1
00:00:01,080 --> 00:00:04,000
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

2
00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:12,520
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:12,560 --> 00:00:16,959
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frown, I'm Tracy Wilson, and uh many of

4
00:00:17,000 --> 00:00:19,200
Speaker 1: the history makers of the world were people who are

5
00:00:19,239 --> 00:00:22,079
Speaker 1: considered a little bit mad by their contemporaries. You know,

6
00:00:22,160 --> 00:00:24,960
Speaker 1: it's usually the people with great bravado that do something

7
00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:27,200
Speaker 1: a little bit crazy and end up kind of changing

8
00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:31,680
Speaker 1: the world or making some amazing discovery. Today's topic, which

9
00:00:31,720 --> 00:00:35,040
Speaker 1: features a man and his expedition, it definitely falls into

10
00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:38,160
Speaker 1: that category, but the unmeant goal of the plan has

11
00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:41,480
Speaker 1: left a lot of room for debate about how he's

12
00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:45,199
Speaker 1: defined and how this mission is defined. This is going

13
00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:49,959
Speaker 1: to feature some high adventure, some really wild courageousness, and

14
00:00:50,320 --> 00:00:52,960
Speaker 1: just positivity in the face of what I think would

15
00:00:53,000 --> 00:00:56,200
Speaker 1: break most people. Uh So we're actually just gonna jump

16
00:00:56,320 --> 00:00:58,640
Speaker 1: right in and not really set it up a whole lot,

17
00:00:59,080 --> 00:01:01,520
Speaker 1: and we're actually gonna are sort of at the end

18
00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:05,000
Speaker 1: of the story, so that end who were starting as

19
00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:09,920
Speaker 1: a discovery. White Island, which is known as Kuiteo in Norwegian,

20
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:13,360
Speaker 1: is an island in this spal Bard archipelago, and baal

21
00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:17,320
Speaker 1: Bard means cold coast, which makes sense because all these

22
00:01:17,319 --> 00:01:21,840
Speaker 1: islands sit in the Arctic Ocean. White Island is normally

23
00:01:21,880 --> 00:01:24,920
Speaker 1: completely covered by ice except for two little points of rock,

24
00:01:25,000 --> 00:01:28,280
Speaker 1: but in there was a really warm spring in summer

25
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:33,240
Speaker 1: and more of the island than normal was exposed. And

26
00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:36,440
Speaker 1: because so much of the ice on White Island had melted,

27
00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:40,200
Speaker 1: a Norwegian sloop called the Broad Vague, which was on

28
00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:44,360
Speaker 1: a combination scientific slash ceiling mission, was actually able to

29
00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:47,640
Speaker 1: stop at White Island, and during the sloop's time there,

30
00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:51,400
Speaker 1: a geologist named Dr Gunnar Horne and his team followed

31
00:01:51,400 --> 00:01:54,160
Speaker 1: these walruses that they had spotted on the island. But

32
00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:57,200
Speaker 1: while they were following these walruses, they found, much to

33
00:01:57,240 --> 00:02:00,160
Speaker 1: their surprise, something that they had absolutely not been looking or,

34
00:02:00,200 --> 00:02:02,840
Speaker 1: which was a diary. The book was pretty wet, it

35
00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:05,240
Speaker 1: had been sitting under the ice as the ice melted,

36
00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:08,120
Speaker 1: and parts of it were stuck together on the opening

37
00:02:08,160 --> 00:02:14,320
Speaker 1: page where the words the sledge journey. And so when

38
00:02:14,320 --> 00:02:17,679
Speaker 1: the geologist Horn took this book back to Peter Eliason,

39
00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:20,880
Speaker 1: who was the captain of the Bratvag, he discovered that

40
00:02:20,919 --> 00:02:23,800
Speaker 1: two of the seelers that have been traveling with them

41
00:02:23,960 --> 00:02:28,079
Speaker 1: had also made a discovery. While they were exploring White Island,

42
00:02:28,080 --> 00:02:30,880
Speaker 1: they first found a metal lid like to a what

43
00:02:31,000 --> 00:02:33,320
Speaker 1: had possibly been to a tin of food, and that

44
00:02:33,400 --> 00:02:37,079
Speaker 1: kind of gave them pause. And then, uh, not far

45
00:02:37,160 --> 00:02:40,320
Speaker 1: from there, they found a canvas boat, and this boat

46
00:02:40,840 --> 00:02:45,519
Speaker 1: had a hook, and the hook was stamped Andre's Polar Expedition.

47
00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:51,359
Speaker 1: It's actually pol period x e XP period eight. They

48
00:02:51,400 --> 00:02:54,240
Speaker 1: explored the area a little more and quickly found a

49
00:02:54,240 --> 00:02:58,399
Speaker 1: lot more stuff, including a headless body which was reduced

50
00:02:58,400 --> 00:03:01,800
Speaker 1: to little more than a skeleton. It's clothing was monogrammed

51
00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:03,760
Speaker 1: with the letter A. And then they all kind of

52
00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:06,840
Speaker 1: put the pieces together. While the men aboard the brack

53
00:03:06,880 --> 00:03:09,480
Speaker 1: Bog had landed in White Island to study science and

54
00:03:09,560 --> 00:03:12,000
Speaker 1: hunt seals, what they had actually found was the remains

55
00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:15,120
Speaker 1: of a long lost ballooning expedition which had tried to

56
00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:18,520
Speaker 1: make its way to the North Pole thirty years before.

57
00:03:19,440 --> 00:03:23,040
Speaker 1: And so that man that they found they found others

58
00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:27,160
Speaker 1: as well. But his name was Solomon August Andre and

59
00:03:27,200 --> 00:03:30,000
Speaker 1: he was born in Grenna, Sweden in eighteen fifty four.

60
00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:32,960
Speaker 1: Just for very brief on him as a young man,

61
00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:36,360
Speaker 1: when he was only sixteen, his father died. He became

62
00:03:36,480 --> 00:03:38,640
Speaker 1: very very attached to his mother. They were already close,

63
00:03:38,720 --> 00:03:41,600
Speaker 1: but that deepened when his dad passed away and he

64
00:03:41,960 --> 00:03:46,800
Speaker 1: attended Stockholm's Royal Institute of Technology and studied engineering. In

65
00:03:46,880 --> 00:03:50,160
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six, then twenty two year old Andre traveled

66
00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:54,080
Speaker 1: by steamer to the Centennial International Exhibition in Philadelphia. This

67
00:03:54,120 --> 00:03:55,560
Speaker 1: is a journey that would turn out to be really

68
00:03:55,600 --> 00:03:58,640
Speaker 1: momentous for Andre because while he was reading about Wins

69
00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:01,240
Speaker 1: during this journey to the atlant Antic, he was inspired

70
00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:05,960
Speaker 1: to think about balloon travel. And when he reached Philadelphia,

71
00:04:06,840 --> 00:04:10,160
Speaker 1: he actually got a job at the Swedish pavilion at

72
00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:13,040
Speaker 1: the expo as a janitor. And he took advantage of

73
00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:16,040
Speaker 1: his location while he was there by visiting a Philadelphia

74
00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:18,800
Speaker 1: resident by the name of John Wise. And Wise was

75
00:04:18,839 --> 00:04:22,119
Speaker 1: really famous for his work in ballooning. And because Wise

76
00:04:22,160 --> 00:04:25,520
Speaker 1: had flown in all manner of weather conditions uh and

77
00:04:25,600 --> 00:04:28,599
Speaker 1: he had walked away from virtually every possible type of

78
00:04:28,640 --> 00:04:32,080
Speaker 1: crash that a balloon could have, Andre felt like this

79
00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:34,440
Speaker 1: man kind of served as proof that ballooning was a

80
00:04:34,560 --> 00:04:39,400
Speaker 1: perfectly safe mode of travel. The two became friendly, and

81
00:04:39,400 --> 00:04:43,039
Speaker 1: Andrea requested the chance to accompany Wise in his balloon,

82
00:04:43,760 --> 00:04:46,920
Speaker 1: which the experience balloonist agreed to do, but the planned

83
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,599
Speaker 1: day for their trip, which was the fourth of July celebration,

84
00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:53,200
Speaker 1: wound up having really high winds. The balloon collapsed before

85
00:04:53,200 --> 00:04:56,360
Speaker 1: the trip could even start, and before they could reschedule

86
00:04:56,400 --> 00:04:59,080
Speaker 1: their outing, Andre got sick and decided to go back

87
00:04:59,080 --> 00:05:02,799
Speaker 1: to Sweden, and once he got home, he was still

88
00:05:02,800 --> 00:05:06,120
Speaker 1: obsessed with this balloon idea, so he decided that he

89
00:05:06,160 --> 00:05:10,280
Speaker 1: needed to raise funds to purchase his own balloon UH

90
00:05:10,279 --> 00:05:12,240
Speaker 1: and he did this by setting up a machine shop,

91
00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:15,680
Speaker 1: but that, unfortunately was not really a great money making plan.

