Polar Explorers: 4 Tales of Tragedy & Survival Against the Odds

Freezing and alone at the end of the Earth... it takes guts (more on that later...) to be a polar explorer. Take a look at these tales of tragedy and survival against the odds, including...

• Andrée's Arctic Balloon Expedition
• Henry Hudson and the North-West Passage Expedition of 1610
• A Self-Appendectomy in the Antarctic
• When the Antarctic Tried to Kill Douglas Mawson

Andrée's Arctic Balloon Expedition

Balloon flights are pretty neat, but I don't think I'd want to attempt to reach the North Pole in one. You couldn't carry a great deal of weight with you, would be at the mercy of the winds and a crash could strand you deep in dangerous territory.

None of that deterred Salomon August Andrée in 1897. He commissioned a custom silk balloon from Paris and had it shipped to Danes Island, crewed it with a photographer and an engineer... then set off into the icy-blue yonder.

Things went wrong quickly. The balloon lost most of its guide ropes in short order, all the while venting gas from the shoddily-assembled seams of the gas-bag. The flight was largely uncontrolled at this point, carried in the direction chosen by the blustering winds.

After traveling almost 300 miles, the balloon was forced down onto the pack ice. Andrée and his team had found room for a small boat, sledges, weapons and supplies... but they were soon reduced to hunting bears and gulls as the days stretched into weeks and then months.

The group eventually reached White Island and there they stopped, presumably intending to build a sturdy camp and buckle down for the winter... but they died within a few days of setting foot on the island, and it's not entirely clear what killed them.

The remains of the camp would be discovered over 30 years later. A meticulously-kept diary and rolls of film resulted in an eerie "found footage" scenario, documenting the crashed balloon and the hardships faced by the expedition!

Henry Hudson and the North-West Passage Expedition of 1610

The North-West Passage was (and still is) a sea route linking the Atlantic and Pacific via the Arctic Circle... but in the 17th century, its existence was mere speculation. Still, discovering such a passage would open up an incredibly lucrative trade route... one that both The Virginia Company and The East Empire Company coveted.

In 1610 Henry Hudson (funded by the companies mentioned above) set out in search of the passage. Sailing on the Discovery, he made his way through what is now known as Hudson Strait and began exploring the regions known as Hudson and James Bay... only for the Discovery to become trapped in ice during November.

By the spring of 1611, the crew were more than ready to go home - but Hudson planned to spend more time exploring. Things reached boiling point in June, with the crew mutinying and casting Hudson (and those loyal to him) adrift in a small launch. He was never seen again.

The crew of the Discovery didn't fair too well either. They lost four of their number in a skirmish with the Inuit of Hudson Bay, while starvation carried off another. In total, only eight of the original twenty-three crew returned to England!

A Self-Appendectomy in the Antarctic

One recurring theme in polar expeditions is how far from help you really are.... which can become a real problem if you get sick.

Dr Leonid Rogozov found himself in a particularly unenviable position. Finding himself tired, nauseous and with a building pain in his abdomen, he easily recognized the signs of acute appendicitis. If allowed to fester, the bursting appendix would likely kill him... but the alternative was surgery, and he was the only medical professional on the team.

Rogozov resolved to attempt the incredibly risky operation, but he also made sure to give himself the best possible chance of success. He picked a couple of teammates to act as assistants (training them in how administer adrenaline and artificial ventilation should he lose consciousness) with the station director supervising them in case they should faint... then (with only a local anesthetic to the abdominal wall) he cut himself open. He initially tried performed the surgery with a mirror but found the inverted image was throwing him off, so ended up doing the operation by touch!

Rogozov survived his self-surgery and made it back to Russia. Based on the condition of the removed appendix, it would have burst if he'd delayed even a single day longer!

When the Antarctic Tried to Kill Douglas Mawson

When Douglas Mawson was selected to lead the Australasian Antarctic Expedition on the SY Aurora, he probably had no idea of the nightmare that awaited him.

The expedition's goal was to explore portions of the Antarctic coast, so the members split into teams to cover more ground. Mawson's objective was to survey glaciers hundreds of miles from the expedition's base-camp, accompanied by Lt. Belgrave Ninnis of the British army as a dog handler and expert skier Xavier Mertz.

The team made fairly good time, crossing three-hundred miles of snow in just-over a month... but then things started to go wrong. Mawson developed a split lip that seared with the cold, while Ninnis narrowly avoided falling through concealed cracks in the ice on more than one occasion. He also developed an abscess on his fingertip that had to be burst with a pocketknife. Meanwhile, Mertz was becoming concerned about noises coming from the ice and snow ahead - his experience told him the snow was shifting, and would be particularly treacherous to cross.

The team trekked across an area laced with crevasses the next day... and that's when Ninnis vanished. A hasty search discovered his dogs on a ledge partway down a deep chasm - in all likelihood, Ninnis had gone through a light "cap" of snow covering the gap and the food-laden sledge had gone with him.

With limited supplies, Mawson and Mertz had to abandon the mission and attempt a return to the base-camp. They ate the weakest of the dogs (even boiling the paws into edibility) but their health rapidly deteriorated. Mawson experienced a bout of snow blindness (treated with zinc sulfate and cocaine) while the skin started to come off his companion's legs. Soon, Mertz became fevered and delirious - and Mawson could only stay with him as he died.

Alone, Mawson struck out towards the base-camp once more... only to find the skin of his feet falling off. He smeared them in lanolin and bandaged what was left of the skin back on - his diary records that he was rotting alive for want of proper nourishment. As a side note, it's possible that the sloughing skin and delirium were caused by overdosing on vitamin A - husky livers (eaten by the desperate men) can contain a massive amount.

A few days later Mawson was at the end of his rope - literally. He'd fallen through the ice and was suspended only by the makeshift rope harness he'd been using to pull his sledge... but somehow found the strength to pull himself up. After this experience he fashioned a rope ladder in case of further falls (which he had cause to use mere days later!)

Against all odds he made it to a supply cache (containing oranges and a pineapple) that provided a critical infusion of sugar. On his last legs, he made the final push to base-camp... only to see the SY Aurora leaving.

Fortunately some members of the expedition had elected to stay and keep the base-camp running. Mawson was forced to spend another winter there, but ultimately survived his ordeal!

Thanks for reading - perhaps you'd also like...

• The Dark Past of Ice Palaces and Why Snow Can Turn Pink: 8 Frozen Facts
• The Ghost Ship and a Blood Waterfall: 6 Polar Horror Movies Waiting to Happen
• Why a Reindeer’s Nose Keeps It Warm in the Cold (and Other Weird Reindeer Facts)

Sources and Further Information:

• The Andrée Expedition: A doomed experiment
• The Canadian Encyclopedia: Henry Hudson
• The man who cut out his own appendix
• The Most Terrible Polar Exploration Ever: Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic Journey