Knut Frænkel
Encyclopedia
S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897
S. A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 was an ill-fated effort to reach the North Pole in which all three expedition members perished. S. A. Andrée , the first Swedish balloonist, proposed a voyage by hydrogen balloon from Svalbard to either Russia or Canada, which was to pass,...
of S. A. Andrée
Salomon August Andrée
Salomon August Andrée , during his lifetime most often known as S. A. Andrée, was a Swedish engineer, physicist, aeronaut and polar explorer who died while leading an attempt to reach the Geographic North Pole by hydrogen balloon...
in 1897.
Frænkel was born in Karlstad
Karlstad
Karlstad is a city, the seat of Karlstad Municipality, the capital of Värmland County, and the largest city in the province Värmland in Sweden. The city had 61,685 inhabitants in 2010 out of a municipal total that during the first quarter 2010 was 84,885 inhabitants...
, son of a major in the Army engineering corps (väg- och vattenbyggnadskåren), and grew up in mountainous Jämtland
Jämtland
Jämtland or Jamtland is a historical province or landskap in the center of Sweden in northern Europe. It borders to Härjedalen and Medelpad in the south, Ångermanland in the east, Lapland in the north and Trøndelag and Norway in the west...
in eastern middle part of Sweden, where he acquired an interest in outdoor activities and sports. He later went to the Palmgren School in Stockholm and graduated with a civil engineering degree from the Royal Institute of Technology
Royal Institute of Technology
The Royal Institute of Technology is a university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH was founded in 1827 as Sweden's first polytechnic and is one of Scandinavia's largest institutions of higher education in technology. KTH accounts for one-third of Sweden’s technical research and engineering education...
in 1896, and was preparing himself to enter the Army engineers when the chance came up in 1897 to join S. A. Andrée's planned balloon expedition to the North Pole. The third participant was Nils Strindberg
Nils Strindberg
Nils Strindberg was a Swedish photographer who was one of the three members of S. A. Andrée's ill-fated Arctic balloon expedition of 1897. Before perishing on Kvitøya with Andrée and Knut Frænkel, Strindberg recorded on film their long doomed struggle on foot to reach populated areas...
. Frænkel replaced the meteorologist Nils Gustaf Ekholm
Nils Gustaf Ekholm
Nils Gustaf Ekholm was a Swedish meteorologist who led a Swedish geophysical expedition to Spitsbergen in 1882–1883.Ekholm was born in Smedjebacken in Dalarna, son of a pharmacist...
who had participated in the preparations but dropped out in the last moment, critical of the construction of the balloon.
During the balloon expedition, Frænkel was responsible for writing the detailed protocols of everything done by the participants. After the landing on the ice, he wrote the meteorological journal and was responsible for camp arrangements. Having drifted for weeks, they reached the southwest of Kvitøya
Kvitøya
Kvitøya is an island in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, with an area of . It is located at , making it the easternmost part of the Kingdom of Norway...
Island and landed on 5 October 1897. They made a camp on a nearby height where they perished a few days later. Strindberg died first and was buried by the others, Andrée and Frænkel shortly afterwards.
The remains of the expedition were found by accident by the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition
Bratvaag Expedition
The Bratvaag Expedition was a Norwegian expedition in 1930 led by Dr. Gunnar Horn, whose official tasks were hunting seals and to study glaciers and seas in the Svalbard Arctic region. The name of the expedition was taken from its ship, M/S Bratvaag of Ålesund, in which captain Peder Eliassen had...
on 6 August 1930. Andrée and Strindberg were found and brought home, while Frænkel's body was found only at a returning expedition in early September when more of the snow and ice had melted. Frænkel and the other two explorers received a funeral
Funeral
A funeral is a ceremony for celebrating, sanctifying, or remembering the life of a person who has died. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember the dead, from interment itself, to various monuments, prayers, and rituals undertaken in their honor...
with great honors. After cremation
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
, their ashes were interred together at the cemetery Norra begravningsplatsen
Norra begravningsplatsen
Norra begravningsplatsen, literally "The Northern Cemetery" in Swedish, is a major cemetery of Metropolitan Stockholm. The cemetery is located in the municipality of Solna.Inaugurated on June 9, 1827, it is the burial site for a number of Swedish notables....
in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
.