. On 4 September 1949, the day Nils Strindberg would have turned 77, the joint grave of Andrée, Fraenkel and Strindberg was opened and a silver box containing Anna's cremated heart was placed next to Nils una.
Some curiosities
- Prepared his reception. The gondola was packed with Russian roubles and US dollars and the finest clothes - a cravat and moose skin gloves. After the flight over the North Pole, the party would probably end up at a welcome banquet in Russia or Alaska.
- Homing pigeons. As a gift from the newspaper Aftonbladet, they have received 36 homing pigeons. The problem is that the pigeons have not been trained to find their way back. Only one pigeon is found, so it is shot by a skipper on a fishing vessel. The letter reads: "Good speed east 10 degrees south, all well on board. This is the third pigeon post. Andrée".
- Unnecessary load. The three men pull their 200kg sleds across the relentless ice. When they have to get rid of some of their cargo to keep going, they choose to keep a lot of odd items such as several encyclopaedias on the history of the world, a tablecloth, cravats, kites, padlocks, port wine and champagne.
- Last diary entry. The last thing Andrée writes in their diary as they sit snowbound in their tent on Kvitøya is: "It will be nice to get out and move around a bit." Andrée expert Bea Uusma believes that this indicates that they are neither sick nor afraid when they step ashore on Kvitøya. After this, the diary entries stop abruptly and the tracks cease.
- World news. The find on Kvitøya in 1930 became world news and an estimated 100 000 people followed the funeral procession of the three expedition members through Stockholm.
Sources: The Expedition – Solving the Mystery of a Polar Tragedy, Bea Uusma, The doomed polar expedition - P3 Documentary, Gränna Museeum, Stockholmskällan, Populär Historia.
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