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The Lost Andree's Balloon Expedition | 1897 | Time Travels
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Apr 16, 2025
Salomon August Andrée was one of the most famous Norwegian explorers of the late 1800s. In 1897, he set off on an expedition to the north pole, the most ambitious journey of its time. Unfortunately, his expedition was disastrous from the start. Subscribe to Time Travels Here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWTZNAGQxEW1NrZHtK6aAqw?sub_confirmation=1 For 30 years, Andree and his team were lost in the Arctic wilderness. In 1985, a team of explorers found Andree's wreckage and excavated his remains. What happened to Andree and his team during their journey to the north pole remains a mystery. Watch this video to find out more about this lost expedition and its mysterious end! More Time Travels With Michael Brady: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaMfiT0fYh94DmwcZIV8CYNT3gNuL37gn Journey through time to uncover amazing, dramatic and bizarre stories from the past - but also ask the questions, what does it look like now? And what if things had happened differently? From ancient Rome and colonial Australia, to Victorian era London, early-settler New Zealand and beyond - come with us as we uncover the the pivotal turning points in history that changed the destiny of empires and transformed our world. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/historytimetravels/ Snapchat: https://story.snapchat.com/p/cc960ce1-9281-4450-b815-654114302d99/827084423782400 #History #TimeTravels #MikeBrady #Historylesson #andreeexpedition #doomed #starvation
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0:00
It's a blustery cold day on the ice in the Arctic Circle in 1930
0:04
A ship, the Isbjorn, has stopped and put men ashore. And here they've uncovered a camp, or more exactly, the remnants of a camp
0:11
The canvas tents are shredded and the fire has been long dead. In fact, this fire last burnt out 30 years ago
0:18
Not far away, I found the skeletons of three men. In 1897, Swedish explorer, adventurer and scientist S.A. Andrej and his two compatriots
0:33
departed on an epic mission of discovery. Their goal? To traverse the Arctic by hot air balloon
0:39
Unfortunately, what had begun as a mission of discovery quickly turned to tragedy
0:43
and the expedition was lost in the Arctic, their fate unknown for more than 30 years
0:52
Along with the bodies of the explorers, a camera was found with them that had documented the journey and their final grim days trapped on the ice
1:01
Hello time travellers, it's your friend Mike Brady, and this is the true story of André's lost 1897 Arctic expedition
1:10
Through the 1800s there was an epic international race taking place
1:26
New technology meant that exploring the uncharted parts of our world was finally possible
1:30
and there was nowhere more distant, remote and forbidding but also enticing than the poles
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the arctic circle in the north and antarctica in the south became a beacon to nations trying
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to vie for the top positions as leaders of science and culture it was a new form of colonialism
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the great continents had been divided and subdivided into territories and states but now
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the great ice fields at the top and bottom of the globe would be divvied up and ships had long been
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the main method of exploring the ice but they could become stuck and crushed in the ice flows
2:05
For centuries, humankind had dreamt of flight, and soaring above the hostile frozen sea was an attractive idea
2:12
The hot air balloon was the dream mode of transport for adventurers
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and even popular science fiction authors were quick to hype up its abilities. Jules Verne made the balloon the star of his novel around the world in 80 days
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The world was seized by balloon exploration fever, and smaller European nations were keen to give it a go
2:34
Now, this is where S.A. Andre came into the picture, a dreamer, a doer, and a daredevil to his core
2:42
Salomon August Andre was born in 1854 in southern Sweden. He had a keen interest in engineering and graduated from Sweden's Royal Institute of Technology
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In 1876, he had a fateful meeting. He was working at the Swedish Pavilion at the Centennial Expedition in Philadelphia in the U.S
2:57
when he encountered the balloonist John Wise. Now, Wise had been building balloons since before Andre was even born
3:04
and had even developed the first balloon to carry mail in 1859
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Now, although they now seem rickety, this was cutting-edge technology for the time
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and it made a huge impact on the young Andre. He quickly caught balloon fever
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It became a lifelong pursuit for him to acquire his own balloon and explore the unknown parts of the world
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It was years later in 1894 that Arctic explorer A.E. Nordenskjoll pitched an idea to Andre
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who had made a bit of a name for himself in the field of Arctic research. Nordenskjold had previously sailed through the Arctic as part of an expedition in 1876
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He knew firsthand the atrocious, difficult conditions that would be faced by any ships passing through the area
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So he floated, pun intended, the idea of Andrei using a balloon tethered to the ground
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so they could rise above the ice and see what lay beyond. But Andrei wasn't just content with merely seeing what lay beyond the ice sheets
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he saw potential in the idea of using a balloon instead of a ship for the entirety of the expedition
4:07
Ships were slow and took weeks, if not months, to reach their intended destination
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Then their progress could be hammered by the ice flows. If they were stopped in their tracks, the crews could be stuck on the ice for literal years
4:19
This happened to an expedition in 1845, led by the British explorer Sir John Franklin
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129 men and two ships simply disappeared into the ice. By August 1895, the idea was fully formed in Andre's mind
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and he presented his plan for an expedition to a geographical congress being held in London
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While he was there, he bemoaned the difficulties of polar exploration that had been faced by previous generations of explorers
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and all other areas of the Earth offered dangers. Yes, but dangers presented opportunities as well
