Deals with Andrée and Walter Wellman and their attempts to reach the North Pole through Danes Island, Spitsbergen. Chapter One is a summary of North Pole attempts.
p. 12: On a shelf in Fram’s library was a copy of one of the crew’s favorite stories—and one of the best-selling books in the world—Jules Verne’s Five Weeks in a Balloon.
p. 33: In Fram’s library Lachambre noticed a copy of Jules Verne’s novel Five Weeks in a Balloon. Hansen told Lachambre the crew of Fram often daydreamed of a balloon expedition coming to their relief [after Fram escaped the ice and returned to Spitsbergen].
[The second chapter, “The greatest show in the Arctic,” on Wellman’s attempt in the airship America, is a dismal tale of failure put by Wellman in terms of successful experimentation—his newspaper accounts of failures described as successes reminds one of the Vietnam and Iraq wars.]