This Week in History

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CWA # 1438, 11 August 2024
This Week in History
05 August 1930: Norwegian expedition reaches Svalbard, discovers the remains of a previous one

  Bishwarupa Kar

On 5 August 1930, a Norwegian expedition to the Arctic discovered remains of Swedish explorer, Salomon August Andree’s previous balloon expedition to the Arctic in 1897. Led by Dr. Gunnar Horn, the Bratvaag expedition, that derived its name from the ship sailed inaimed to study glaciers and to hunt seals in Svalbard, an archipelago situated halfway between Norway and the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean, the However, the larger objective was to annex Victoria Island on the archipelago. Although Norway eventually failed to achieve this goal, the expedition became famous for discovering the remains of 1897 expedition.   

The Bratvaag expedition 
The expedition was a result of a post-World War I tussle between Norway and the Soviet Union over Victoria Island. Today a part of Norway, Victoria Island, and Franz Josef Land are situated in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. In 1926, a Soviet decree had claimed the island. Norway protested through several attempts in 1929 to gain legal footing in the region, but these attempts failed due to severe ice conditions. By the end of that year, the Soviet Union raised its flag in Franz Josef Land by breaking through the ice with advanced technology that Norway lacked.   

 However, the following year, Norway made another attempt to claim the islands in Svalbard. A team of seven, including leader, Gunnar Horn, ship captain Peder Eliassen along with some botanists and seal trappers, landed on White Island on 6 August 1930. What they came across changed the whole fate of their expedition.  

As the trappers proceeded to look for seals, they chanced upon an aluminum lid sticking out from the snow. Next to it, they found the partial remains of a body. From the monogram on the torn jacket, it could be identified as that of Andree, the Swedish explorer who had set off to discover the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon in July 1987. A little further, they discovered a canvas boat with the carving “Andree’s Pol. Exp. 1896” and various instruments and artifacts, including a diary whose pages were sealed shut with frozen glue. Another journal amongst the belongings carried the inscription “The Sledge Journey, 1897” which was probably written after Andree’s group had abandoned the balloon.  

Before leaving, Gunnar Horn’s team erected a memorial cairn at the location of Andree’s body and brought back as much of the find as possible aboard the Bratvaag to ensure a proper burial of the bodies back home. 

The Legacy of the find 
The chance discovery of Andree’s exploratory remains became a world sensation and formed the legacy of this otherwise failed Norwegian expedition. The discovery was reported throughout the world in 1930 and the diaries were published as “Andree’s Story”. Inspired by this expedition, another group went back there and found other diaries that revealed a detailed account of the journey of Andree and his two companions, Strindberg and Fraenkel. There were astronomical calculations along with letters by Strindberg to his fiancée trying to convince her that he would return. There were also vivid descriptions of the Arctic landscape, the colour of the snow, the sightings of polar bears from above, the coffee breaks through the mist, the eventual landing, and the sledge journey across the island. These accounts served as guidelines and warnings for future expeditions to the Arctic.  

For Sweden, the Bratvaag expedition had great significance as the country was finally able to bid farewell to their three polar explorers in a church ceremony on 5 October 1930 in Stockholm. Later, memorials and museums, such as the Grenna Museum, were built to display all the findings of Andree’s expedition.  

For the world, the Norwegian find meant that the unsolved mystery of the Polar balloon expedition was finally uncovered. Out of hundreds, Andree was the only explorer before the 20th century to travel to the North Pole by balloon. At the time of the announcement of his ambitious journey in London, in 1987, people watched and cheered “until the great hall of the Colonial Institute rang”, as described by a witness. Thus, in 1930, all the conspiracy theories about Andree’s pioneering exploration were finally put to rest while also giving rise to new debates regarding the possibility of future polar balloon expeditions.   

The events of 6 August 1930 uncovered both facts and mysteries that were unknown to the world. Although the expedition failed to reach its political targets, it brought back to life the memory of a famous polar explorer who had been lost in history. Thus, had it not been for the discovery of Andree’s findings, the challenges of a balloon journey in the Arctic might have not been known to the world and the Bratvaag expedition would have been long forgotten amongst a series of countless other polar expeditions. 

About the author 
Bishwarupa Kar is a postgraduate student at the Department of Politics and International Studies, at Pondicherry University 

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