288: Oh, the Places You Won’t Go. Nordvest-Spitsbergen National Park.

National Park After Dark

Audioboom Studios

True Crime, Places & Travel, Wilderness, Society & Culture, Sports

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In July of 1897, three men were carried into the sky inside a hydrogen balloon with the goal of being the first to reach the North Pole. The fate of their ambitious expedition remained a mystery for decades until the 1930’s, when a chance discovery unveiled the location of their final camp. But that revelation only gave rise to more puzzling questions we are still trying to answer today.

For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:

Instagram: @nationalparkafterdark
Twitter/X: @npadpodcast
TikTok: @nationalparkafterdark

Support the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!
For a full list of our sources, visit npadpodcast.com/episodes

Sources: History, The New Yorker, Balloon Museum, Aurora Expeditions, National Geographic, Smithsonian

Scary Interesting , A Nordic Heart

Book – The Expedition: Solving a Polar Tragedy by Bea Uusma

Thank you to the week’s partners!
Boll and Branch: Use our link to get 15% off, plus free shipping on your first set of sheets.
Soul: For 30% off your order, head to GetSoul.com and use code NPAD.
IQBAR: Text PARK to 64000 to get 20% off all IQBAR products and free shipping.
Naked Wines: To get 6 bottles of wine for $39.99, head to NakedWines.com/NPAD and use code NPAD for both the code AND PASSWORD.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	People have always loved a good competition. It taps into our innate and primal drive to excel and outperform,
0:09.0	surely firmly rooted in our evolutionary history when competition was key to survival. Today we see
0:15.4	competition in our everyday lives everywhere, just in different ways, like academics, bake-off television shows,
0:22.5	and the perpetual pursuit of keeping up with the Joneses. Overall, competition has made the
0:28.7	shift from survival to entertainment, but there are certain points in history that showcase
0:33.5	competition on a larger and grander scale. Take the space race, for example, when the U.S. and
0:40.5	Soviet Union vied to be the first to make notable leaps in space exploration and travel,
0:46.0	it was a competition on a global scale that we are all familiar with. But not so long before that,
0:52.3	another great race was underway, one in which countries sent team
0:56.2	after team to the most northern and southern reaches of the world all in hopes to earn the designation
1:01.6	as the first to plant their flag on the top and bottom of the planet.
1:08.0	Most failed, many died, and others disappeared in their pursuits, leaving the rest of the world disappointed, heartbroken, and left with enduring questions.
1:17.6	But some, thought to be lost forever, were eventually found, and what they left behind holds mysteries that have yet to be solved today.
1:26.6	Welcome to National Park Afterland. holds mysteries that have yet to be solved today.
1:57.9	Welcome to National Park After Dark. Hi, everyone. Welcome back. This is Cassie. And this is Danielle. I just did the intro. Welcome.
2:02.5	In case you don't know our voices yet. Or it's your first time yeah and what if this is your first one congrats because i'm not trying to set the bar high or anything right off
2:09.5	the bat but this is i'm going to say this is like top two or three episodes i've ever researched
2:16.4	wow okay i'm really excited because I don't know
2:20.9	too much about what you're doing today, but you have told me how much you've been working hard on
2:25.9	this episode and your intro already has me with a lot of questions. Okay, well, I started with
2:31.3	intentions of because this is coming out when we are actually going to be physically in Antarctica.
2:37.4	So if you're listening to this on the day it's released, Cassie and I are freezing somewhere at the bottom of the world.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in -15 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Audioboom Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Audioboom Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.