Episode 4: Frozen in Time

Photos by Nils Strindberg, 1897

In this episode, I tell the story of three intrepid Swedish explorers who set out to find the geographic North Pole at the height of Polar Mania. Many years after they disappeared, their camp was found. Exposed photographic negatives were taken back to Sweden, developed, retouched, and printed. What they revel is a remarkable visual diary of the survival of the three men, who struggled to survive in a harsh environment.

14th of July 1897: Our long guide-line has now broken off. Constant fog. No land and no birds, seals nor walruses. Another touch. 6:20 the balloon rose to a great height but we opened both valves and were down again at 6:29.

8:11pm we jumped out of the balloon.

"Large even ice floes with pools of sweet drinking water and here and there a tender-fleshed young polar bear!"

Map and timeline of the Andrée expedition (courtesy history.net)

In what seems like the beginning of a bad joke, the first passengers ever on a hot air balloon were a sheep, a duck, and a rooster, and they flew for about 15 minutes before crashing to the ground. I have no information about whether the passengers survived but would totally watch if this story was made into a Netflix show.

I highly recommend The Ice Balloon, a fascinating book that recounts the Andrée expedition as well as weaving tales of some other Arctic explorations.