92
00:05:16,320 --> 00:05:18,360
Speaker 1: He ended up in a great deal of debt, and

93
00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:21,520
Speaker 1: he really found the whole idea of running a retail

94
00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:26,560
Speaker 1: business UH really unpleasant to him. He didn't like marketing.

95
00:05:26,680 --> 00:05:28,600
Speaker 1: He didn't like the mode of marketing that was popular

96
00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:31,279
Speaker 1: at the time, which was talking trash about his competitors.

97
00:05:31,760 --> 00:05:33,839
Speaker 1: He found the whole thing distasteful. It just wasn't a

98
00:05:33,880 --> 00:05:36,279
Speaker 1: good fit for him, so he closed up his shop

99
00:05:36,680 --> 00:05:39,200
Speaker 1: and he still had never had a balloon ride. When

100
00:05:39,200 --> 00:05:42,400
Speaker 1: he was twenty eight, Andre participated in the first International

101
00:05:42,480 --> 00:05:46,719
Speaker 1: Polar Year as part of the Swedish delegation Austrian explorer

102
00:05:46,839 --> 00:05:51,520
Speaker 1: Carl wait Precked had inspired the International Polar Year, being

103
00:05:51,520 --> 00:05:55,400
Speaker 1: certain that there were meteorological and steophysical problems that could

104
00:05:55,440 --> 00:05:58,760
Speaker 1: only be solved by a cooperative effort that was aimed

105
00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:03,480
Speaker 1: at gathering and studying information from the Earth's poles. So

106
00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:07,560
Speaker 1: this was actually a huge event. Eleven different countries sent

107
00:06:07,640 --> 00:06:11,120
Speaker 1: delegations to work on these coordinated expeditions that were part

108
00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:15,039
Speaker 1: of this first International Polar Year. And Andrea's group went

109
00:06:15,080 --> 00:06:18,520
Speaker 1: to the Svalbard island of Spitzbergen, and one of the

110
00:06:18,560 --> 00:06:22,680
Speaker 1: experiments that was conducted there actually involved Andrea being confined

111
00:06:22,720 --> 00:06:25,080
Speaker 1: indoors for an entire month to see if his skin

112
00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:27,760
Speaker 1: color would change uh. And it did. It took on

113
00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:30,799
Speaker 1: this yellowish hue that had been seen in other people

114
00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:33,520
Speaker 1: after they had been through an Arctic winter prior to that.

115
00:06:33,520 --> 00:06:36,120
Speaker 1: They weren't sure if that was something going on with

116
00:06:36,160 --> 00:06:38,880
Speaker 1: their vision having been altered and people just looked that way,

117
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:41,640
Speaker 1: or if there was actually something happening in the skin

118
00:06:41,760 --> 00:06:45,279
Speaker 1: that changed its its hue uh and then do in

119
00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:49,080
Speaker 1: large part to Andrea's work in aero electricity, the Swedish

120
00:06:49,080 --> 00:06:52,040
Speaker 1: delegation was really recognized for the impressive results of their

121
00:06:52,080 --> 00:06:55,479
Speaker 1: work as part of this bigger cooperative effort. And after

122
00:06:55,480 --> 00:06:59,599
Speaker 1: this expedition was over, though, Andrea went to a fairly

123
00:07:00,200 --> 00:07:04,240
Speaker 1: dane job working for the Swedish Patent Office. He did, however,

124
00:07:04,360 --> 00:07:06,560
Speaker 1: finally get to take a balloon ride, and that's what

125
00:07:06,600 --> 00:07:09,280
Speaker 1: we will talk about after a brief word from a sponsor.

126
00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:13,840
Speaker 1: So despite the fact that Andrea had been fascinated with

127
00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:16,520
Speaker 1: balloons since he was only twenty two, he had not

128
00:07:16,760 --> 00:07:19,400
Speaker 1: actually gotten to ride in one, and that didn't even

129
00:07:19,440 --> 00:07:21,960
Speaker 1: happen until he was thirty eight, So for sixteen years

130
00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:24,920
Speaker 1: he had kind of been pining for this experience. And

131
00:07:25,040 --> 00:07:28,400
Speaker 1: his eventual escort in this was what's the man who's

132
00:07:28,400 --> 00:07:31,960
Speaker 1: called Norway's first balloon skipper And his name was Captain

133
00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:35,600
Speaker 1: Francesco Chetti, which I know is an Italian name. He

134
00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:39,160
Speaker 1: was a tout of Italian family, but he was Norwegian.

135
00:07:40,240 --> 00:07:43,160
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how the Norwegian language shift would have

136
00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:45,320
Speaker 1: changed the pronunciation of his name, so we're going with

137
00:07:45,360 --> 00:07:48,840
Speaker 1: the Italian version. Uh Chetty was an interesting figure in

138
00:07:48,880 --> 00:07:51,360
Speaker 1: his own right. He was also a mind reader and

139
00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:54,240
Speaker 1: the starvation artist, where he would go without food for

140
00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:57,640
Speaker 1: long times as these big sort of public stunts. Jenny

141
00:07:57,720 --> 00:08:01,480
Speaker 1: was kind of annoyed by by Andrea's behavior during this

142
00:08:01,600 --> 00:08:05,520
Speaker 1: first outing. He called it quote disagreeably calm. According to

143
00:08:05,560 --> 00:08:08,120
Speaker 1: Andrea's own account, he was trying to be completely aware

144
00:08:08,200 --> 00:08:11,800
Speaker 1: of his mental and physiological responses to the situation, noting

145
00:08:11,800 --> 00:08:15,360
Speaker 1: that while he didn't consciously feel any fear, his body

146
00:08:15,440 --> 00:08:19,360
Speaker 1: acted in ways that suggests that he did unconsciously feelsome

147
00:08:19,760 --> 00:08:22,960
Speaker 1: fear going on. He found himself, for example, tightly gripping

148
00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:25,680
Speaker 1: the ropes on the balloon. He took only one more

149
00:08:25,720 --> 00:08:27,640
Speaker 1: flight with Jetty before deciding that he ought to get

150
00:08:27,680 --> 00:08:31,280
Speaker 1: a balloon for himself, and he was actually able to

151
00:08:31,320 --> 00:08:35,000
Speaker 1: finance the purchase through a Swedish science fund. Uh. This

152
00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:38,120
Speaker 1: is basically a fun set up for people to use money,

153
00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:40,800
Speaker 1: uh if they were gonna work on science projects or

154
00:08:40,800 --> 00:08:42,760
Speaker 1: things that would better the Swedish people as a whole.

155
00:08:43,160 --> 00:08:45,280
Speaker 1: And so once he had his balloon, he took nine

156
00:08:45,280 --> 00:08:47,959
Speaker 1: solo trips in it, and each time he was really

157
00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:53,199
Speaker 1: scientific about carefully detailing his observations. Remember his education was engineering,

158
00:08:53,240 --> 00:08:56,880
Speaker 1: so he was a really excellent NoteTaker. And on one

159
00:08:56,920 --> 00:09:00,880
Speaker 1: trip he actually ascended to fourteen thousand, two fifty feet

160
00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:04,880
Speaker 1: that's four thousand, three forty three meters, So for contexts,

161
00:09:06,320 --> 00:09:09,520
Speaker 1: cabin pressure and modern airplanes is set to correspond to

162
00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:13,440
Speaker 1: what humans would experience up to seven thousand feet or

163
00:09:14,880 --> 00:09:17,520
Speaker 1: a little over that. Uh So he was basically flying

164
00:09:17,559 --> 00:09:21,320
Speaker 1: in this balloon without protection at twice the altitude that

165
00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:24,640
Speaker 1: safety regulations say we should aim for in terms of

166
00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:29,920
Speaker 1: keeping people comfortable and safe. And he described this during

167
00:09:29,920 --> 00:09:33,680
Speaker 1: this journey a lightheadedness and a terrible headache and a

168
00:09:33,760 --> 00:09:37,160
Speaker 1: faint quote a faint singing noise on the left side

169
00:09:37,200 --> 00:09:41,640
Speaker 1: of my skull. So, for another comparison to a previous episode,

170
00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:44,559
Speaker 1: we've talked about Mount Everest, which is twenty nine thousand feet.

