Generations dreamed of reaching the Earth’s northernmost point, finally succeeding in 1926. Ahead of the centennial, we remember the stories of those who valiantly came before – and failed.
Before humankind first reached the North Pole, it was theorised to be an open sea, a hollow shell and even the birthplace of the human race. The fight to be first was front-page news as nations raced to find Earth’s northernmost point. Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen finally won the race on 12 May 1926. Thanks to his valiant efforts, it is now textbook knowledge nearly 100 years later that the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean, covered in ice. Lesser known are the stories of the manifold failures and mishaps that came before its discovery.
“These were foolhardy expeditions combined with the sober pursuit of cutting-edge research data,” says Eystein Markusson, museum director of Svalbard Museum.
Svalbard – a remote, treeless archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole – is home to polar bears and the midnight sun. Longyearbyen, its icy capital, was the starting point for numerous expeditions thanks to its northernmost location and logistical support for Arctic travel.
By the 17th Century, Svalbard had become a whaling hub. The dangers of working in the brutally icy high North were well known, and men brought feathers, soil or a layer of moss from home to place in their own coffins. Those who died were buried at Likneset (“Corpse Point”) and Gravneset (“Grave Point”). In the early 18th Century, Russian trappers became the first to hunt year-round here, but Svalbard remained a perilous place to conduct research.
An 1861 attempt to find the Pole by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, a geologist and professor at the University of Stokholm, was thwarted when his reindeer ran away. Scientists in the early 1900s made several expeditions financed by the Prince of Monaco as more would-be explorers were attracted by the prospect of the Pole discovery.
After executing daring balloon flights across the Baltic Sea, Swedish engineer Salomon August Andrée decided he would succeed where dogs and sledges had failed by flying over the ice.
After an aborted first try in 1896 due to the wind blowing in the wrong direction, he returned the following year with photographer Nils Strindberg and engineer Knut Frænkel. They set off in a hydrogen balloon, tuxedos and Champagne packed for celebration, planning to fly over the North Pole and drop a Swedish flag in a matter of just a few hours. After liftoff, nothing was heard of them for 33 years.
Decades later, a Norwegian expedition stumbled upon the wreckage and the three men’s remains. Their recovered diaries fill in the gaps: during their ascent, the long tow lines they used for steering tangled and they lost control of the balloon. As they drifted farther north, rain and fog caused the balloon to ice over, and after just 65 hours in the air, they were forced to make a crash landing. The men then embarked on a 400km, three-month trek on foot, eventually reaching the small island of Kvitøya, where they perished trying to overwinter. Alongside the crew and their diaries was Strindberg’s unexposed camera film – still able to be developed after all the years in the ice. The three men were returned and buried in Sweden. Seventeen years later, when Strindberg’s fiancée Anna Charlier died, she had her heart cremated to be buried alongside him. (BBC)
