The Disastrous Arctic Balloon Mission of 1897

31:20I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. And we'll join athletes from 93 countries as Two Guys Five Rings hits the Italian Alps for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Did we mention it's free? Search Two Guys Five Rings and listen now. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated. And Black America was at a breaking point. Rioting and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest.

32:02It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution, I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation in the day, integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious Black club owner had his own rules.

32:51We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping in another world. Inside Charlie's place, Black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah, they were dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and Visit Myrtle Beach comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

33:51July 22nd. It is nearly 7pm and we have just packed our sledges ready and intend to start from our landing place. We shall see how we manage to get to Cape Flora. The sledges are heavy to pull. July 23. Temperature, negative 1.5 degrees Celsius. Wind, southeast, 2.8 meters per second. Sunshine. 24th of July. The salt water in a pool on the ice. The lanes of water on the ice. Troublesome. As the men pull their sleds across the Arctic ice, they document their voyage in their journals. Neil Strindberg addresses his writings to his fiancée, Anna. July 25th. Well, now your Nils knows what it is to walk on the polar ice.

34:42We had a little mishap at the start. When we were crossing from our ice flow with the first sledge, it went crooked and fell in. Andre and Frankl crossed over. And then suddenly we managed to get the sledge up, but I expect that my pack is wet inside. Andre's entries are optimistic and particularly attuned to the details of nature. 5th of August. Some drops of rain fell on all fours today, as in the spring of our youth. Great seal on the ice, many bear tracks, fulmers, one red gull. And Frankel, the engineer, gets straight to the point. August 12th, temperature negative 1.6 degrees Celsius. Wind, southwest 4.1 meters per second.

35:29Thog. But as the weeks pass, it becomes clear that this way of traveling is no small task. 19th of August The terrain exceedingly tiring The new snow preventing us from seeing Temperature negative 5.5 degrees Celsius Wind northwest 6.8 It now begins to feel cold Tonight was the first time I thought all the lovely The immediate goal now is our wintering place We hope to find things better in the future Reaching Franz Josef Land before winter is beginning to feel unrealistic stick.

36:16It's very easy to underestimate, especially in 1897, what the ice is like up in the Arctic and on the Arctic Ocean in particular. It's not at all a flat surface. Anne Bancroft, no relation to the actress, is a polar explorer and educator. In 1986, she, as part of an eight person and 49 dog crew, became the first recorded woman to reach the North Pole by crossing the ice. Over time, it's that the currents of the ocean and the wind pushes that ice cap around. So as you're traveling on it, it's very deceiving. In the Arctic, the ice you're on, it's not stationary. This is sea ice, and it's constantly moving.

37:07The ice itself can warp, creating ridges and hills, some as tall as buildings. Traveling over or around them is exhausting work, not to mention you're contending with strong ocean currents, pushing you back the way you'd come. So you can go 10 miles north, for instance, pushing and pulling, whatever the conditions are, whether they're kind of flat for periods of time or filled with 80-foot walls of ice buckled up like little mountain ranges, which are horrible. You can go to sleep and you'll drift back 10 miles. So you can have a zero-sum day. Anne traveled to the North Pole as part of the Steger International Polar Expedition.

37:55By 1986, the North Pole was no longer terra incognita. Others had managed to reach it, including by aircraft, submarine, and snowmobile. But the Steger Expedition wanted to travel like how the early explorers did, on foot with dog sleds. They wouldn't rely on planes for resupply. They would carry everything they needed for their journey on their own. There is a monotony. You know, it's putting one foot in front of the other. So to a certain extent, her trudge across the Arctic ice would have been quite similar to Andre's. 9th of August. At 2.20 a.m., we began to get up in the tent. 3.18. The steak ready and the coffee making begun.

38:483.29, the steak eaten. 3.48, the coffee made. 4 o 'clock, the coffee drunk. 5.30, broke camp. Our routine is very strict about when we're moving, how we're moving, when we're eating, how we're drinking. Because everything is tremendous effort, particularly in the Arctic. Our journey today has been terrible. We have not advanced 1 ,000 meters, but with the greatest difficulty, have dodged on from flow to flow. It is very, very hard travel. You are in extreme environments that can change very quickly. They can go from a very benign, you know, absolutely beautiful moment where you see the low-lying sun and the wind isn't grinding you down.

39:37And then all of a sudden, something changes. You have to be constantly aware. First thing in the morning, I got into the water and so did my sledge, so that nearly everything became wet through. Strindberg ran into Frankel's sledge and broke the boat. All the sledges turned somersaults repeatedly during the course of the day. The going was good, but the country, terrible. Just to give you an idea of how arduous the beginning of these journeys are, because of the pack ice. The first day in eight hours of pushing and pulling, we only made a mile. I said, well, this is going to be the tenor. This is how it's going to be.