171
00:09:45,440 --> 00:09:49,080
Speaker 1: Uh However, those most people that summit Everest are using

172
00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:51,480
Speaker 1: oxygen tanks to help them along. This is a case

173
00:09:51,520 --> 00:09:54,079
Speaker 1: where there was none such. They're also acclimating on the

174
00:09:54,120 --> 00:09:56,720
Speaker 1: way up, they're not just descending it an all that way.

175
00:09:56,920 --> 00:10:01,560
Speaker 1: I'm surprised he didn't get the bens. Yeah, he was

176
00:10:01,679 --> 00:10:06,160
Speaker 1: a resilient dude, so maybe he did. We just don't know.

177
00:10:06,480 --> 00:10:09,400
Speaker 1: So anyway, on another of his trips on his balloon,

178
00:10:09,440 --> 00:10:12,040
Speaker 1: which he named this Veia, he tested out the use

179
00:10:12,080 --> 00:10:14,760
Speaker 1: of drag ropes and a sale to try to steer

180
00:10:14,840 --> 00:10:18,040
Speaker 1: the vessel, and these would eventually become important as part

181
00:10:18,040 --> 00:10:22,160
Speaker 1: of his eventual plan to explore the Arctic. And after

182
00:10:22,280 --> 00:10:26,120
Speaker 1: his ninth trip UH he sold his balloon to a museum.

183
00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:27,880
Speaker 1: It was an outdoor museum where they would have space

184
00:10:27,920 --> 00:10:31,280
Speaker 1: to put in and his engineering background and his wind

185
00:10:31,360 --> 00:10:35,320
Speaker 1: study and his experiences in balloon ing had basically given

186
00:10:35,400 --> 00:10:39,520
Speaker 1: him a really big idea. At this point, a lot

187
00:10:39,760 --> 00:10:43,920
Speaker 1: of explorers were totally focused on the North Pole. Numerous

188
00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,000
Speaker 1: countries had launched missions to go north and of the

189
00:10:47,080 --> 00:10:49,120
Speaker 1: thousand men who had tried to get to the poll,

190
00:10:49,200 --> 00:10:53,520
Speaker 1: seven and fifty one had died, so UH most of them.

191
00:10:53,559 --> 00:10:55,880
Speaker 1: It was really serious business and being the first to

192
00:10:55,920 --> 00:10:57,440
Speaker 1: get to the North Pole was going to be a

193
00:10:57,480 --> 00:11:00,720
Speaker 1: significant point of pride for whatever country could claim it.

194
00:11:02,440 --> 00:11:06,720
Speaker 1: And so on February eight, when he was forty years old,

195
00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:10,080
Speaker 1: so this is only two years into his ballooning experience,

196
00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:14,840
Speaker 1: Andrea addressed the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and during

197
00:11:14,840 --> 00:11:18,000
Speaker 1: that speech he outlined his very ambitious plan to travel

198
00:11:18,040 --> 00:11:21,000
Speaker 1: to the North Pole via balloon. And a few months

199
00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,600
Speaker 1: after his talk at the Royal Swedish Academy. Andre gave

200
00:11:23,679 --> 00:11:27,760
Speaker 1: basically the same talk to the sixth International Geographical Congress

201
00:11:27,800 --> 00:11:31,320
Speaker 1: in London in the hopes of getting UH funding in

202
00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:33,520
Speaker 1: the form of a little less than forty thousand dollars

203
00:11:33,520 --> 00:11:35,600
Speaker 1: worth of money. I think I've seen it listed as

204
00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:39,719
Speaker 1: around thirty eight thousand, traveling by balloon and leaving from

205
00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:43,040
Speaker 1: Danes Island in this Baal Barn archipelago. He expected to

206
00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:45,959
Speaker 1: go north for about forty three hours to reach the pole.

207
00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:48,640
Speaker 1: The balloon that he traveled in would be outfitted with

208
00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:51,040
Speaker 1: the drag ropes and sale that we talked about before

209
00:11:51,120 --> 00:11:53,880
Speaker 1: to try to enable steering and control of the balloon.

210
00:11:55,679 --> 00:11:58,920
Speaker 1: The next part of his plan involved crossing over the

211
00:11:58,960 --> 00:12:02,040
Speaker 1: pole and then continue knewing over that point to travel

212
00:12:02,240 --> 00:12:04,760
Speaker 1: for several additional days, and his intention was that he

213
00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:08,000
Speaker 1: would eventually land in Asia or perhaps Alaska, depending on

214
00:12:08,440 --> 00:12:11,560
Speaker 1: how the wind moved him. And once he landed, he

215
00:12:11,679 --> 00:12:14,280
Speaker 1: planned to travel over land on foot until he found

216
00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:17,440
Speaker 1: civilization so he could arrange for travel back to Sweden.

217
00:12:18,160 --> 00:12:20,560
Speaker 1: It may surprise you to learn that Andrea's outlook as

218
00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:23,600
Speaker 1: he described this whole plan was positive and enthusiastic, even

219
00:12:23,720 --> 00:12:27,280
Speaker 1: when talking about the possible obstacles he might encounter once

220
00:12:27,320 --> 00:12:29,000
Speaker 1: he got the balloon on the ground and tried to

221
00:12:29,040 --> 00:12:32,000
Speaker 1: find his way home. He could use waterways to travel,

222
00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:33,920
Speaker 1: he said. And he seemed really confident that even if

223
00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:36,920
Speaker 1: he landed in a desert, he would surely find vegetation

224
00:12:36,960 --> 00:12:40,800
Speaker 1: and shelter, and surely any people he would encounter would

225
00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:45,480
Speaker 1: give him directions or help him back to civilization. He

226
00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:48,000
Speaker 1: really was a positive thinker. I gotta give him props.

227
00:12:49,160 --> 00:12:51,640
Speaker 1: He felt like this plan to reach the pole was

228
00:12:51,679 --> 00:12:54,640
Speaker 1: going to succeed where others failed, and that was because

229
00:12:54,679 --> 00:12:57,240
Speaker 1: he was going to circumvent all of those perils of

230
00:12:57,320 --> 00:13:00,440
Speaker 1: traveling by sleder on foot, by taking to the air.

231
00:13:01,280 --> 00:13:03,719
Speaker 1: What may have really been the moment where Andre won

232
00:13:03,840 --> 00:13:06,120
Speaker 1: over the crowd was actually something of a job that

233
00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:07,600
Speaker 1: he made at one of the men who tried to

234
00:13:07,640 --> 00:13:12,079
Speaker 1: contest this plan, American General Adolphus Greeley, made his opinion

235
00:13:12,120 --> 00:13:14,360
Speaker 1: known that he thought this plan was foolish and had

236
00:13:14,400 --> 00:13:19,360
Speaker 1: not been thought out. And Greeley, you may recognize that name,

237
00:13:19,600 --> 00:13:22,320
Speaker 1: had been the commanding officer of an expedition to the

238
00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:26,400
Speaker 1: Arctic Circle, in one that was the Lady Franklin Bay expedition,

239
00:13:26,480 --> 00:13:29,240
Speaker 1: and it was intended to gather scientific information about the

240
00:13:29,320 --> 00:13:32,920
Speaker 1: Arctic and to set a new record for the farthest

241
00:13:32,920 --> 00:13:36,280
Speaker 1: point north that had been reached by explorers. And this

242
00:13:36,360 --> 00:13:39,920
Speaker 1: expedition met with great tragedy. The crew ended up stranding

243
00:13:39,920 --> 00:13:43,240
Speaker 1: in the Arctic for years, and all but Greeley and

244
00:13:43,280 --> 00:13:45,520
Speaker 1: five other men died, so the majority of his crew

245
00:13:45,559 --> 00:13:49,120
Speaker 1: did not survive that. In response to Greeley's objections to

246
00:13:49,200 --> 00:13:53,600
Speaker 1: this three man balloon plan, Andre said, I risked three

247
00:13:53,640 --> 00:13:56,120
Speaker 1: lives in what you call a fool hearty attempt, and

