Alec Wilkinson’s
The Ice Balloon: S.A. Andrée and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration is a
highly entertaining history of S.A. Andreé, a Swedish aeronaut who made an
unsuccessful attempt to fly a hydrogen balloon to the North Pole in 1897. Andrée
had solid reasons for trying to get to the pole via balloon, though many of his
fellow explorers thought he was crazy. Andrée believed that even though his
method of travel would not be able to collect data the way travelling to the
pole by sledge would, a balloon was a better and much quicker method for
getting there, mainly because it did not have to cross the frozen, rugged
terrain. Andrée took only two other men with him, a much smaller number than
most expeditions, and used a specially designed balloon steered by guide ropes
and sails and funded in part by Alfred Nobel.
Wilkinson also discusses the history of arctic exploration
and explorers such as Henry Hudson, Sir John Franklin, and Adolphus Greely.
These other attempts to reach the pole are interspersed with Andrée’s failed
voyage. I suspect the author did this in part because there is not enough known
about Andrée’s journey, particularly what happened at the end of it, to fill an
entire book. This leads to the main story in The Ice Balloon starting and stopping before it’s finally finished
off in the last few chapters. This is only a minor complaint. The Ice Balloon paints a vivid portrait
of a time when not all of the world could be scrolled through on Google Maps.
John
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