Eielson died on the ice

Ben Eielson was an Alaska hero, a hard-flying pilot who made racking up aviation firsts look easy. According to the Hatton-Eielson Museum, he was the first pilot to land on floating ice, the first to fly airmail in Alaska, and the first to fly an airplane in Antarctica.

But the flight that made Eielson a real star was a 2,200-mile trip in 1928 across the Arctic Ocean from Barrow to Spitsbergen, a Norwegian island.

The Grand Forks Herald has a story today about Eielson's funeral, 80 years ago today. Eielson died while attempting to fly supplies to the Nanuk, a stranded ship. After Eielson's plane went missing in early November, pilots searched for his plane for months but it wasn't until late January that they found the wreckage on the frozen Chukchi Sea. Eielson's body was brought south on a steamship, and when it finally reached North Dakota his funeral (which was 80 years ago today) was attended by what seemed like the whole state.

To read the Herald story about Eielson, click here.

To visit the Hatton-Eielson Museum site and see photographs of Eielson and his plane, click here.