Ingenjör Andrées luftfärd (The Flight of the Eagle)

It is 1897. Engineer Salomon August Andrée has spent many years preparing an expedition in a hydrogen-gas balloon to the North Pole. In May Andrée, together with Nils Strindberg, physicist, and Knut Fraenkel, engineer, board the gunboat "Svensksund", bound for the balloon station on Danes Island, Spitzbergen. On July 11th the "Eagle" rises only to fall again, depressed by a downward gust of wind. After 65 hours the exhausted men give up and the "Eagle”sinks down on the ice, 800 kilometres from the Pole. It takes a week to cover 2,500 metres. Fraenkel is by now suffering from severe bouts of stomach-ache and Strindberg is so weak that progress is almost impossible. They reach White Island and decide to spend the winter there...