The expedition of Björling and Kallstenius is one of the least-known of Arctic expeditions.
Mounted on a shoestring budget, it was the type of expedition many young adventurers dream of but few are foolhardy enough to attempt. It came to a tragic end only a few months after it started.
Johan Alfred Bjorling disappeared on an expedition to the High Arctic in 1892-93. (Photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Johan Alfred Björling was a Swedish botanist, only 21 years of age in 1892 when he set out on his fateful expedition. Yet, he had already built a considerable reputation.
Two years earlier, he had been botanist on an expedition to Spitsbergen. The following year, he had attempted an impossible journey from Godhavn (now Qeqertarsuaq), Greenland, by rowboat to Melville Bay.
The farthest north he got that year was the Devil’s Thumb (Kullorsuaq in Greenlandic), a well-known landmark for whalers at the southern end of Melville Bay.
In 1892, he was determined to undertake a botanical investigation of Ellesmere Island. His companion would be a 24-year-old zoologist and fellow Swede, Evald Kallstenius.
The two scientist-adventurers travelled first to St. John’s where they bought a tiny schooner, the Ripple, of only 37 tons, for $665. They recruited a 21-year-old Dane as captain and hired two local men as crew.
They took this small vessel through treacherous ice to Godhavn in less than a month. The plan was for a summer investigation of Ellesmere Island and a quick return that fall to Godhavn.
Unfortunately, nothing turned out as planned.
The expedition left Godhavn on Aug. 2, 1892, and made it across Melville Bay. They continued north as far as the easternmost of the Cary Islands, a group of tiny islands off the coast of northern Greenland, southwest of the present community of Qaanaaq.
In 1875, George Nares, leading a British expedition, had left supplies cached there, and Björling intended to use them.
Sometime before Aug. 17, after the party had loaded stores from the British cache onto the Ripple the ship ran ashore, perhaps under the pressure of drift ice.
Undaunted, Björling and his companions made an attempt to go north to Foulke Fiord in the ship’s boat that they had purchased at Godhavn, but the attempt was unsuccessful and they returned to the scene of their shipwreck.
Stranded on the Carey Islands with no means of going south, and with winter coming on and the hours of daylight noticeably decreasing, the logical next step would have been to use their boat to make for the Greenland coast, plainly visible and only about 60 kilometres away.
There they would almost certainly have met Inughuit who could have ensured their survival through the winter. In fact, before he left Godhavn that summer, Björling had written, “If a wintering should be necessary, I will resort to the Eskimos in North Greenland or the Danes on the west coast.”
When Björling wrote those words, he had not anticipated that a wrecked ship would thwart his plan to reach Ellesmere Island. And he was a man known for his determination and stubbornness. Now more than ever, he resolved to visit Ellesmere Island.
In his last written message, left on the Carey Islands, he wrote, “Forced by bad weather to linger on this island for a long time, I now set out on the tour to the Eskimos… on Ellesmere Island. As I hope that a whaler will visit Cary Island next summer to rescue me and my companions, I will try to reach this island again before July 1.”
He added, “We are now five men, of which one is dying.”
The note was dated Oct. 12, 1892.
Then the expedition, one man short, vanished into the west, four men in a tiny boat heading vainly toward unknown Ellesmere Island. They were never heard from again.
Did they make it? No trace of them or their tiny vessel has ever been found on the Canadian shore. Had they reached it, they would certainly have perished, for no Inuit lived on that coast to assist them. Instead, they almost certainly went to watery graves in the frigid depths of Smith Sound.
In June of the following year, Capt. Harry McKay of the Scottish whaler Aurora spotted a wreck on the easternmost of the Cary Islands. He landed and discovered the Ripple, embedded in the winter’s snow and ice. A man’s body was found nearby, buried under a pile of stones. McKay quickly gathered the relics he could find, including Björling’s final message.
Among the items McKay recovered were a few pages from a book that Björling had taken with him on his ill-fated expedition. That book was Three Years of Arctic Service, by A. W. Greely, who had lost so many men to starvation on the Ellesmere coast a decade earlier.
One wonders if Björling had bothered to read it. If he had, it is all the more inexplicable why he should have made for Ellesmere instead of the more accessible Greenland coast.
Swedish zoologist and explorer Axel Ohlin accompanied the whaler Eclipse on what was hoped would be a rescue mission in 1894, but it was unsuccessful.
Back home in Sweden, the families of two young scientists grieved their loss.
Their mourning was not made any easier by the tactless remarks of another Swedish polar explorer, A. E. Nordenskiold, who wrote in a letter to the Kallstenius family even before the young men’s fate was known: “When young men go in search of adventures, they will have to take the perilous consequences of their action.”
A Swede wrote this summation of the tragic death of Björling and, by extension, Kallstenius: “Björling possessed great energy and a burning desire for research, but lacked the necessary experience for his difficult task, and his expedition was ill-prepared and ill-equipped.”
Taissumani is an occasional column that recalls events of historical interest. Kenn Harper is a historian and writer who lived in the Arctic for more than 50 years. He is the author of “Minik: The New York Eskimo” and “Thou Shalt Do No Murder,” among other books. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
