Andrée Strindberg Frænkel Memorial in Norway

In the late 19th century, scientists, researchers, and ambitious adventurers were scrambling to fill in unexplored regions of the world, prize among them being the North Pole, with Norway's remote Spitsbergen region as its starting point. One of these adventurers was Salomon August Andrée, an accomplished engineer who had pioneered the use of hydrogen balloons, hoping to bypass the barren Arctic ice fields by flying over them.

This way, Andrée aimed to document and photograph the North Pole and claim the victory for Sweden. On July 11, 1897, Salomon Andrée, Nils Strindberg, and Knut Frænkel departed from Danes Island to begin their grand adventure. Unfortunately, the expedition was doomed from the start: shortly after takeoff, the balloon unexpectedly lost altitude. In a frantic attempt to correct this, Andrée jettisoned his ballast, causing the balloon to rise rapidly.

At some point during the emergency, the aircraft's tow lines were lost, leaving the crew powerless to control its direction. After almost three days of flight, the crew was forced to make an emergency landing on the ice and carry on by foot. The men spent 82 days trudging through ice and snow and foraging for food before making it to solid ground on the island of Kvitøya. Not long after arriving, however, all three men perished.

The crew's disappearance remained a mystery for decades until August 5, 1930, when the Norwegian sealing ship Brattvaag stumbled upon the island. There, the sailors discovered the remains of the Andrée expedition, including rolls of camera film and Andrée's diary. To this day, the exact causes of the explorers' deaths remain disputed. Bea Uusma, a physician who has been researching the failed expedition for more than two decades, believes that Strindberg and Frænkel died first in a polar bear attack, with Andrée dying some time later by intentional opioid overdose.

Other theories suggest that all three contracted trichinosis from eating polar bear meat, or that they succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning. The site that witnessed the dark end of the Andrée expedition is now marked by a simple memorial honoring the men who met their lonely ends on Kvitøya.