The “Heroic Age of Polar Exploration,” spanning from the turn of the 19th century to 1915, was the space race of the past. Like Mars and the moon today, the North and South Poles were considered the great unknowns. They were a test of the limits of human survival and ingenuity.
And like today’s rocket tests, not every polar expedition was successful. In fact, countless deaths and sacrifices were made in the name of progress and conquering the unexplored. From ships to hot air balloon attempts, these were the most doomed polar expeditions in history. One even happened in 2007!
1. The San Telmo (1819)
Before the age of steam engines and steel, the tiny Spanish naval ship San Telmo attempted to cross the infamous Drake Passage with only sails and a wooden hull. It never reached its destination of Montevideo, Uruguay, and was instead lost in a devastating cyclone in icy waters. Last seen on September 2, 1819 off the Antarctic coast, it holds one of the largest death tolls in a single vessel in polar exploration’s history. All 644 crew members on board drowned.
2. The Franklin Expedition (HMS Terror & HMS Erebus) (1845-1846)
One of the most famous of all doomed polar explorations, The Franklin Expedition was a tragedy for the ages. Led by John Franklin in 1845, two ships, the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, embarked with a total of 129 crew members to explore the frigid waters of the Arctic.
Seeking the Northwest Passage
The Franklin Expedition’s goal was shared by many explorers of the time – to find the Northwest Passage, an elusive, theorized path through the ice and islands above the Arctic Circle. Before the building of the Panama Canal, this was to be the lifeblood of trade – and allow sailors to avoid the dreaded Drake Passage south of Argentina.
Disaster — Cannibalism and Death
The Franklin Expedition was a colossal failure. Both ships sank, leaving many sailors drowned or adrift on solid packs of ice in the open sea. Franklin died in 1847, but many of his crew’s specific fates remain a mystery. Tales from natives of the area speak of cannibalism and death, and later evidence of crews’ graves with gnawed bones supplemented the eye-witness testimony. One thing is certain – none returned home.
3. The Polaris (1871-1873)
Though the Northwest Passage was a highly-coveted prize for trade, explorers also had their sights on the North Pole. The challenge of reaching the top of the world was so appealing, innumerable explorers attempted the feat over the years. The Polaris Expedition of 1871-1873 hoped to be the first.
A Disaster – And Mutiny?
Led by American explorer Charles Francis Hall, the Polaris only reached Greenland before winter’s harsh cold and mutiny set in. Hall became ill and accused the expedition’s scientist, Emil Bessels, of poisoning him. Hall died soon after, and his crew attempted to return to southern waters.
It Was Murder
The journey proved treacherous. The men were set adrift on an ice flow before wrecking the Polaris on the shores of Greenland. They were forced to spend a harsh, freezing winter together before finally being rescued. Hall however, had truly been doomed from the start. When his body was finally discovered in 1968, large amounts of arsenic were found in his system, proving he was right to suspect poison.
4. S.A. Andrée Expedition (1897)
The S.A. Andrée Expedition of 1897 is one of the most unique disasters in polar exploration history. Rather than trying to reach the North Pole by land and sea, the Swedish aeronaut Solomon August Andrée chose to fly north in a hydrogen balloon. As you might guess, this did not go according to plan.
Crash Landing
After only ten hours of flight, the balloon began an unplanned descent. The balloon collided with the Arctic surface several times during Andrée’s attempts to keep it airborne. He endured 41 hours with no sleep in a harrowing bid for flight before the balloon crash landed for good.
Death by Parasite
Though Andrée’s landing was not life-threatening, he and his two companions were ill-prepared for Arctic survival, with ineffective winter clothing and low food supplies. Camping on an ice flow, the men survived on a diet of polar bears for two weeks before succumbing to parasites and dying on the ice. They left behind rolls of photographic film to tell their tragic tale, discovered, along with their bodies, in 1930.
5. The Belgica (1897-1899)
The Belgian ship RV Belgica was set on finding not the North Pole, but the South Pole. Antarctica was vastly unexplored at the time, and expedition leader Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery was intent to make Belgium the first country to put the South Pole, literally, on the map. Aside from its leader, the Belgica also contained Frederick Cook and Roald Amundsen, two famous explorers who would later achieve greatness.
Frozen in Ice
Though the RV Belgica discovered many landmarks of the Antarctic coast, it failed to reach the South Pole and suffered greatly throughout its lengthy stay. A crew member’s early drowning was not enough to stop Gerlache from purposefully freezing his ship in the dense pack ice of the Southern Ocean, forcing his crew to stay–ill-prepared–all winter.