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For example, deserts contained oases to rest in, and jungles offered rivers to travel along
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In the Arctic, he said, cold only kills. There were no oases, no vegetation, no fuel
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The Arctic was simply a field of ice covered in gigantic blocks
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Now, on top of this, the Arctic was only navigable at certain times of the year
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with the remainder being too cold, too dark, and too maddening to safely explore
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Now, the only transport available for true Arctic exploration had been the sledge pulled by dogs or men
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and yet none had so far managed to successfully cross the Arctic in one
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and reach the geographic North Pole. He said that the time had come to seek out other means of transport
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and believed that, quote, we need not pursue the investigation very far to discover such a means
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one that appears to be created for the purpose in question. I refer to the balloon
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He estimated that the balloon would need to carry three men in a spacious basket
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how scientific instruments and a camera to document the journey would also need enough food and to remain aloft for 30 days
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Now, it needed an emergency sled and weapons to defend themselves in case something went wrong
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He put the cost of this expedition at $38,000, which was a fortune for the time and planned for the balloon to travel at an altitude of 250 metres or 820 feet in the air low enough to be below the clouds but high enough to be above the fog
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He declared that, quote, it is possible in such a balloon to cross the Arctic plains
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It was a bold plan, but there was good reason to believe it might work
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The Arctic was a pretty stable temperature, which meant that the balloon wouldn't have the same changes
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in elevation it would have in less extreme areas, At the proposed time of year, the sun would always be shining
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which meant that the balloon would always be able to navigate, and there was nothing for a guide rope to get caught on in the vast icy plains
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And with the camera they were taking, it would have been possible to fully document the journey and finally fill in the great blank spot that was the north of the globe
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and acquire, as Andre put it, greater knowledge of the geographical aspect of the Arctic region
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than would otherwise be obtained in centuries. Had this expedition been successful
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it would have made Andre and his companions the first men to reach the North Pole
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and would have validated a new and exciting means of transportation Balloons had been used before on the small scale
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but this would be the first time that such a long distance journey would take place
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over unknown terrain With this balloon, Andre hoped to finally conquer the Arctic for all of humankind
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Now the funding for the expedition was raised by private donors because despite André's confidence
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the Swedish government declined to fund such a risky venture. Fair enough
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But luckily for André, Alfred Nobel was a prominent philanthropist of the time
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and was fascinated by the plan as soon as he had heard about it. The Nobels sought out André and provided the majority of the funding for the expedition
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However, King Oscar II, the Swedish king, was also supportive of the plan
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even if the Swedish government wasn't. The North Pole was one of the last great challenges of exploration
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and Oscar wanted it to be reached by a Swede. These two men provided enough money to get the expedition off the ground, literally
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With funding secured, the balloon was built in Paris and dubbed the Eagle
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In the summer of 1896, the first attempt at an expedition was launched
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André was accompanied by companions, the two Nilses, Nils Strindberg, an assistant professor of physics
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and Nils Eckholm, a meteorologist. The three men travelled to a station built in Svalbard
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and set up their balloon waiting for prevailing winds. But these winds never came
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and the opportunity to launch the expedition was lost. Ekholm spectacularly resigned from the team
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and he was annoyed by the weather setbacks, to be sure, but he had other more serious concerns
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The balloon just didn't seem up to scratch. He ran his own checks and figured that the balloon was leaking enough hydrogen gas
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that it could never stay afloat long enough to reach the pole. The balloon's fabric panels had been stitched together by hand
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and around 8 million tiny holes in the stitching were slowly letting the gas out
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By his calculations, it was losing about 68 kilograms of liftability every single day
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and would only be able to stay aloft for 17 days, not the 30 days required to transit the pole
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He threatened to resign from the expedition until a better balloon was produced. Andre was furious about the criticism and even turned to deception
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He began to secretly top the balloon up with gas so it didn't appear to be leaking as much
