Arctic exploration

Though Nordenskiöld had succeeded in exploring North-East Land pretty thoroughly, and had shown that it is practically nothing but one large ice-field, for many years very little attention had been given to West Spitzbergen, and up till the end of last century nothing whatever was known about its formation or its geographical features. In 1896, however, the famous mountaineer, Sir Martin Conway, seeking for fresh worlds to conquer, decided to repair thither himself and to elucidate once and for all the mystery that surrounded that part of the world.

Information concerning the nature of the regions over which he proposed to travel was, of course, difficult to obtain. However he read all the literature that existed upon the subject, and having equipped himself with the Nansen sledges and ponies which, he gathered, would be absolutely essential for success, he started off on his travels with a party consisting of Mr E. J. Garwood, his photographer, Dr Gregory, the geologist, Trevor Battye, the ornithologist, and, as artist, his nephew, H. E. Conway.

On reaching Advent Bay, which he proposed to make his starting-place, he was surprised to find an inn in the process of erection by an enterprising Norwegian company. An inn in an uninhabited country like Spitzbergen might seem de trop, but the explanation was that a series of trips had been organised thither, and a steamer was bringing out tourists once a week, most of whom were probably attracted by Andrée’s balloon, then waiting at the north end of the island for a chance to start on its hazardous voyage.

Leaving three members of his party to prosecute their scientific researches near the coast, Conway and Mr Garwood set off on their journey across the island on June 20. It was not long before they discovered that their sledges and ponies were nothing but a handicap. They had expected, of course, to find the interior covered by a great ice-sheet like that of North-East Land. They actually discovered it to be a land of temperate climate, intersected by green mountains and boggy valleys, which were kept in a condition of perpetual stickiness by the constant rain. In the mud thus formed the ponies were always sinking, and many arduous hours were spent every day in digging or pulling them out.

Conway had meant to make a hurried scamper across the island and back again. He found, however, that the island was in a process of mountain manufacture, and that the cañons in which the interior abounded, slowly eating their way into the ridges, were converting them by degrees into isolated peaks. This process he found so interesting that he determined to change his plans, and he accordingly travelled slowly on, over the magnificent Ivory Glacier, down to Fouls Bay, and then back by a route that differed slightly from that of his outward journey.

On reaching Advent Bay he learnt that a tourist steamer had succeeded in advancing without difficulty or danger to lat. 81° 32´ N., an amazing record for such a boat. Fired by this, he promptly hired the 12 ton steamer Expres, and started off on a trip round the coast, during the course of which he paid a visit to Wellmann’s hut and Andrée’s balloon. He would have liked to have done more, but there was a dangerous ice-blink in the sky, and the captain refused point-blank to venture any further in such a tin-kettle of a boat.

Sir Martin Conway paid another visit to Spitzbergen in the following year, on which he was again accompanied by Mr Garwood. On this occasion the two explorers occupied themselves chiefly with studying the formation of the glaciers.

As we have just seen, while Conway was making the first crossing of Spitzbergen, Andrée was waiting for an opportunity to start on the daring but ill-fated Expedition for the discovery of the North Pole, by which his name will always live in the annals of Arctic exploration. Andrée was a Swedish engineer and an æronaut of unusual skill and enterprise, and it was the success of his attempt to cross the Baltic in a balloon that led him to think seriously of embarking upon that project which was to cost him his life. The idea was, it must be confessed, exceedingly tempting, and sounded feasible enough. A steady south wind would waft a balloon in a few hours to a point which a traveller over the ice could only reach after weeks of strenuous labour, and Andrée had every reason to hope that within a very short time of his departure from Spitzbergen he would be hanging suspended over the Pole itself.

The project, though its extreme rashness was not to be denied, commended itself to many, and the æronaut had little difficulty in obtaining the necessary funds, among those who contributed to them being the King of Sweden, the late Alfred Nobel, and Baron Dickson. The construction of the balloon was entrusted to Lachambre of Paris. The material used was Chinese Pongee silk, cemented together in double, threefold, and fourfold layers, and covered with a coating of special varnish. Its cubical contents were 158,294 feet.

It was to be guided by a sail fitted with guide ropes which would drag along the ground and prevent the balloon from being driven at the full force of the wind. The difference between the velocity of the wind and of the retarded balloon was to be utilised for steering. On trial the plan was found to answer very well.

The Virgo, carrying with it Andrée, his balloon, and a party of geologists, left Tromsö on June 14, 1896, and nine days later a suitable place for building the balloon house was found on Danes Island. The landing of the balloon and the building of the house occupied nearly a month, and it was not until July 27 that everything was ready for a start. Unfortunately, however, the wind, which had been for the most part favourable while the preparations were in progress, now veered round, and for the rest of the summer it blew steadily from the north, when it did not drop altogether. Week after week passed by without bringing any prospects of a start, and at last Andrée was obliged to pack up his balloon and return home, hoping for better luck next year.

On May 30 he was back at Danes Island once more with his balloon, which had been undergoing sundry modifications during the winter. The house had fallen somewhat into disrepair, but it was soon put in order, and the inflation of the balloon, which was begun on June 19, was finished at midnight on the 22nd. Everything was now ready for a start, and on Sunday, July 11, Andrée decided to take advantage of a stiff breeze which had set in from the south. Standing in the car with his two companions, Frænkel and Strindberg, he gave the orders for the ropes to be cut. The balloon rapidly ascended, to a height of 600 feet, and, after a temporary drop, floated away north over the flat peninsula of Hollændernæs. It remained visible to those at Danes Island for about an hour. Then it disappeared over the northern horizon, never to be seen again.

The only news that the world ever received of Andrée and his companions after this did nothing towards solving the mystery of their fate. Of the thirteen buoys which he carried with him on board his balloon only four were ever recovered. One was picked up at Skjervö, in Norway, and was found to contain a message to the effect that it had been thrown out at 10 o’clock on the night of July 11. Another, which had been dispatched on its journey about an hour later, when the party had reached lat. 82° N., long. 250 E., was recovered off the coast of Iceland. The two remaining buoys bore no message from the explorer. On July 15, 1897, the sailors of the s.s. Alken shot a carrier pigeon which had been let loose two days previously in lat. 82° 3´ N., long. 150 5´ E., but that was the latest intelligence of the explorers that ever reached their friends at home.

Many expeditions were sent out to their rescue, and reports were brought in by natives of shots heard upon the ice and figures seen on the drifting floes. Fishermen, too, said that they had heard cries for help, and that they had seen what looked like a deflated balloon drifting on the sea. But, carefully though these clues were followed, they came to nothing, and it can only be supposed that, descending on some vast ice-field far from human aid, probably somewhere between Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, and Siberia, the unfortunate men perished miserably of starvation and exposure.