Read The Expedition by Bea Uusma. She is swedish of, i think, latvian heritage. The book is about Engineer Andrees attempt to reach the northpole in 1897. He was not, like others that tried at about this time like Scott, Amundsen and Nansen, an experienced polar explorer. He got this idea into his brain that they had tried the wrong approach to reach the pole. His idea was to get as far north as possible which in his case was Spetsbergen, an island north of norways northernmost spot, wait for the right wind and then take a balloon. They had a lot of food, medicine and other supplies with them so if anything went wrong there would be no danger according to plans. And in the summer of 1897, they had waited the whole of the summer of -96 without getting the right wind, they got the right wind and they were off. For 33 years it was a mystery what happened to them but in 1930 by pure coincidence a ship found the remains. But another mystery arose from that find. What did they die of? They had plenty of food. Warm clothes and shelter. So starvation and freezing to death is out. Andree had a diary that he wrote in practically every day but suddenly he stops writing. One of them died in his sleepingbag, warm and cozy. The book goes through different possibilities (the author is a doctor in medicine) examines the remains of the bones and the clothes in detail. Interesting book. A lot I didn't know about their expedition. It is a famous failure in sweden.