248
00:13:56,120 --> 00:14:00,280
Speaker 1: you risked how many a shipload? So as Andrea left

249
00:14:00,280 --> 00:14:05,199
Speaker 1: the stage, the entire hall cheered him, and in the end,

250
00:14:05,760 --> 00:14:07,800
Speaker 1: most of the money that he needed for his polar

251
00:14:07,840 --> 00:14:11,800
Speaker 1: balloon came from none other than Alfred Noble and Sweden's

252
00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:15,400
Speaker 1: King Oscar the second. Before we get to the exciting

253
00:14:15,440 --> 00:14:18,920
Speaker 1: adventure of the expedition itself, let's have one more brief

254
00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:21,440
Speaker 1: sponsor break. Yeah, the brakes are a little close together,

255
00:14:21,480 --> 00:14:23,600
Speaker 1: but that's because I want to keep the whole expedition

256
00:14:23,720 --> 00:14:26,080
Speaker 1: all in one piece. So we'll have a quick break

257
00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:29,760
Speaker 1: and then we'll come right back to it. So, once

258
00:14:29,800 --> 00:14:33,000
Speaker 1: he had his funding, secured, Andre commissioned a Parisian built

259
00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:36,600
Speaker 1: balloon which was made from layers and layers of varnished silk,

260
00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:40,160
Speaker 1: and this balloon was named the Eagle. The hydrogen balloon

261
00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:43,640
Speaker 1: was one feet thirty meters tall and to protect this

262
00:14:43,760 --> 00:14:47,120
Speaker 1: impressive uh inflatable as it was ready for flight as

263
00:14:47,160 --> 00:14:49,480
Speaker 1: they filled it with air and got everything ready, he

264
00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:52,000
Speaker 1: also had a house built for it on Danes Island,

265
00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:55,800
Speaker 1: which uh I believe was five stories tall. And this

266
00:14:55,960 --> 00:14:59,240
Speaker 1: custom house actually had a felt lined interior so that

267
00:14:59,320 --> 00:15:02,200
Speaker 1: anything the un touched would not damage it and one

268
00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:04,720
Speaker 1: entire side of the house could be quickly removed when

269
00:15:04,720 --> 00:15:07,320
Speaker 1: the balloon was ready to go, and the windows were

270
00:15:07,360 --> 00:15:09,800
Speaker 1: made of gelatine like It was basically everything soft that

271
00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:13,440
Speaker 1: won't hurt this balloon. Andrea chose two other men to

272
00:15:13,520 --> 00:15:17,160
Speaker 1: complete his crew for this ambitious plan. These were Neil's

273
00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:20,960
Speaker 1: Strendberg and Nils Holm. Strandberg, who was twenty three, taught

274
00:15:21,000 --> 00:15:23,640
Speaker 1: physics as an assistant professor, and he was also the

275
00:15:23,680 --> 00:15:28,280
Speaker 1: cousin of the famed playwright August Strenberg. At home was

276
00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:31,040
Speaker 1: the oldest of the team at age forty seven. He

277
00:15:31,160 --> 00:15:35,560
Speaker 1: had led the Spitzberg and expedition that Andre had participated in,

278
00:15:35,600 --> 00:15:40,080
Speaker 1: and he was an experienced meteorologist, and so for several

279
00:15:40,080 --> 00:15:43,320
Speaker 1: weeks in eight six, the eager Andrea and his companions

280
00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:46,480
Speaker 1: attempted to begin their journey, but they were just constantly

281
00:15:46,560 --> 00:15:49,600
Speaker 1: thwarted by in their efforts by unfavorable conditions and to

282
00:15:49,680 --> 00:15:52,920
Speaker 1: make matters worse, as Winter said on eck Holme left

283
00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:55,160
Speaker 1: the team. He didn't think this was such a good

284
00:15:55,160 --> 00:15:59,000
Speaker 1: idea after all, and he bowed out. Fortunately, Andre already

285
00:15:59,000 --> 00:16:02,320
Speaker 1: had an alternate at already that was Mute Frankle. He

286
00:16:02,440 --> 00:16:05,440
Speaker 1: was an athletic civil engineer and was twenty seven years old.

287
00:16:05,880 --> 00:16:09,600
Speaker 1: But his troubles were not over. Andre's mother died suddenly

288
00:16:09,600 --> 00:16:13,560
Speaker 1: as they were preparing to set off in While Andre

289
00:16:13,680 --> 00:16:16,200
Speaker 1: seemed kind of placid to those around him, he was

290
00:16:16,280 --> 00:16:19,680
Speaker 1: really deeply melancholy at the loss of his mother. He

291
00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:22,440
Speaker 1: wrote in his journal quote, the only thread which bound

292
00:16:22,520 --> 00:16:26,040
Speaker 1: me to the wish to live is cut off. Yeah.

293
00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:30,600
Speaker 1: She was really his only like close relationship. He mentioned

294
00:16:30,640 --> 00:16:33,280
Speaker 1: at one point when he was younger that he really

295
00:16:33,320 --> 00:16:36,040
Speaker 1: just decided he was never going to have romantic interests

296
00:16:36,080 --> 00:16:38,920
Speaker 1: because he knew he wanted to become you know, an

297
00:16:38,920 --> 00:16:41,720
Speaker 1: explorer and do great things once he had married this

298
00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:44,160
Speaker 1: idea of ballooning, and he didn't ever want a woman

299
00:16:44,960 --> 00:16:48,360
Speaker 1: to make the tearful, you know, request to him to

300
00:16:48,440 --> 00:16:51,360
Speaker 1: please don't go and do this thing and him having

301
00:16:51,400 --> 00:16:54,280
Speaker 1: to say no, I'm doing it. So his mother was

302
00:16:54,320 --> 00:16:57,400
Speaker 1: really it really was his one tether, and so without

303
00:16:57,480 --> 00:17:00,560
Speaker 1: that he was sort of starting off with a bit

304
00:17:00,600 --> 00:17:04,119
Speaker 1: of heartbreak. And finally, after they had waited for the

305
00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:07,679
Speaker 1: perfect conditions and the winter had passed, the team was

306
00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:12,679
Speaker 1: finally able to leave Danes Island on July eleven, And

307
00:17:12,720 --> 00:17:16,040
Speaker 1: I sort of loved this. But the last words that

308
00:17:16,080 --> 00:17:19,240
Speaker 1: Andrea was heard to utter by the onlookers were what's that?

309
00:17:20,000 --> 00:17:22,320
Speaker 1: As the balloon had struck something as it headed out

310
00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:28,480
Speaker 1: on its expedition, maybe unsurprisingly giving the inauspiciousness of those words.

311
00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:32,119
Speaker 1: Almost immediately there were problems. The drag ropes were pulling

312
00:17:32,119 --> 00:17:34,240
Speaker 1: the basket down into the water and they had to

313
00:17:34,240 --> 00:17:37,800
Speaker 1: be cut. The three men aboard also quickly dumped about

314
00:17:37,800 --> 00:17:43,320
Speaker 1: four and fifty pounds or two ms of sandbag ballast

315
00:17:43,359 --> 00:17:45,960
Speaker 1: to try to lift their transport out of the icy ocean.

316
00:17:46,760 --> 00:17:49,560
Speaker 1: As the vessel and its team were still struggling with

317
00:17:49,600 --> 00:17:52,400
Speaker 1: these problems vanished out of the sight of the onlookers.

