The Ice Balloon: S. A. Andree and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration

ISBN: 0307741869

Author: Wilkinson, Alec

Condition: Used

In 1897, at the height of the heroic age of Arctic exploration, the visionary Swedish explorer S. A. Andrée made a revolutionary attempt to discover the North Pole by flying over it in a hydrogen balloon. Thirty-three years later, his expedition diaries and papers would be discovered on the ice.Alec Wilkinson uses the explorers papers and contemporary sources to tell the full story of this ambitious voyage, while also showing how the late 19th centurys spirit of exploration and scientific discovery drove over 1,000 explorers to the unforgiving Arctic landscape. Suspenseful and haunting, Wilkinson captures Andrées remarkable adventure and illuminates the detail, beauty, and devastating conditions of traveling and dwelling on the ice.