Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T10:55:13.467Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Could the members of the 1897 Andrée balloon expedition have survived?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2018

Björn Lantz
Björn Lantz*
Affiliation:
Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

After making a final landing with their hydrogen balloon on the Arctic pack ice on 14 July 1897 at 82°56′N 29°52′E, expedition members Salomon August Andrée, Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel began a slow march with very heavily laden sledges over the ice to try to reach a depot at Cape Flora. Two fundamental errors regarding where to go and what to bring sealed their fate. This note will explore the theory that, given the information they had at the time, the explorers should not have made these mistakes. In fact, the expedition members could have survived if they had instead travelled directly to their other depot at Seven Islands with more lightly laden sledges.

Keywords

Arctic explorationAndrée balloon expeditionAndrée diariesArctic ice drift
Type
Research Note
Information
Polar Record , Volume 54 , Issue 3 , May 2018 , pp. 234 - 236
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andrée, S. A., Strindberg, N., & Frænkel, K. (1978). Med örnen mot polen. Uddevalla: Niloe. (Published in English as The Andrée diaries: Being the diaries and records of S.A. Andrée.)Google Scholar
Bergslien, K. (1893). Kart over Fridtjof Nansen’s polar expedition. Kristiania: Cammermeyer’s Boghandel.Google Scholar
Capelotti, P. J. (2013). Shipwreck at Cape Flora. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
Halsey, L. G., & Stroud, M. A. (2011). Could Scott have survived with today’s physiological knowledge? Current Biology, 21(12), R457–R461.Google Scholar
Huntford, R. (1997). Nansen. London: Abacus.Google Scholar
, J. M. W. (1931). The Andrée diaries. Polar Record, 1(1), 31–33.Google Scholar
Kwok, R., Spreen, G., & Pang, S. (2013). Arctic sea ice circulation and drift speed: decadal trends and ocean currents. Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans, 118(5), 2408–2425.Google Scholar
Nansen, F. (1897). Farthest north. Whitehall Gardens: Archibald Constable.Google Scholar
Nansen, F. (1902). The Norwegian North Polar Expedition 1893–1896: scientific results. London: Longmans, Green & Co.Google Scholar
Uusma, B. (2013). Expeditionen: min kärlekshistoria. Stockholm: Norstedts. (Published in English as The expedition: the forgotten story of a polar tragedy.)Google Scholar