Danskeöen. Friday, June 12th
We have plenty to do in the hut. Roasting, cooking and making coffee the whole day, but we have plenty of time to look at the remains of André and Wellmann’s expedition equipment, which lies spread about in the valley where the hut stands. They are not just small things. The apparatus they used to make the gas for filling the balloon, which is lost forever, and the airship, which fell down immediately after the start, lie in a heap, rusted and weather-stained during the passage of time. Heaps of cases filled with filings, damaged acid-balloons and heaps of timber from the collapsed balloon sheds lie spread about. On the lids of the packing cases we can still read the half-blurred addresses. In Wellmann’s house the stonework is still standing practically untouched, and there is a kitchen range which looks much better than the old trumpery one we have in our hut. The other part of the house has disappeared—until some years ago it was still there, but then it was stolen (in the true sense of the word). An enterprising skipper who had bagged no seal that year pulled it down and took all the timber on board, covering his expenses for the trip (and even more than that) by selling it all to one of the collieries.
The northwest corner of Spitzbergen is, on the whole, one of the most classical parts in the history of Arctic expeditions. The first expedition which started from here for the North Pole was a British one. Two men-of-war passed here in 1773, but they did not get further north than 80° 36′ when the ice forced them south again. On board one of these was Nelson as midshipman, and during this trip he was not far from being killed by a polar bear. In the following decades several attempts were made to get northwards from Spitzbergen, but all the experiences which these expeditions showed was that it was impossible to reach the great goal from this side by sailing ship. The ice stretched too far down, and the current turned the boats southwards as soon as they had got well amongst the ice, so that maneuvering was difficult. For a long time no attempt was made—the next was André and Wellmann’s. It was left to Fridtjof Nansen to show the way to the North Pole, with the “Fram.” This last-named boat when it came out of the ice in 1896 passed Virgo-havn steering southwards to Norway. That summer André was on Danskeöen waiting anxiously for a favorable wind to allow him to start his balloon trip, but it did not take place that year and it was only in the following summer that he got away.