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Ninety years ago, the remains of Andrée’s polar expedition were found on an inaccessible island in the Arctic Ocean.
Samuel August Andrée, Knut Frænkel and Nils Strindberg disappeared without a trace on their hydrogen balloon on their way to the North Pole more than three decades earlier. Now the question of what happened to the three polar explorers finally got its answer. But the mystery of why the expedition perished at Vitön, when they had just reached the mainland, has continued to elude posterity.
The last notes that the expedition leader Andrée wrote in his diary were appalling and have only been partially interpreted. The journal has not been analyzed since 1931.
The diary, which preceded the disappearance of the Andréee Expedition, must undergo at least a dozen different analyzes. With the XRF method, you can get a visualization of where the pencil text is under the mold. It is impossible to see with the naked eye.
Photo: Johanna Åkerberg Kassel
Bea Uusma, researcher, Author and expert on the cause of death of the Andrée Expedition, he has now received special permission to analyze the hard-to-read, mold-covered text using modern technology. Prior to this, he has assembled a reference group with leading Swedish experts in methods of analysis and preservation of paper for the material.
Read more: This is what happened when the remains of the Andrée Expedition were found 90 years ago
The notebook was found severely corroded from 33 years without protection in Vitön. Only a few words have been read. The last time anyone tried to analyze the diary was in 1931.
Work began last Monday at the National Heritage Board’s cultural heritage laboratory in Visby.
– We just finished the analysis of the first week, and these have been the funniest days of my professional life. Just getting permission to do this is great, says Bea Uusma.
SA Andrée in his office where he planned the balloon trip over the North Pole in 1897.
Photo: Grenna museum
This journal is usually put never produced. Notes are the most fragile and sensitive material left after the Andrée Expedition and are handled with great care. For this reason, Bea Uusma brings with her a messenger from the Center for the History of Science, where the diary is usually kept, who is responsible for it.
Why is this journal so interesting?
– This text precedes what causes their death. This is the last to be written about Vitön. Because the pages are covered in mold, only a third of the text can be read with the naked eye, says Bea Uusma.
What do you hope to get from your survey?
– My expectations are extremely high. Even now, after a few days, I realize that we can write about history. We will find additional pieces of the puzzle as to why the members of the expedition died in Vitön. But it will take time. We are in the midst of advanced digital imaging, where we gather data from many different surveys, says Bea Uusma.
What remains of SA Andrée’s last diary from 1897 are three loose leaves with text on 4.5 pages. Only a third of the text has been previously interpreted.
Photo: Johanna Åkerberg Kassel
Theories about what happened on the Vitön expedition are based on interpretations made by the newspaper in the 1930s, according to Bea Uusma.
– If we want to do the right thing, we must put aside all the previous research and start over from the beginning. I have to start from scratch and redo the entire interpretation, both in terms of the readable text and what we find in the part of the text that is now not visible to the naked eye, he says.
In July 1897 the Andrée Expedition took off Hot air balloon from then Spitsbergen overlooking the North Pole. There, a buoy would be launched as proof that the three Swedes were the first to arrive at the mythical place. But the three polar explorers disappeared without a trace. Only 33 years later were his remains found in isolated Vitön in the Arctic Ocean.
Among other things, two notebooks of the expedition leader, Salomon August Andrée, were found at the camp. One was carefully wrapped in shoe hay and wrapped in a sweater and water-repellent balloon fabric. Apparently in the hope that one day they would find him and tell the outside world what happened to the polar expedition.
This is how the text can appear in the digital processing of analyzes carried out by Bea Uusma together with cultural heritage researchers from the Swedish National Heritage Board.
Photo: Johanna Åkerberg Kassel
– It is thanks to the fact that it was so well preserved that we know most of their walk on the ice, what they brought with them and what they ate and drank. It is a descriptive text, where it carefully tells what is happening, says Bea Uusma.
That notebook ends on October 3, a few days before the three expedition members managed to leave the ice floe on which they floated and could land in Vitön. The diary describes how they tried to build a house on the iceberg towards the end. The notes end with the words: “With such comrades one should be able to get along in almost any circumstance.”
– The second notebook, which we are now analyzing, Andrée began to write when they had landed in Vitön. It was found in the right pocket of his jacket, along with a pencil. The four and a half pages were the last he wrote before he died. Notes end in the middle of a page. This is where something happens, says Bea Uusma.
Salomon August Andrée died on a rock ledge just above the tent. Knut Frænkel died on the ground below him, in the tent. Nils Strindberg was found buried under stones.
Bea Uusma has spent a week in the cultural heritage laboratory of the Swedish National Heritage Board in Visby. She will go there again soon.
Photo: Johanna Åkerberg Kassel
Bea Uusma has been researching about what the three members of the expedition died of and what preceded their death. Among other things, he has analyzed probable bloodstains on Frænkel’s jacket, an alleged human rib that a Norwegian took with him from the Vitön camp in 1930, and performed an elemental analysis of Andrée’s nails.
– As with research, you hardly ever get an answer that turns everything upside down. Each result becomes another little piece of the puzzle. But I am convinced that many previously accepted truths this time will be overturned, she says.