Scurvy and Madness
Lack of proper food and clothing plagued the Belgica’s crew and soon led to rampant scurvy. Madness set in among many due to the 24/7 darkness of night, landing one crew member in a mental hospital for life following their eventual return to civilization. Though most of the crew survived, it was due to Amundsen and Cook’s leadership, rather than Gerlache’s, that the Belgica finally escaped the ice come spring and made it home.
6. Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole (1910-1912)
Despite numerous attempts, the South Pole still remained elusive in the 1910s. Two explorers, Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen took on the challenge (yes, that Amundsen from the Belgica who had also finally traversed the Northwest Passage that Franklin and others had failed to find). But their bid for the pole happened at the same time–in a daring race. Amundsen succeeded. So did Scott, a mere few weeks later. But only one of them made it back alive.
Amundsen’s Superior Plan
Amundsen was highly prepared for the journey to the pole. He set up camp 60 miles closer than Scott did. He brought dogs to use to pull sleds and purposefully intended to eat the weakest later, whereas Scott brought motorized tractors and ponies. Amundsen left five days earlier than Scott and took a different, more efficient, route.
Scott’s Disastrous Journey
Soon after leaving, Scott’s tractors broke down. Later, his ponies died, which sweat like humans and have hooves that sink in the snow rather than dogs that are built for the cold and have paws akin to snowshoes. Scott took a route that led his team over mountain passes and through blizzards, now on foot. When Scott finally reached the South Pole a month after Amundsen, and saw Amundsen’s camp, left behind, he was devastated. His suffering had been for naught.
Scott’s Tragic End
Scott’s return journey was even worse than his trek south. Having taken longer than planned to reach the pole, Scott’s team soon ran out of food. One by one, his five-man team succumbed to starvation, frostbite, and exhaustion. None, including Scott, survived. Amundsen went on to fame and fortune, already presenting his adventures in lecture halls when news of Scott’s death arrived.
7. The Endurance (1914-1915)
The Endurance is one of the most famous disaster sagas of Antarctic exploration, but one with a remarkably happy ending. The suffering that the leader, Earnest Shackleton, and his crew endured was long, arduous, and constantly courting death.
Trapped in Ice
The Endurance’s troubles started when the ship became trapped in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea between the Antarctic peninsula and the mainland. Slowly, the ship was crushed by the pressure of the expanding ice, and eventually, it splintered and sank. The crew was left floating on the ice with only two small lifeboats available for the survivors to escape through narrow, open leads of water.
Splitting Up
Over a year later, with a journey fraught with endless drifting in impassible currents and stops at barren islands, the crew ultimately split up. One half stayed on a rocky, inhospitable island with little hope of escape, while the other half journeyed north in the last boat.
A Miraculous Rescue
Shackleton and half the crew finally reached salvation after a dangerous, lucky crossing of the Southern Ocean. Once on land, Shackleton began a desperate attempt to secure a ship to return for the rest of his stranded crew. Though it took far longer than he wanted, he finally rescued them from near death on the island. All crew members survived, though the youngest man on board lost a foot to gangrene.
8. The MV Explorer (2007)
The last doomed voyage on our list is a poignant reminder of the dangers of the Southern Ocean, even as late as the early 2000s. Though ships have come a long way in size, durability, and safety since the Heroic Age of Polar Exploration, tourists find it hard to resist the call of adventure. The MV Explorer was the first cruise ship to ever sink in the Antarctic – in 2007.
First Ship Made for Antarctic Sight-Seeing
The MV Explorer was the first ship ever built solely for Antarctic sight-seeing in 1969, then under the name MV Lindblad. Its hull was reinforced to plow through sea ice should the need arise, and it was still in solid condition when it met its watery grave.
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How Could This Happen in 2007?
The question loomed – how could a modern ship, designed as an icebreaker, sink in the 21st century? After a lengthy investigation, it was concluded that the sinking was due to human error. The crew mistook hard land ice for weaker, first-year ice, forcing the Explorer to collide with an unyielding surface. It then drifted into an iceberg and sank.
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Everyone Was Rescued
Fortunately, the crew and passengers of the Explorer were all rescued. Countless cruise ships continue to operate, allowing adventurous tourists to enjoy the extreme reaches of our planet, all thanks to the daring explorers of an age long-past.
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