40:19Tramp on our knees in deep snow, cut our way. The constant mist prevents us from choosing good road. Ever since the start, we have been in very difficult country. Not only is the travel difficult, it can also be very dangerous. Those currents can pull the ice apart. It's so incredibly strong. And sometimes right before you, you see the ice start to separate in fissures. And you've got open water. You know, there's never a dull moment. During the night, the ice had altered very much. Many seals in the large open waters between the flows. But even with all this hardship, there's a beauty in the Arctic that's impossible to ignore.

41:07The light in the Arctic is, it is somewhat different and it is certainly very magical. There were times when I just didn't think I could do it one more moment and then all of a sudden I look up and there's that low-lying Arctic sun hitting all the ice crystals and there's color dancing around the surface of the ice in a way I've never seen it before. And I think, how lucky am I, you know, to be a group of so few that have been able to see the splendor of the Arctic Ocean in this way. The sun touched the horizon at midnight. The landscape on fire. The snow a sea of flame.

41:55By the end of August, Andre and his companions have been traveling for more than six weeks, but they are still on pack ice, drifting haphazardly south, and the already strenuous travel is now compounded by injuries, illness, and increasingly worse weather. 24th of August. Last night, Frankel had severe diarrhea, but this probably was the result of catching cold. Strindberg's tender foot had been cured by rubbing boot grease on the stocking, cramp relieved immediately by massage treatment. August 30, temperature negative 6.6 degrees Celsius, wind northwest 5.25 meters per second. On September 17th, however, something momentous happens.

42:49They spot an island called New Iceland or White Island. It's the first land they've seen since leaving Spitsbergen in the balloon, and it instantly raises their spirits. The next day also happens to be a Swedish holiday, Jubilee Day. It's in honor of King Oscar II, the same king who had supported this very expedition. The men celebrate accordingly. Temperature, negative three degrees Celsius. Wind, northwest, 2.1 meters per second. We had the Swedish flag hoisted and finished the day with a ceremonial meal. Seal steak and ivory gull fried in butter and seal blubber, seal liver, brain, and kidneys.

43:40Port wine given by the king. Speech by Andre for the king with royal hurrah. National anthem in unison. Biscuits, butter, cheese, glass of wine. Festive feeling. But despite their cheerfulness as the days pass, the weather continues to get colder. Which means the ice starts to freeze together. This makes it harder to hunt for seals, a source of food. Not just for them, but for the polar bears that live up there. 29th of September. We are still lying off the south side of New Iceland. The bears are coming. The one that visited us last night dragged away our big seal twice, and we should have lost it if Strindberg had not succeeded in coming so near the bear that he frightened him and made him drop his booty.

44:31September 30. Temperature, negative 7.1 degrees Celsius. Wind, north, 2.1 meters per 2nd, strato cumulus. And as always, life on the ice holds other perils. October 2, temperature negative 9 degrees Celsius. Clear, sunshine. At 5.30 a.m., we heard a thunderous crash. We found that our large, beautiful flow had been splintered into a number of little flows. Our belongings were scattered among several blocks so that we had to hurry. Luckily, the weather was so beautiful we could work in haste. No one had lost courage. With such comrades, one should be able to manage under, I may say, any circumstances.

45:26On October 5th, 1897, after months of battling the Arctic fog, ice, snow, currents, and polar bears, the trio finally makes it to New Iceland and takes their first steps on solid ground in almost three months. But there's no time to waste. Winter is coming. In fact, it's here. They immediately get to work building their camp. They erect the tent and set up their stove. They collect driftwood to build a more permanent structure. They're prepared to spend months in the Arctic until spring comes and they can continue back to Sweden. They're prepared to wait. They kept very much to a sort of, you know, 19th century intrepid sense of let's keep our spirits up, boys.

46:20No room for gloomy thoughts here. Because at this point, a reader knows they're doomed. But they don't know. Right up to the end of when their records were kept, they appear to believe they'll be home. Back in the lower latitudes, the rest of the world was also waiting for news of Andre's travels. No one had heard from them since July when the carrier pigeon was found. Search parties were sent out and returned empty-handed. But people were still hopeful. There were sightings all over the world. You know, we found Andre's balloon, or there were three people that were found in different, you know, five, six different parts of the world.

47:07It was really kind of a worldwide phenomenon. A few things that were found, like buoys marked Andre Polar Expedition, were real. They had been dropped from the eagle as the balloon had struggled to make its way north. But the other supposed sightings, the messages, they turned out to be just rumors. There was no sign of the men, alive or dead. That is, until August 1930. More than three decades later, a Norwegian ship was up in the Arctic on a hunting and science expedition. It anchored near New Iceland. Some of the group went ashore. While exploring the island, they made a discovery. They'd found a body.