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One of the project engineers found out, and he told Eckholm. Totally outraged by the situation, he immediately left the project
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and was eventually replaced by a younger engineer named Knut Frankel. In 1897, the team tried again, and this time the wind was favourable
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Finally, they succeeded in leaving their base of operations in Svalbard on the 11th of July
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Strindberg wrote to his brother that he expected to reach the pole in 30 to 60 hours
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and after that they didn't care where the wind took them, though they were hoping for Alaska
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Now, should the balloon have failed, he was unconcerned, because they had brought a sledge and the weapons and supplies with them
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which would make them just as well equipped, he said, as other expeditions as far as that is concerned
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Now, as soon as the balloon lifted off, two of the three guiding ropes were lost
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which not only diminished the ability to steer, but caused a change in weight that would present difficulties for the rest of the expedition
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The balloon catapulted upwards, which caused a change in temperature that tore a hole in the seam of its fabric panels
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It was then carried to the northeast and began to lose altitude. Falling into the harbour, in order to lift the balloon again
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the crew was forced to ditch nine bags of sand. This managed to get the Eagle into the air once again
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It drifted north at a speed of around 20 miles an hour and then disappeared from view
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It was definitely an inauspicious start to the expedition, and although nobody knew it yet
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this would be the last time that any of the three men on board would ever be seen alive again
11:00
Several photographs were taken of the balloon leaving Svalbard, including one of the moment when the balloon actually touched the water
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Now, all three of the expedition members kept a diary, which provides a remarkable insight into the tragic events
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that took place in the following weeks. For the first day, things were going just fine
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André's diary is filled with observations of the colours of the snow. While Frankel recorded his weather observations
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And Strindberg, his astronomical ones. At 7 o'clock the next morning, the winds faltered
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leaving the balloons stranded for nearly an hour. When the wind finally returned, it was in a westerly direction rather than the north
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But the morale on board was still high. And Strindberg wrote that, pleasant feeling prevails
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Now that afternoon, the balloon sank in height and began to bounce along the ice, making Strindberg seasick
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They were forced to ditch more ballast to regain altitude. They also flew over the first polar bear that they had seen, although this would not be the last they would have an encounter with
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On the 14th, the balloon had fallen once again, and they landed for the final time
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Quote, worn out and famished. The balloon crashed into the ice and they were stranded
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They'd been floating for just three days and were still about 300 miles from the North Pole
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They spent a week at this landing site, loading up their sledges and preparing for a long trek to the southeast to a depot that had been prepared for them in Franz Josef Land The North Pole was no longer their objective They were now in a fight for their lives now the three men spent weeks pulling sledges across hostile icy terrain and keeping their
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spirits high as best they could on the 25th strindberg wrote a letter to his fiancee wishing
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her a happy birthday and describing the journey, although of course he had no way to post it
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On the 31st, Frankel went snow blind, and to make matters worse, they discovered, through
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measurements of the stars, that the movement of the ice had taken them west rather than
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east, and all their weeks of effort to reach Russia had been useless
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On the 4th of August, they gave up on trying to go east, with Andre writing in his diary
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that they could surmount neither the current nor the ice. They decided to change course
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and head instead to the southwest. By this time, the temperature had dropped
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to negative 2 degrees Celsius and Frankel developed diarrhoea from the canned food
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and was given opium. The lack of good food was becoming serious at this point
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and André suggested that they eat bear meat raw, which apparently tasted like oysters
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They were also able to hunt on the ice with their firearms and eat what they could. It was a pretty dire situation
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They made a blood pancake from bear's blood and oatmeal, which they fried in butter
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And Strindberg made a soup from algae that he'd gotten from the water. It sounds delicious
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But not surprisingly, Frankel then had stomach pains and had to take morphine
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At this point, it was September, about two months since they'd set off on their 30-day voyage
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and the ice was proving to be an incredibly harsh environment. While they'd been trying to travel southwest, the ice had been drifting southeast
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meaning they were essentially walking on the spot, making no progress at all