318
00:17:52,440 --> 00:17:55,080
Speaker 1: They were traveling north at about twenty miles an hour,

319
00:17:55,280 --> 00:17:58,000
Speaker 1: which is about thirty two kilo an hour, and the

320
00:17:58,080 --> 00:18:03,400
Speaker 1: ropes that were designed to help them steer we're now gone. Yes,

321
00:18:03,560 --> 00:18:09,320
Speaker 1: so they were drag ropes. Not a great idea. You

322
00:18:09,359 --> 00:18:12,240
Speaker 1: don't often see a balloon toodling around with a rope

323
00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:15,480
Speaker 1: dragging from it to the ground, and there are reasons

324
00:18:15,520 --> 00:18:19,080
Speaker 1: for that. Uh So what happened to the team next

325
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:22,200
Speaker 1: was actually put together from the journals which were found

326
00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:25,600
Speaker 1: in h And while all of the men wrote records

327
00:18:25,640 --> 00:18:29,439
Speaker 1: of this whole wacky adventure, Andrea not surprisingly was the

328
00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:32,520
Speaker 1: most prolific writer of the group. The first night of

329
00:18:32,560 --> 00:18:36,080
Speaker 1: their journey seemed to be really incredibly joyous. Andre marveled

330
00:18:36,080 --> 00:18:38,919
Speaker 1: at seeing the vast expanses of ice, which were dotted

331
00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:42,040
Speaker 1: by polar bears. And the morning after the first night,

332
00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:44,760
Speaker 1: the team had breakfast and coffee, and they traveled through

333
00:18:44,840 --> 00:18:49,600
Speaker 1: some hazy conditions that were just above freezing. And as

334
00:18:49,600 --> 00:18:53,600
Speaker 1: the day stretched into the afternoon and that misty weather continued,

335
00:18:53,840 --> 00:18:56,880
Speaker 1: the basket dropped and it bounced repeatedly on the ice,

336
00:18:57,119 --> 00:18:59,560
Speaker 1: as often as eight times in thirty minutes. According to

337
00:18:59,600 --> 00:19:02,719
Speaker 1: their reck herds, they had lost enough hydrogen that they

338
00:19:02,720 --> 00:19:05,879
Speaker 1: could not stay aloft. But despite this bumpy going, the

339
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:11,960
Speaker 1: team all stayed really upbeat. While taking a watch as

340
00:19:12,000 --> 00:19:15,200
Speaker 1: his comrades rested, Andre wrote, it is not a little

341
00:19:15,240 --> 00:19:18,199
Speaker 1: strange to be floating here above the polar sea, to

342
00:19:18,280 --> 00:19:20,320
Speaker 1: be the first that have floated here in a balloon.

343
00:19:20,880 --> 00:19:24,040
Speaker 1: How soon, I wonder, shall we have successors? We think

344
00:19:24,080 --> 00:19:27,000
Speaker 1: we can well face death having done what we have done.

345
00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:30,560
Speaker 1: Isn't it all perhaps the expression of an extremely strong

346
00:19:30,720 --> 00:19:33,840
Speaker 1: sense of individuality which cannot bear the thought of living

347
00:19:33,840 --> 00:19:36,560
Speaker 1: and dying like a man in the ranks, forgotten by

348
00:19:36,560 --> 00:19:43,200
Speaker 1: coming generations? Is this ambition? And as that bumpy ride continued,

349
00:19:44,119 --> 00:19:47,560
Speaker 1: uh seasickness kind of hit Strindberg that he was really

350
00:19:47,600 --> 00:19:50,800
Speaker 1: getting quite ill. So they dumped a great many of

351
00:19:50,840 --> 00:19:53,040
Speaker 1: their sandbags so that they could get enough lift that

352
00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:56,040
Speaker 1: they would stop thumping on the ice. But as the

353
00:19:56,080 --> 00:19:59,160
Speaker 1: third morning of their trip came on, the basket once

354
00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:02,480
Speaker 1: again dropped. The conditions turned even fog gear, and then

355
00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:05,159
Speaker 1: it suddenly rose high in the air as it warmed

356
00:20:05,240 --> 00:20:07,880
Speaker 1: up a little bit, and the team released some gas

357
00:20:07,960 --> 00:20:09,639
Speaker 1: so that they would drop down a little bit again,

358
00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,760
Speaker 1: but they were just having trouble regulating their place in

359
00:20:12,800 --> 00:20:15,199
Speaker 1: the air, and after fighting with this situation for a

360
00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:18,440
Speaker 1: while and growing a little more frustrated, they finally decided

361
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:20,239
Speaker 1: to land on the ice, and they did so at

362
00:20:20,240 --> 00:20:23,200
Speaker 1: around eight am. And at this point they had been

363
00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:25,719
Speaker 1: traveling for sixty five hours and they were more than

364
00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:28,600
Speaker 1: five hundred miles or about eight hundred kilometers into their

365
00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:32,040
Speaker 1: ride for the next week. The three men plotted with

366
00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:35,320
Speaker 1: their next move should be. They had, as part of

367
00:20:35,320 --> 00:20:38,720
Speaker 1: their preparation, made plans for various possible events, and this

368
00:20:38,840 --> 00:20:42,159
Speaker 1: included packing Sledges are very heavy sleds for each of

369
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:45,040
Speaker 1: the men to pull, so the trio spent their planning

370
00:20:45,040 --> 00:20:48,200
Speaker 1: time carefully selecting what they would load onto these sleds,

371
00:20:48,440 --> 00:20:51,000
Speaker 1: which they pulled using ropes that were wrapped around their

372
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:55,280
Speaker 1: shoulders like harnesses. These sledges weighed hundreds of pounds, so

373
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:57,879
Speaker 1: this is really no small task, and sometimes the men

374
00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:00,560
Speaker 1: would all three pull one slip it and then go

375
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:02,399
Speaker 1: back and do the same with the next one, and

376
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 1: then bring up the third. And they had also arranged

377
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:09,520
Speaker 1: to have depots set up in two places in the

378
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:12,520
Speaker 1: events that they needed them. The first was on Franz

379
00:21:12,600 --> 00:21:15,639
Speaker 1: Joseph Lend, which was part of a Russian archipelago, and

380
00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:18,119
Speaker 1: the second, smaller depot that they had arranged was on

381
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:20,760
Speaker 1: the Seven Islands, and that's back part of the small

382
00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:24,399
Speaker 1: Bard archipelago. After they had packed their sleds, the first

383
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:28,199
Speaker 1: men set out towards the Russian depot. The men managed

384
00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:30,640
Speaker 1: to shoot several polar bears along the way and prep

385
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:33,199
Speaker 1: them to use as food. Picking their way through the

386
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:35,960
Speaker 1: ice blows was really treacherous and exhausting, but the men

387
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:39,120
Speaker 1: all seemed to bolster one another. They did fall into

388
00:21:39,119 --> 00:21:41,640
Speaker 1: the water from time to time, though, and the average

389
00:21:41,640 --> 00:21:45,480
Speaker 1: temperature stayed around thirty two degrees fahrenheit or zero celsius,

390
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:47,639
Speaker 1: although it did drop from time to time. So I

391
00:21:47,680 --> 00:21:50,800
Speaker 1: would imagine being in wet clothes, I wouldn't even imagine.

392
00:21:50,800 --> 00:21:53,399
Speaker 1: I would know for certain being in wet clothes in

393
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:58,639
Speaker 1: those conditions would be very treacherous, it would and miserable.

394
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:01,679
Speaker 1: But really, all their dire reas are so sort of

395
00:22:01,720 --> 00:22:06,360
Speaker 1: like positive, it's it's almost freaky. I wonder's one reason.

396
00:22:06,520 --> 00:22:10,480
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's because hypothermia was affecting their their attitudes.

397
00:22:11,400 --> 00:22:13,760
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll get we'll get to one reason why they

398
00:22:13,880 --> 00:22:17,320
Speaker 1: might have been happy despite their seeming the miserable circumstances.

399
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:21,160
Speaker 1: Um So, several days into their trek towards Friends Joseph Land,

400
00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:26,440
Speaker 1: there were two major setbacks. First, Frankel started to experience

401
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 1: snow blindness. So this is known clinically as photocarrotitis, and

402
00:22:31,760 --> 00:22:36,119
Speaker 1: snowblindness basically occurs when the cornea of the eye becomes

403
00:22:36,160 --> 00:22:40,240
Speaker 1: burned by ultra violet b rays. Uh. This happens a

404
00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:42,160
Speaker 1: lot in cold areas with lots of ice and snow

405
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 1: because it reflects off the snow up into your eyes

406
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:47,240
Speaker 1: even when your head is down. Second, they became aware

407
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:49,919
Speaker 1: that they had been walking east on the ice, but

408
00:22:50,080 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 1: that same ice was actually drifting west at a much

409
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:55,639
Speaker 1: faster pace than they were making. So they have been

410
00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:58,640
Speaker 1: struggling all that time with the sledges and working out

411
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 1: all the pushing and pulling, and they really had made

412
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:05,639
Speaker 1: no headway whatsoever. So by August four they abandoned this

413
00:23:05,720 --> 00:23:09,200
Speaker 1: plan to travel east to the Russian Archipelago, and instead

414
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:11,760
Speaker 1: they decided they would switch directions and head to the

415
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: Seven Islands Depot to make matters worse, the temperature started

416
00:23:16,840 --> 00:23:20,399
Speaker 1: to drop by several degrees, and fortunately they did have

417
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:24,679
Speaker 1: food supplies, including butter, bread, and biscuits, as well as water.

