Today in History—July 11: The Balloon-Based Polar Expedition Launches

No one had ever laid eyes on the North Pole, but many had died trying.

Swedish engineer Salomon August Andrée had an ambitious—and unusual—plan to become the first and in doing so catapult his country ahead of neighboring Norway, which had lately been winning the cold war of polar exploration.

Even though no humans had seen it, the terrain was understood: rock and ice, barren, not just devoid of human life but outright inhospitable to it. Instead of attempting this by foot, Andrée and his two companions, engineer Knut Frænkel and photographer Nils Strindberg, would travel via hydrogen-filled balloon. They named their “ship” Örnen (Swedish for “eagle”).

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Andrée theorized that the wind would carry them over the North Pole and, depending on conditions, straight on through to Alaska, Canada, or Russia. The balloon’s steering system—if you can call it that—consisted of sails and heavy ropes dragging below.

They brought scientific equipment, cameras, and supplies for a journey they estimated would last a week.

Basically, it was doomed.

On this day in 1897, during the launch from Dane’s Island, part of the Svalbard archipelago, about 600 miles from their target, the ropes tangled and either fell off or were cut off. The balloon was so weighed down that the men had to throw their sandbag ballast overboard just to gain the air.

And gain air they did: Within an hour, the balloon had drifted so high—much higher than planned—that spectators lost sight of it.

The men and the balloon were never seen again. That is, until a group of walrus hunters found their remains in 1930 on the Arctic island of Kvitøya, about 250 miles east of where they launched.

Their writing and film revealed that the balloon crashed after two days. Uninjured, the men attempted to reach civilization. They carried a boat, guns, sleds, champagne, sausages, cheese, a tent. But they lacked appropriate clothing and had ditched some food during the flight to lighten the balloon’s load.

They survived for weeks and trekked nearly 250 miles. By September they had set up camp on an ice floe. In October their base broke up. They moved ashore, where they all soon perished.

But their records—journals, photographs, and scientific observations—survived, letting the expedition tell their own story.

Famous Birthdays

1834: James McNeill Whistler—American-born artist known for his paintings of nocturnal London

1849: Harry Kellar—First great magician native to America

1883: Luis Carlos López— Colombian poet

1953: Leon Spinks—American boxer, world heavyweight champ in 1978