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On the 17th, André wrote that the snow had begun to fall, and Frankel had an injured foot that prevented him from pulling his sledge
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They were nearly out of meat, and the wind had pinned them down for days. The situation was not good, but they had not given up yet either
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On the 19th, André shot two seals, and they replenished their supplies. That same day, he built a small house out of snow
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and the three men prepared to settle in for the long winter in their new home. Unfortunately, on the 2nd of October
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the ice that the house was built on top of broke apart, and the three were almost pulled into the ocean
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The trio built another ice house on the 4th of October, this time on White Island
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The last diary entry was dated about four days later, when Andre wrote that it was
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fine to be able to sleep here on the first land as a contrast with the drifting ice out upon the
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ocean where we constantly heard the cracking, grinding and din. Andre's optimism is touching
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but it was short-lived. His diary entries ended here. Now within the next few days the three men were killed somehow. The exact cause remains a mystery
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It's likely that Andre knew at this point that there was no hope of survival, but he
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was keeping a brave face for any potential explorers that might stumble across their camp, and probably hoping against hope that rescue was on the way
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Of course, it wasn't. The icy North Pole became their grave. In Sweden, the expedition was thought of as being lost after only a few weeks, because
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it was supposed to take just 30 days. Now, the steering lines that had been lost on the departure of the balloon, as well as
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reports of a storm that the balloon had obviously been sailing into, made it seem clear that
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the Eagle had been forced down without getting very far into the Arctic at all
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The expedition became famous across the world, and finding the remains of the three explorers
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was a goal for many future expeditions into the Arctic. The three men became heroes in Sweden
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Even though they had been lost in the attempt, they had tried to do something never previously thought of
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to further the boundaries of science. And that was worth praise. After decades of that information
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it probably seemed as though the expedition would never be found. The trio was lost without a trace
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and slowly disappeared into the history books. But then, 30 years later, something incredible happened
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In 1930, the Bratvarg Expedition, a Norwegian mission to study glaciers and expand Norwegian control of the Arctic
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reached White Island to hunt and map the landscape. And while they were there
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one of the scientists noticed part of a boat which was sticking up out of the ground
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It was frozen in the ice and filled with scientific equipment. And nearby was a boat hook engraved with simple words
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Andres Polar Expedition 1896. But worse was to come. Investigating the site, they made a grisly discovery
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It was half a human body, Andres to be exact, whose torso had been eaten by polar bears
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sometime in the last 30 years. In the boat with the remains of Frankel
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and nearby was the grave of Strindberg, who had been buried beneath rocks originally
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but was dug up and partially eaten by polar bears as well. Now, all of the men could be identified
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even though they were skeletonized because their shirts had their names and their initials monogrammed into them
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The journals and bodies that had been found at the site were recovered and taken back on board with the Norwegian expedition
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Aside from the journals, the Norwegians made an incredible find. The intact expedition camera with its film negatives
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Now the whole ordeal had been photographed. Over the months trapped in the ice, Strindberg didn't stop recording the journey with his camera until his death
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No much of the film is exposed to the elements and destroyed. Over 93 photographs have been recovered since the remains of the expedition were found in 1930 There a photograph of Frankel and Andre standing over the body of a polar bear that they had killed
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Another photograph shows the three of them pulling a sled that Strindberg was able to take using time exposure
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Now when word reached Sweden that the bodies of the explorers were coming home, arrangements for a spectacular funeral were arranged
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The Svenskun, the same ship that had taken the three men to Svalbard in 1897
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was arranged to carry their remains to Stockholm. On the 5th of October, with an escort of five navy destroyers
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five aircraft and hundreds of civilian boats, and with church bells ringing out across Stockholm
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the Svenskun docked, and the bodies of the men were received on the pier by a vast crowd
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Among them was King Gustav V, and he greeted the bodies with the following words
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Strindberg's fiancée, Anna, finally received the letters he had written to her more than 30 years before
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and when she eventually died in 1949, her body was buried next to her new husband
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but her heart was removed and buried next to the urn containing Strindberg's ashes