48:02André's body. What was left of his skeleton was sitting up against a rock ledge. He had on layers and layers of clothes. His rifle was nearby. He even had cartridges in his pocket. Most importantly, there was his journal, the evidence of their trip, of everything they accomplished. Andre had carefully wrapped it in a sweater and a piece of balloon cloth to protect it from the elements. Eventually, the remains of the other two men were also found. Knut Frankel was inside the tent. Neil Strindberg's body had been buried in a shallow grave covered with stones. Canisters and canisters of his undeveloped film, preserved by the cold, were discovered among the men's possessions.

48:57More documentation of their journey across the ice. What was left of their bodies, their camp, their equipment, was carefully packed up onto boats. It took 33 years, but the men were finally coming home.

49:16It's not clear how or why the men died. They still had plenty of food, and their stove still worked. But based on when the diary entries end, it must have been only days after arriving on the island. Over the past century, there have been many theories proposed, from parasites to botulism to polar bears to hypothermia, there's no definitive answer. We still don't know what happened to Salomon August André, Niels Strindberg, and Knut Frankel in October 1897. Today, more than 125 years after the eagle flew for the first and last time, it's easy to criticize the choices Andre made, like continuing on after the early loss of the guide ropes.

50:13But as the explorer Anne Bancroft reminds us, decisions like that are never so simple. There's a tremendous amount at stake. There's a lot of pressure. It doesn't matter if you're in the 1800s or the 20th century or the 21st century. in those older expeditions, you know, there was country at stake. In other words, it's very hard to know when the right moment is to back out. It can be very painful because you don't have very many opportunities to raise the funds. And in his case, this was not an uncomplicated venture into a landscape that is relatively unknown. And it's very easy to sit back, maybe criticize, or just even analyze.

51:04I'll just be more gentle, because we are trying to learn and understand the story. In 1926, the famed Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen flew over the North Pole in a hydrogen Dridgeable. He and the crew became the first people to cross the Arctic Ocean and the first to indisputably see the North Pole. To do it, they used something very similar to a balloon, which means in the end, Andrei's idea was valid, even if it did ultimately lead to his death.

51:50He was risking his life for an idea, the radical idea of how this unknown part of the world could be visited. So he can't be dismissed. He's the hinge figure that said there is a new and serious way to approach Arctic exploration. I still admire him. I still think it was an extraordinary accomplishment. The exhibition that we had at the Balloon Museum in Albuquerque, the original title was going to be, The Doomed Flight of S.A. Andre. And I don't think it was doomed. I really don't. I think he still wanted to prove some of the ideas that he had. And that a balloon was really the way that we were going to reach the North Pole.

52:40People malign Andre because he tried to do something. And we keep trying to do something. We try to go to the moon or we try to go to Mars. Man always wants to try to do more and explore more and discover more. And, I mean, I think that's kind of the way we're made up. And I think that's what Andre was trying to do. As an explorer, Anne Bancroft sees Andre in herself and in the connective tissue of anyone who's dreamed of doing something that's never been done. I think Andre's legacy is perhaps a little bit woven into all of our legacies. What is that? I always grapple with that with myself, you know.

53:27What made him kick? What made him be so curious and ambitious, really ambitious to take on what he took on that persistence I think those qualities of Andre is the thing that lures me in more so than the actual endeavor because I try and be quite careful about my critiques I'm I'm not a historian and I just think the human spirit to quest and go forward and go out of truly, in this case, comfort zone is really a fascinating element. You know, what drives us to want to go find that North Pole in a balloon? Or on the back of a dog sled. Seems like just yesterday that the Two Guys Five Rings podcast was in Paris for the Olympics.

54:20And now we're heading to Milan for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games. I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Matt Rogers. And we'll join athletes from 93 countries as Two Guys Five Rings hits the Italian Alps for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Did we mention it's free? Search Two Guys Five Rings and listen now. Welcome to the A-Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. had both been assassinated. And Black America was at a breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale. In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest.

55:06It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson. To be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest. It echoes in today's world far more than it should. And it will blow your mind. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Segregation in the day, integration at night. When segregation was the law, one mysterious Black club owner had his own rules.

