When Andrée and his companions Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel left Spitsbergen aboard the “Örnen” (“Eagle”), the catastrophe was already conceivable: The towing lines became tangled up and the steering sails gave out. The ballon's exterior was covered in ice after 65 hours of flight. It was destroyed during the landing, far from the goal. The world was anticipating news of a successful expedition, financed by the Swedish “King of Dynamite”, Alfred Nobel, and Oscar II, King of the political union of Sweden and Norway. Silence was all that remained: Three men died during the ice winter on Kvitøya, the White Island. It was to be a sensation when their camp and bodies were discovered in 1930. Troell had previously made a feature film about the tragic fate of Andrée's polar expedition, entitled “The Flight of the Eagle” (1982).