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Also shown within the photographs is the immense ingenuity displayed by the men
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There is a photograph of a fork that Andre had made for Frankel, built of strung wire
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because the polar bear meat had bent the cutlery that they had taken with them. Numerous photos of the campsites were taken
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as well as of the polar bears that they encountered on their long trek back towards civilization
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The most famous photographs taken on the expedition were from the 14th of July
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when the eagle was lying on its side and all hope of getting the balloon to fly again was abandoned
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These dramatic images show the desolation and loneliness of the landscape and really reinforce just how isolated these three men really were
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Now despite the extraordinary photographic record and the diaries of the men involved
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it isn't immediately clear what exactly killed them. Numerous theories have been brought forward
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which range from poisoning to being eaten by polar bears, but there are a few tantalizing
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clues that might tell us what actually happened to them. Andre didn't write a final farewell in
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his diary, it simply stops, but the deaths can't have been too sudden, because he appears to have
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wrapped the diary in grass and put it underneath his body to protect it. The cans of food had been
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sealed in with lead solder, but samples taken from a fingernail in a glove didn't reveal the toxic
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lead levels that would be required to kill somebody. According to the diary entry, spirits were high
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and the men had not suffered from psychosis or fallen out with one another. There is one chilling
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clue to their fate, however. Andre was found with his gun next to him, as if he were prepared to make
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final stand. Polar bears are one of nature's fiercest hunters and are particularly aggressive
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towards humans. They will hunt and attack humans for food, unlike many other predators. It's entirely
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likely that the three men died in a standoff with one or more polar bears. Maybe Andre was
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fatally wounded, carefully wrapped his diary up and kept his gun next to him. There was a tragic
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end to the fatally flawed expedition. If Andre had just listened to Eckholm way back at the start
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and built a new and more stable balloon, the trio might have made it
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But what if they had? Would it have changed anything in the history of science
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Well, when it comes to the scientific validity of the mission, Andre has faced some severe criticism over the years
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It's been argued that the entire expedition was simply an exercise in madness
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and that his national and personal pride refused to let him recognize this
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and his insistence on carrying on anyway led himself and the two others to their deaths
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However, it's unfair to claim that there was nothing to this mission beyond pride
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If, in another world, the expedition had succeeded, mankind would have reached the North Pole 30 years earlier than it did in real life
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The camera carried with them would have charted the landscape, offering new insights into geography and possible land routes into the area
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The meteorological discoveries made would have provided information that was otherwise totally inaccessible to scientists of the time period
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and far from being an exercise in vanity, in some ways Andre was ahead of his time
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Flying, rather than walking to the North Pole, quickly became the most effective method in the following decades
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The first completed journey to the North Pole took place aboard an airship in 1926
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and after this, the plane became the chosen method. The idea behind the expedition was sound
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but the balloon was the most technologically advanced method of transport for its time, its construction was just not up to par, and Andre hoped to ignore it to appease
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his financial backers. Had Andre's expedition succeeded, it's likely to have produced a renewed
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interest in the possibility of balloon travel at the time. At the very least, balloon exploration
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For traversing dangerous regions like the Arctic and the Antarctic, the balloon would have proven
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to be the most successful method of transport, and future expeditions prior to airships and planes
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would probably have tried to replicate the feat. Parts of the balloon and the sled were retrieved
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and put on display from the 1930s on, along with artifacts from the mission
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Now today, at the Tromso Polar Museum, you can see some of those artifacts
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the last monument to the bravery and foolish pride of S.A. Andre and the pioneering spirit of adventure and engineering
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that drove humankind to do incredible, and sometimes silly, things. Hello time travellers, thank you so much for watching this video
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If you enjoyed it, leave a comment below and don't forget to subscribe to the channel. Until next time, remember, history doesn't repeat, it certainly echoes
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