418
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,080
Speaker 1: They supplemented this with polar bear meat when they could,

419
00:23:28,320 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 1: and they even tried eating the bear meat raw, as

420
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:35,440
Speaker 1: well as making blood pancakes out of bears blood mixed

421
00:23:35,440 --> 00:23:39,680
Speaker 1: with oatmeal and fried. They also made algae soup, which

422
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:43,040
Speaker 1: does not sound nearly as disgusting as the bare blood pancakes.

423
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:46,560
Speaker 1: To me, I was talking with friends about this last

424
00:23:46,680 --> 00:23:50,159
Speaker 1: night while I was working on it, and I was

425
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:52,720
Speaker 1: describing blood pancakes to one of my friends, who is

426
00:23:52,760 --> 00:23:55,280
Speaker 1: also a big food eating goes, this sounds kind of French.

427
00:23:55,359 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 1: I'd try it, and it does. Then, when I thought

428
00:24:00,320 --> 00:24:03,120
Speaker 1: about some of the things my grandmother cooked, it does

429
00:24:03,160 --> 00:24:06,880
Speaker 1: sound pretty French. Um. So, despite their exhaustion and this

430
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:11,160
Speaker 1: totally desperate situation, the tone of Andrey's journal entry still

431
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:15,119
Speaker 1: is almost oddly positive, and this could have been because

432
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: in addition to their food rations, they had also brought

433
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 1: quite a bit of opium with them. They used it

434
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 1: as a pain reliever and also to treat diarrhea, and

435
00:24:24,600 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 1: they also had morphine and in some cases they were

436
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,479
Speaker 1: double dosing with the opium and the morphine. Frankel in

437
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:34,639
Speaker 1: particular seemed really plagued by problems. He twisted his knees,

438
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: he had digested distress. This is actually kind of ironic

439
00:24:38,840 --> 00:24:42,000
Speaker 1: because Frankel one of the reasons he was chosen was

440
00:24:42,040 --> 00:24:44,680
Speaker 1: because he was very athletic, and they kind of envisioned

441
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 1: him being like the strong pack mule of the group.

442
00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:49,159
Speaker 1: But he seemed to struggle the most with all of

443
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: this travel, so according to Andrea's notebooks, he was the

444
00:24:52,040 --> 00:24:54,480
Speaker 1: one that they were kind of constantly having to figure

445
00:24:54,520 --> 00:24:58,000
Speaker 1: out when he needed opium dosages. And the first day

446
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:01,160
Speaker 1: of September, the crew managed to travel by boat, which,

447
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 1: while grueling in its own right, was a really welcome

448
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:08,640
Speaker 1: change from pulling these heavy sledges. To celebrate Strindberg's birthday

449
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 1: on the fourth of September, andre gave him letters from

450
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: his family and his fiance, which had been given to

451
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: him before they left Danes Island. This is a happy

452
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:21,119
Speaker 1: surprise though, but unfortunately Strenberg later fell into the water

453
00:25:21,280 --> 00:25:24,440
Speaker 1: and ruined all the rations that he was carrying. Yeah,

454
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 1: it was kind of a day of ups and downs,

455
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 1: um and then a few days after that, on September nine,

456
00:25:30,359 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 1: they realized once again, since they had switched directions on

457
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 1: August four, they had again been thwarted by the movement

458
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:40,479
Speaker 1: of the ice. So they had been trying to travel

459
00:25:40,520 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: a little more than eighty miles or roughly nine kilometers southwest,

460
00:25:45,119 --> 00:25:47,520
Speaker 1: but again, because the ice that they're walking on is

461
00:25:47,560 --> 00:25:51,560
Speaker 1: also shifting, they had actually been drifting about the correct distance,

462
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:55,639
Speaker 1: but instead to the south southeast. This is also the

463
00:25:55,720 --> 00:25:58,640
Speaker 1: day when Andre's diary kind of drops off. He stopped

464
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:01,239
Speaker 1: doing his regular entries, which seems like a little bit

465
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 1: of a clue that he might be losing heart. On

466
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:07,119
Speaker 1: September seventeenth, he wrote that an especially bad blister on

467
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: Frankel's foot had rendered him unable to pull his sledge anymore,

468
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:13,160
Speaker 1: so he and Strondberg had been running back to get

469
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: the third one and to play catch up with the

470
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,160
Speaker 1: others periodically as they all traveled. There had also been

471
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:22,000
Speaker 1: some snow which added extra weight to everything. They managed

472
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:24,679
Speaker 1: to kill and eat a seal, and then they realized

473
00:26:24,800 --> 00:26:26,399
Speaker 1: that they were going to be trapped out there on

474
00:26:26,400 --> 00:26:29,639
Speaker 1: the ice through the winter, even with all this hardship.

475
00:26:30,200 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 1: Uh he He wrote quote, our humor is pretty good,

476
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:38,600
Speaker 1: although joking and smiling are not of ordinary occurrence. And

477
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: on September nineteenth there was actually a little bit of

478
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:44,640
Speaker 1: a ray of hope. Andrea managed to shoot three seals,

479
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:47,040
Speaker 1: and that meant that with those, once they were dressed

480
00:26:47,040 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 1: for food and they're remaining food stores that they still

481
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: had with them, they were gonna be able to get

482
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,040
Speaker 1: through at least half of the winter. So they knew

483
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: like they had rations for at least a little while,

484
00:26:56,920 --> 00:26:58,800
Speaker 1: they could keep trying to gather more and they might

485
00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:01,000
Speaker 1: be in okay shape. It looked like they might be

486
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:03,679
Speaker 1: able to do this, and they also started building a

487
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:06,119
Speaker 1: snow house on the ice that they were on to

488
00:27:06,240 --> 00:27:09,439
Speaker 1: live in, by forming snow into kind of like walls

489
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:12,640
Speaker 1: and structure and then pouring water over it to harden everything.

490
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,119
Speaker 1: Their ice hut was completed on September eight, but just

491
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:20,199
Speaker 1: four days later, the ice flow that they built it

492
00:27:20,240 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 1: on broke apart and water came rushing in that three

493
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 1: men had to hustle to get all their supplies together

494
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:28,440
Speaker 1: and to get it up off the breaking ice before

495
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 1: everything drifted away. The end of the entry in Andrey's diary,

496
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:36,879
Speaker 1: and he had two diaries, and this was the end

497
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 1: of the first. One reads quote, no one had lost courage.

498
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: With such comrades, one should be able to manage under,

499
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 1: I may say, any circumstances. With that kind of positive attitude,

500
00:27:47,920 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: even in the face of complete misery and seemingly loss

501
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:54,119
Speaker 1: of all hope. The men started construction on another snowhouse

502
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 1: two days later. They had spotted White Island earlier in

503
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 1: their journey, but they thought they'd be unable to land

504
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:03,880
Speaker 1: there because it looked like it was totally iced over.

505
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:06,719
Speaker 1: But October four, which was the same day they had

506
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,240
Speaker 1: started on their new house, they also saw a spot

507
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: on White Island where they thought they might actually be

508
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,800
Speaker 1: able to move ashore. On October five, they did. They

509
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:19,320
Speaker 1: named their new camp Mina Andrea's Place, after Andrea's mother,

510
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:24,760
Speaker 1: because October five was her birthday. And so while it

511
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 1: seems like things are looking up at this point in

512
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: the story, Andrea's last entry is just three days later,

513
00:28:30,560 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: on October eight. He describes their happiness at being off

514
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:36,920
Speaker 1: the ice and actually on land and in a tent,

515
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 1: and he kind of sorting through what they're gonna need

516
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:43,239
Speaker 1: to do, including collecting some driftwood and whale bones so

517
00:28:43,320 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 1: that they can get some fires going and and meet

518
00:28:45,360 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 1: some other needs. So we don't know for certain when

519
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 1: or how the three adventurers died. When the White Island

520
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: camp was discovered in n their supplies were still in

521
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:58,240
Speaker 1: the boat. There was a pile of driftwood that was

522
00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:01,959
Speaker 1: gathered but unused. Nearby. There was an entry in Strandberg's

523
00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: notebook for October seventeenth which read home seven oh five am.

