Knut Hjalmar Ferdinand Frænkel (14 February 1870 – c. 10 October 1897) was a Swedish engineer and arctic explorer who perished in the Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 of

S. A. Andrée S is the nineteenth letter of the English alphabet. S may also refer to: History * an Anglo-Saxon charter's number in Peter Sawyer's, catalogue Language and linguistics * Long s (ſ), a form of the lower-case letter s formerly used where "s ...

in 1897.

Biography

Frænkel was born in

Karlstad Karlstad (, ) is the 20th-largest city in Sweden, the seat of Karlstad Municipality, the capital of Värmland County, and the largest city in the province Värmland in Sweden. The city proper had 65,856 inhabitants in 2020 with 95,167 inhabitants ...

, Sweden. He was a major in the Road and Waterway Construction Service Corps, and grew up in mountainous

Jämtland Jämtland (; no, Jemtland or , ; Jamtish: ''Jamtlann''; la, Iemptia) is a historical province () in the centre of Sweden in northern Europe. It borders Härjedalen and Medelpad to the south, Ångermanland to the east, Lapland to the north a ...

in the 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 The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technolo ...

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. Frænkel replaced the meteorologist

Nils Gustaf Ekholm Nils Gustaf Ekholm (9 October 1848 – 5 April 1923) was a Swedish meteorologist who led a Swedish geophysical expedition to Spitsbergen in 1882–1883. Biography Ekholm was born in Smedjebacken in Dalarna, son of a pharmacist. Having completed h ...

, 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 (English: "White Island") is an island in the Svalbard archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, with an area of . It is the easternmost part of the Kingdom of Norway. The closest Russian Arctic possession, Victoria Island, lies only to the ea ...

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 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 ...

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 A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...

with great honors. After cremation, their ashes were interred together at the cemetery Norra begravningsplatsen in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

References

Other sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Fraenkel, Knut 1870 births 1897 deaths Swedish explorers Swedish engineers Swedish balloonists Explorers of the Arctic KTH Royal Institute of Technology alumni Burials at Norra begravningsplatsen People from Karlstad Kvitøya