CHAPTER IV 

PLANNING TO USE A BALLOON 

     It was whilst pushing and pulling the heavy sledges and boats over the rough ice on this expedition that the idea first came to me of using an aerial craft in Arctic exploration. Often I looked up into the air and wished we had some means of traveling that royal road,' where there were no ice hummocks, no leads of open water, no obstacles to rapid progress. Why could not a balloon be used to take three or four men, sledges, dogs, provisions, all the necessary equipment, from the coast of Spitzbergen to the neighborhood of the Pole, by starting in a south wind? And if the aerial craft were to carry such a party somewhere near the Pole, in a day or two, could they not descend upon the ice, and with sledges and dogs complete the work of exploration, and by the same means find their way back over the pack to their headquarters or to some other land where they could get game and find safety? And, with this idea in my mind, I selected Pike's house, in Virgo Bay, on the shores of the Danish Strait, across from old Smeerenburg, as an advantageous site for the inflation of such a balloon and a start toward the Pole. Advantageous, because this place can be reached every summer by ship from Norway, and because it is only 600 nautical or about 700 statute miles from the Pole, being, in fact, just halfway between Tromso, the smart town in northern Norway, and the Pole. 

     Going to Paris, I spent several weeks in conference with the firm of Godard and Surcouf, leading balloon builders. They supplied the aeronautic skill, I the requirements and details for an Arctic voyage. We planned to build a monster balloon, one capable of lifting a total of some fifteen thousand pounds, one which could carry the crew, dogs, sledges, and plenty of food as well as a small boat and all the other necessaries so that at any moment the aerial expedition could in case of need be converted into a fully equipped sledging party prepared to travel the pack for many months. 

     The cost of this expedition was to be about $100,000. And whilst I was wondering where I could raise so much money, and debating with myself whether or not I wished to go into the enterprise even if the money could be found, a strange thing happened—one of those freaks of fate which so often mould the lives of men for good or evil. 

     An old friend, H. H. Kohlsaat, the Chicago newspaper publisher, was then in Paris. I did not know he was there, but he knew I was. He tried to find me. Like other Americans, I usually register my address at the Paris office of the New York Herald; this time, for some reason, I had not done so. Mr. Kohlsaat inquired at the Herald office, and many other places, but could not find me. 

     And what do you suppose he wanted of me? Just before this he had sold real estate in Chicago for nearly a million dollars, expecting to use a part of the money buying out the interest of his partner, Wm. Penn Nixon, of the Chicago InterOcean. But it turned out that Mr. Nixon used his option and bought Mr. Kohlsaat's interest for a large sum in cash, and the result was Mr. Kohlsaat had in hand more than a million dollars. He had heard something of my Arctic plans; and while he knew nothing of the details of such expeditions, he did know me, and evidently had some faith in me as a man. For he was hunting me in Paris with the intention of offering me the capital to equip another expedition!          

     All this I did not learn till long afterward. Meanwhile, reflecting upon the proposed polar effort by balloon, I had lost faith in the idea. There seemed to be little prospect of success with a motor less balloon, a mere toy of the winds, without propulsive power or ability to steer to the right or left; and I made no effort to raise the capital for the venture. 

     But if Mr. Kohlsaat and I had met in Paris, and he had offered me the money before my en­thusiasm had cooled with reflection, it is quite probable I should have accepted his generous aid. And in that case I should have been back in Spitzbergen in 1895 with a polar balloon de­signed to drift toward the Pole.

One year later Professor Andree, of Stockholm, did take up the balloon idea; had a balloon built in Paris—not as large and good a one as we had planned; took it to Spitzbergen in 1896, and, strangely enough, built his balloon house and established his base at the very spot on the shores of Dane's Island I had picked out two years before!

Andree, it will be remembered, was unable to make his flight in 1896, and was attacked by the yellow press of his own and other countries as a bluffer and fakir because he had sense enough not to start before the conditions were favorable. Brave as he was in ignoring the cowards who love to throw printer's ink and other nasty stuff at a man who tries to do something and doesn't do it quickly enough to suit the mob—the mob that always howls to have the gladiator kill the beast or the beast eat the gladiator the first half hour or damns it as a poor show—he at last fell victim to their goadings.

By the following year he had learned that his balloon was a poor one; that it did not hold gas well. He realized it was not fit for such a voyage, even if the plan itself was sound. But Andree knew if he failed to start, the yellow press would hound him into his grave, and he preferred death in the Arctics.

I know from men who were with him that Andree said, just before he sailed, in July, 1897, that he was committing suicide. He did not dare abandon his effort and go home to face the newspapers. He did start; his balloon drifted to the north, then to the east and a little south.

It was pretty well settled that within thirty to forty hours it came down in the ice-strewn Barentz Sea to the east of Spitzbergen. Andree and his two brave comrades were never more heard of.