524
00:29:06,040 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 1: But based on the fact that it was written in ink,

525
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: which would have frozen and been unusable in the climate

526
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:13,640
Speaker 1: that the men were in, they believed that this was

527
00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:17,560
Speaker 1: an expectation he had of arriving home in Sweden on

528
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: a train. Yeah, they think that entry was written before,

529
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: long before any of their kind of polar adventures happened. Um,

530
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 1: As we said, the cause of death, we don't know,

531
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: and it remains one of history's mysteries and it will

532
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,840
Speaker 1: probably remain that way forever because the remains that were

533
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: found by the crew of the Norwegian sloop brat Vag

534
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: were actually cremated before they were buried, so additional testing

535
00:29:43,920 --> 00:29:46,520
Speaker 1: of those bodies can never be done. We're gonna step

536
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 1: through some of the most common theories and some of

537
00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:52,280
Speaker 1: the common arguments against them. So the first is poisoning

538
00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 1: from their food tents. There's a fingernail from a glove

539
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:58,520
Speaker 1: that was tested and had high levels of lead in it,

540
00:29:58,600 --> 00:30:01,000
Speaker 1: but it's not to believed to have been enough to

541
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: have killed anyone. Uh. There is also a theory that

542
00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:06,960
Speaker 1: one of the men had a psychotic episode and it

543
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: resulted in a murder suicide, but since the men were

544
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 1: rather shockingly upbeat throughout all of this horrible nous, most

545
00:30:14,760 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 1: people think this seems unlikely, although there certainly have been

546
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 1: cases throughout history of people that seem really happy and

547
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: excited and then they have a psychotic break, So it's possible,

548
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 1: but we're not sure. There's also the possibility of dehydration. Yeah,

549
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:31,360
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of way you can detract that,

550
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 1: since once they found these bodies, they were pretty much

551
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:37,240
Speaker 1: completely decomposed so that there wasn't any tissue to really test.

552
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 1: Then even if they were cremated, there's not much we

553
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: wouldn't know, and a lot of the nearby water that

554
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 1: would have been available to them would have been saltwater

555
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: that would not have hooked to them. Trickon nosis or

556
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: botuli is um is another popular theory from eating uncooked

557
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: polar bear or seal meat. Uh. None of the diaries

558
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: really describe anything that could be pointed to as evidence

559
00:30:59,480 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: of the simple him is associated with trickin nosis. However,

560
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: this was a new and exciting fact I learned while

561
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: doing this research. Botuli is um is apparently really common

562
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 1: in seal meat if it's not really thoroughly cooked, so

563
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,680
Speaker 1: it's possible. We know they were eating seal, so that's

564
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 1: one possibility. People have suggested that it might have been scurvy,

565
00:31:18,680 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: but three months really isn't long enough for scurvy to

566
00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: kill someone. No, it can make you pretty sick in

567
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: that time, but probably not to the point of fatality.

568
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: Another theory that has been put forth is a polar

569
00:31:31,840 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: bear attack. Uh. This one isn't really terribly likely. For

570
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:40,320
Speaker 1: one thing, Andre's gun was next to his body when

571
00:31:40,320 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 1: they found it, so it seemed like he was actually

572
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: like watching for danger and it would have been unlikely.

573
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: But also the bodies that they found Andre's looked like

574
00:31:48,360 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: it may have been disturbed, but most people believe that

575
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:53,640
Speaker 1: may have happened by a bear after he had already

576
00:31:53,680 --> 00:31:55,960
Speaker 1: been deceased. Because it just looked kind of shuffled about.

577
00:31:55,960 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: It didn't look so much like an attack situation. There's

578
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: also the idea that maybe since they had all this

579
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: opium around it was a deliberate opium over overdose, that

580
00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: they had all seemed to be in such reasonably good

581
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:12,720
Speaker 1: spirits that that seems maybe not as likely. Yeah, you

582
00:32:12,760 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: would think that if they were coming to that conclusion,

583
00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:18,760
Speaker 1: there would have been a diary entry about it. Another

584
00:32:18,800 --> 00:32:21,840
Speaker 1: one that is is sometimes brought up is the possibility

585
00:32:21,880 --> 00:32:24,880
Speaker 1: of vitamin A poisoning from polar bear liver. However, we

586
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: know that the men knew of this danger. They wrote

587
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 1: about it, so it seems unlikely that they would have

588
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 1: taken that risk. They could have asphyxiated because they were

589
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: maybe using their cook stove inside the tent. Yeah, that's

590
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: a possibility. Again, we don't know for sure that one.

591
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: There's it's kind of like maybe we don't have a

592
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: lot of evidence one way or the other. Well, there's

593
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 1: the reasonable people would probably think that's a bad idea,

594
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:56,080
Speaker 1: but that's the only counter argument I have. Yeah, Well,

595
00:32:56,160 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 1: and you know, there's there are opiates involved. There's the

596
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: possibility that at some point they went you know, it

597
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: would be great and it will keep the tent warm.

598
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: Let's bring it in. Uh. The last theory that we're

599
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 1: going to mention almost seems in some ways like the

600
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: most obvious, which is that they died from cold and exhaustion.

601
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, they had been dragging these

602
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: multi hundred pounds fledges around for a while, they had

603
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 1: gotten wet in freezing water repeatedly. You know, they were

604
00:33:28,120 --> 00:33:33,280
Speaker 1: struggling with other issues. They were dosing with opium and morphine,

605
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:36,240
Speaker 1: like their bodies were taking a lot of abuse. Yeah. Well,

606
00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:40,320
Speaker 1: I keep thinking about two different video games during this episode,

607
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 1: and one is like that this feels like a frozen

608
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:48,120
Speaker 1: wasteland version of Oregon Trail UM. And the other is

609
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 1: one of my favorite things to play recently, which is

610
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 1: a game called The Long Dark, which is basically about

611
00:33:52,280 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 1: surviving in this frozen wilderness. UM. And one of the

612
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 1: things that happens in the Long Dark is if you

613
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 1: go to sleep and it turns out it's not warm

614
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 1: enough to keep your body warm and survive, you die,

615
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 1: and it it just the little thing comes up that

616
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: just says you have faded into the Long Dark. And

617
00:34:07,360 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 1: I think the most believable thing is that they thought

618
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:11,799
Speaker 1: they were warm enough to sleep through the night, but

619
00:34:11,960 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: they were not. Yeah, which would make sense because uh,

620
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,879
Speaker 1: you know, we don't unlike something like the diatlov past

621
00:34:18,920 --> 00:34:23,080
Speaker 1: incident where we see people like paradoxical and dressing and

622
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:26,000
Speaker 1: trying to dig through the snow. This seems like everything

623
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: was pretty undisturbed. And if I'm understanding my research correctly,

624
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:32,399
Speaker 1: it seems like they all died probably around the same time,

625
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons that like the opium

626
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 1: theory gains a lot of UH fans. It's like, well,

627
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:41,319
Speaker 1: they all died around the same time, surely, uh, at

628
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:43,480
Speaker 1: least we think that based on how the bodies were positioned.

629
00:34:43,480 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: For all we know, they died and were propped up

630
00:34:45,560 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 1: by you know, another of the men, and they certainly

631
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,880
Speaker 1: couldn't bury them in the ice. So we don't really know.

632
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: But what we do know is that once those remains

633
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: were discovered in n Uh and the men were returned

634
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,960
Speaker 1: to Sweden, finally they were really greeted his heroes. Remember

635
00:35:02,000 --> 00:35:05,400
Speaker 1: this was a big effort on uh Sweden's part. Like

636
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: there was a lot of fervor around it. There was

637
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:11,360
Speaker 1: a lot of excitement that Sweden could be the country

638
00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:13,960
Speaker 1: that got to the North Pole first through this amazing

639
00:35:13,960 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 1: approach that no one else had ever tried. The king

640
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:20,040
Speaker 1: had backed them and then they vanished, So there was

641
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 1: a lot of there were a lot of question marks

642
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: that were finally getting some answers, and when they finally

643
00:35:25,239 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 1: arrived uh there in Sweden, two hundred ships had joined

644
00:35:29,320 --> 00:35:32,239
Speaker 1: the procession to bring them home, and King Gustav the

645
00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:35,200
Speaker 1: Five met them at the pier. Among the items that

646
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 1: were recovered from Camp Mina Andre's place where several cans

647
00:35:38,800 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: of film. Some of the film was damaged or exposed,

648
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 1: but there were ninety three frames that were intact and

649
00:35:44,760 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: were later developed. Strondberg was the photographer more often than not.