55:55We didn't worry about what went on outside. It was like stepping in another world. Inside Charlie's place, Black and white people danced together. But not everyone was happy about it. You saw the KKK? Yeah. They would have dressed up in their uniform. The KKK set out to raid Charlie, take him away from here. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. From Atlas Obscura, Rococo Punch, and Visit Myrtle Beach comes Charlie's Place, a story that was nearly lost to time. Until now. Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

56:45All right. That was a lot. Yeah. Emotional voyage. It's very important to me that anyone who listened to this episode, go look up the photos that we're talking about in there that were developed 33 years later. That was our kind of our entry point into finding the story. And it's just shocking. I mean, any kind of like found film is interesting, but these guys, vanished off the face of the earth and then were able to retrace not only us but through their diaries makes this a very very special one and i love the mini hoax in this episode that there were fake bird messages that people allegedly received from this failed expedition that turned out to be completely fabricated and also i mean going back to the the photos i love the image of the eagle the balloon on the ice like just sitting there then the guy uses it for the cover of his book, The Ice Balloon.

57:36And by the way, what a great band name that would be, The Ice Balloon, right? It's like Featherhammer, just incongruous and memorable. You're just like, The Ice Balloon. I'm going to go see an ice balloon on Saturday. You want to come? That's good. I wrote down one other possible band name here. Not nearly as cool, different kind of style, but Swedish Patent Office. Yes, I thought maybe I'd wear a t-shirt with their logo. Swedish patent office. Yeah. I can totally see the font. It's perfect. Now, this one was very cinematic. Like, this one definitely had casting. And I kind of went off. And I even cast Anne Bancroft.

58:12Like, I really had fun with this. Woo! Right? So, for Solomon August Andre, S.A. Andre, I was thinking Alexander Skarsgård. He just has the right energy, right? Yes. He's Nordic, yeah. Totally. And then I thought for Niles Strindberg, you could do his brother Bill, Bill Skarsgård. So that way you kind of get like a Casey Affleck, Ben Affleck thing. Like, oh, they're in the movie together. How cute. For Knut Frankel, I was thinking Alex Hawk Anderson. He played Ivar the Boneless in the TV show Vikings. And I thought, once again, Nordic, he'd be really solid. Now for Alfred Nobel, I thought Jared Harris from Chernobyl.

58:46Ooh. Right? Wouldn't that be fun? He kind of has like a 19th century energy to him. He played King George VI, I believe, in The Crown, if I remember correctly. Good call. He has that vibe. Yes, totally. Very regal cat. And for King Oscar II of Sweden, I was thinking Alexander Ludwig, Bjorn Ironsides from Vikings. So I doubled up on Vikings. And then for Anne Bancroft, the explorer, I thought Emily Cox, she played Brita in The Last Kingdom. If you watch that Netflix series, she's the badass from that one. So I thought we got a bunch of Nordic types and a badass. So there we go. I love it. If we go the animated film route, I would like to nominate our voice actors from this film.

59:24Tom Antonellis Chris Childs Josh Fisher right here Heck yeah I don't know if you have a SAG card but maybe we can talk to somebody He's got the pipes Great work there Very special episodes is made by some very special people This show is hosted by Dana Schwartz Zarin Burnett and Jason English Today's episode was written by Mack Montandon and Marissa Brown Our senior producer is Josh Fisher Our story editor is Marissa Brown Editing and sound design by Chris Childs Additional editing by Mary Du Mixing and mastering by Bahid Frazier Original music by Elise McCoy Research and fact-checking by Marissa Brown and Austin Thompson Show logo by Lucy Quintanilla Social clips by Yarberry Media Special thanks to our voice actors Tom Antonellis, Chris Childs, and Josh Fisher I am your executive producer, and we will see you back here next Wednesday If you want to email the show, you can always reach us at veryspecialepisodes at gmail.com.

1:00:27Very Special Episodes is a production of iHeart Podcasts.

1:00:512026 Milan Cortina Olympic Winter Games. Open your free iHeartRadio app. Did we mention it's free? Search Two Guys Five Rings and listen now. 1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. And at Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr. It's the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to The A-Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:01:33This is Ryder Strong, and I have a new podcast called The Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor, Anna Treynor, disappeared from a commune. It was nature and trees and praying. And drugs. So no, I am not your guru. And back then, I lied to everybody. They have had this case for 30 years. I'm going back to my hometown to uncover the truth. Listen to The Red Weather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When segregation was a law, one mysterious Black club owner, Charlie Fitzgerald, had his own rules. Segregation in the day, integration at night. It was like stepping on another world.

1:02:15Was he a businessman? A criminal? A hero. Charlie was an example of power. They had to crush him. Charlie's Place, from Atlas Obscura and Visit Myrtle Beach. Listen to Charlie's Place on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On June 11th, 1998, a deputy from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department went missing. Hey, if they'll kill a cop and bury him, what are they going to do to me? What really happened to the missing deputy? Valley of Shadows, a new series from Pushkin Industries about crime and corruption in California's high desert. Listen to Valley of Shadows on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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