In July 1897, three men, Salomon August Andrée, Nils Strindberg, and Knut Fraenkel attempted to reach the North Pole from the Svalbard archipielago in the Arctic Ocean by a hydrogen balloon. After lift off, the balloon lost hydrogen quickly and crashed just two days later. While they survived the crash unhurt, they tried to return south on foot through the pack ice. Inadequately prepared for the march that lasted almost three months, they ended up in Giles Island (now Kvitøya), and perished three days later.
For the 33 years, the fate of the expedition was a mystery. It was not until 1930 that the expedition remains were found. Among the remains were letters written in shorthand by Strindberg to his fiancée, Anna Charlier. They were engaged 8 months before the expedition’s departure. Louis Leslie talks about the incident and the findings. I rewrote his article in Centennial Gregg.
Attachment: shorthand-in-the-north-pole.pdf
Wow, this is so cool! Thanks, Carlos, for always finding such interesting stories for us to read in shorthand!
You’re welcome and thank you for the feedback! I really don’t get many comments on the reading material content, nor on whether people in general are reading these or not, so I sometimes wonder whether the selections are useful (or even legible!).
I'll second Washbear on this. The selections are useful, legible, and interesting. I'm very happy that you take the time to write them up and post them, and I'm glad you post in three different Gregg series. I like reading in the different series. (I write DJ, modified by adopting abbreviations and principles from earlier series. I wish my handwriting were as good as yours.)
Thank you! I’m glad to hear this. It’s nice to know that the time I spend writing is worth it; I certainly like producing these. Probably the hardest thing to do is to keep the different series straight!
We definitely find your readings useful! My kids are almost done with the Notehand book (only 4 lessons left, in fact) and soon we will be looking for more reading material.
Your penmanship is really nice! You motivate me to do better. I'm working hard on my penmanship (my clunky left-handedness sometimes gets in the way). I hope I can one day post Notehand readings here. I'm slowly getting there. I can see improvement in my journals from year to year, so I think I'm moving in the right direction. But I'm definitely not where you're at! I'm able to read your centennial and often simplified, too. Anniversary leaves me in the dust, though, but I have little experience with its heavy abbreviations. Have you thought of self-publishing these readings, Carlos?
This blog is such an amazing resource… please keep it going! Our family really appreciates what you're doing here.
P. S. I hope to be digitizing more Gregg records for the blog in the future, as soon as I get the time. I've got 5 box sets of Simplified records waiting for me to get to them! I'm always on the lookout for more Gregg dictation records. Also, I hope to complete the Gregg Notehand dictionary I started in 2015… I entered all the textual outlines for the 1st edition back then, and hope next to add the words/phrases that were unique to the 2nd edition; and then maybe even hand-letter the outlines eventually. Projects for the summer… Shorthand is still going strong in my own life!
Thank you! 🙂