650
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:52,359
Speaker 1: He had dabbled in photography prior to the expedition. Their

651
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:55,160
Speaker 1: images of Andre and Frankel with a polar bear they

652
00:35:55,160 --> 00:35:57,959
Speaker 1: had killed, and there's an image of the balloon lying

653
00:35:57,960 --> 00:36:01,319
Speaker 1: on its side with Andre and Frankel stan nearby. There's

654
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: even a timed exposure shot of all three of the

655
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:08,120
Speaker 1: men who are pulling one of the heavy sledges, and

656
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:11,280
Speaker 1: you can actually see these photos at the Grinnam Museum

657
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 1: in Sweden and they also have them online. The museum

658
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:15,839
Speaker 1: has scanned them all and put them online and will

659
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,799
Speaker 1: include that link in the show notes. Because of the

660
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: three decades that this film spent out in the freezing cold,

661
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:25,919
Speaker 1: the images are not particularly perfect. They're flared and burned out.

662
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:28,680
Speaker 1: Some of them have ghostly images of the three men.

663
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 1: The view of Andre in public opinion has really shifted

664
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: throughout the years. Sometimes people label him as a madman,

665
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:39,400
Speaker 1: other times people paint him as the hero of Sweden,

666
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:42,359
Speaker 1: and sometimes they portraying it more as a fool who

667
00:36:42,400 --> 00:36:45,160
Speaker 1: had dreams of fame and glory, but he and his

668
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: companions were it would seem really courageous and tenacious if

669
00:36:49,120 --> 00:36:54,880
Speaker 1: nothing else. Yeah, I'm so blown away, perpetually by just

670
00:36:54,960 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 1: how like upbeat they managed to stay through all of this.

671
00:36:57,560 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 1: Because I know I would be a whiny complainer right

672
00:37:00,600 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: about the moment that we lost the ropes at the

673
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 1: beginning of the trip. But I also would not pop

674
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: probably do a trip like this because I enjoy the

675
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:13,399
Speaker 1: comforts of home. Uh. Yeah, it's such a wild story.

676
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:15,759
Speaker 1: We've had a few requests for this. It pops up

677
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:21,759
Speaker 1: in various places. Um, it's sort of a ceaseless fascination.

678
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:24,719
Speaker 1: So uh. And it's one of those things that we

679
00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 1: could go on forever and ever because a lot of

680
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:30,439
Speaker 1: them the journals have been digitized and can be read

681
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: online and it's very very cool stuff. But I'm gonna

682
00:37:33,800 --> 00:37:36,480
Speaker 1: switch gears and read some listener mail about the Step

683
00:37:36,520 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 1: Pyramid of Joseph. And this is from our listener Christie,

684
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,959
Speaker 1: and she says, without getting into too many details, because

685
00:37:45,000 --> 00:37:46,880
Speaker 1: I could write about my visit their NonStop until the

686
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: day I die. The first place we visited she's talking about,

687
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:51,920
Speaker 1: a visit to Egypt in two thousand nine, was to

688
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: this step pyramid. I was astounded at its size. You

689
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:57,640
Speaker 1: can look at pictures until the cows come home, but

690
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:00,920
Speaker 1: actually being there is remarkable. We had free range of

691
00:38:00,960 --> 00:38:03,880
Speaker 1: the whole site and got to wander around, mostly unescorted.

692
00:38:04,360 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 1: The pyramid was shrouded and scaffolding, and when I asked

693
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 1: one of the guides about it, she said it was

694
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:11,479
Speaker 1: not because of instability, even though it is, but because

695
00:38:11,520 --> 00:38:13,399
Speaker 1: they want to quote make it pretty like the Great

696
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:17,120
Speaker 1: Pyramids so tourists will come. I found this amusing until

697
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:20,600
Speaker 1: I realized I was that tourist. At the time, excavation

698
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: work was still being done in large deep pits, and

699
00:38:22,840 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 1: we eventually came upon a large group of local men

700
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,040
Speaker 1: lifting a huge slab of stone. It was a false door.

701
00:38:28,560 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 1: I know you spoke of how only one door was

702
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:33,439
Speaker 1: functional and the rest appeared to be for artistic use

703
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: only sorry um reading this in tiny print. However, according

704
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 1: to the guides, these doors were very important to the

705
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 1: afterlife and to confuse looters. The doorways that could not

706
00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:46,799
Speaker 1: be open could be quote opened by spirits passing on

707
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,880
Speaker 1: to the next life, or to confuse bad spirits. The

708
00:38:49,920 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 1: door itself was huge, heavy, and the details carved into

709
00:38:52,640 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 1: it were breathtaking for being as old as it was,

710
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 1: and she attached some pictures of it. Also, one thing

711
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 1: most people don't know or don't acknowledge is the large

712
00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:02,799
Speaker 1: amount of stray dogs near the pyramids, and this one

713
00:39:02,840 --> 00:39:06,080
Speaker 1: in particular. Being part of an annimal animal rescue group

714
00:39:06,080 --> 00:39:08,239
Speaker 1: in the US, my heart was torn to pieces at

715
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,080
Speaker 1: the amount of stray dogs at historical sites. They would

716
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: hang out in the shade hoping that tourists would feed them,

717
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: and they were friendly, but they were malnourished. The worst

718
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:18,320
Speaker 1: part was the amount of puppies that were roaming around

719
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:20,800
Speaker 1: or sitting in the shade of tour buses. I wanted

720
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,600
Speaker 1: to smuggle them back with me so badly. The whole

721
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: trip in visiting this site will be something I will

722
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:28,320
Speaker 1: never forget. I'm heartbroken now at the unrest in twenty

723
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:33,480
Speaker 1: eleven that's left sites like these abandoned or worse completely destroyed. Um,

724
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:35,120
Speaker 1: thank you so much for sharing this. This is only

725
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 1: an excerpt from her email, but it's I always love

726
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: getting someone's first hand account, especially when it's descriptions of

727
00:39:41,080 --> 00:39:43,480
Speaker 1: sort of what was going on in this historical area

728
00:39:43,560 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 1: that we don't always get from like news stories. So

729
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 1: that was good. Christie is not the only person that

730
00:39:48,760 --> 00:39:51,840
Speaker 1: I have heard from, both among my friends and our listeners,

731
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,440
Speaker 1: who have talked about traveling to foreign countries and historic

732
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:56,719
Speaker 1: sites and being sort of startled at the stray animals.

733
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:00,160
Speaker 1: That's always a hard one. I don't I know an

734
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 1: easy fix for any of it, but that is the scoop.

735
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:04,760
Speaker 1: If you would like to share with us your stories

736
00:40:04,800 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 1: of travel to historic sites or uh maybe you are

737
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: a balloonist and you want to talk about that, do that.

738
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:12,239
Speaker 1: You can do so at History Podcast at how stof

739
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:14,839
Speaker 1: works dot com. You can visit us at Facebook dot

740
00:40:14,880 --> 00:40:17,600
Speaker 1: com slash misst in history at misst in History, on

741
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: Twitter at miss in history dot tumbler dot com, and

742
00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 1: on Interest dot com slash mist in History. I look

743
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:26,520
Speaker 1: forward depending pictures of the balloon adventure. UH. You can

744
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:29,240
Speaker 1: also visit our spreadshirt store at Misston History dot spreadshirt

745
00:40:29,320 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: dot com and get yourself some goodies. You would like

746
00:40:31,640 --> 00:40:34,400
Speaker 1: to research a little bit more about a topic related

747
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:36,960
Speaker 1: to this episode, you can go to our parents site,

748
00:40:36,960 --> 00:40:39,720
Speaker 1: how stuff Works. Type in the words hot air balloon

749
00:40:39,960 --> 00:40:41,560
Speaker 1: in the search bar and you will get an article

750
00:40:41,600 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 1: called how hot air balloons Work. UH. If you would

751
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: like to visit us on the web, you can do

752
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 1: that at Misston History dot com. For show notes, a

753
00:40:49,280 --> 00:40:52,480
Speaker 1: complete archive of all of our podcasts in the occasional

754
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:54,520
Speaker 1: other extra goody and we hope you do. Visit us

755
00:40:54,600 --> 00:41:01,240
Speaker 1: at Minston History dot com and Houston Parks dot com

756
00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: for moralness and thousands of other topics. Does it has

757
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 1: to have workstaf cor