|
The Voyage to Greenland
The Greenland ice cap is one million square miles of ice where all that can be seen are sky, sun, and ice -- but often the fog is so thick that even those can't be seen. Peary, with Christian Maigaard, made a sled journey into the interior, risking snow blindness and injury from falling into hidden crevasses or from wading through glacial streams. On the return journey, the two men tied their sleds together and used them like a boat to sail down a mountainside of ice. Rigging a sail, and with a hatchet as a rudder, they sped "down the frozen slope with a breathless rush," flying over 50-foot-wide gorges before arriving back at their base.
The Expedition to the North
During his expedition of 1893-94 he again sledged to northeastern Greenland--this time in his first attempt to reach the North Pole. On summer trips in 1895 and 1896 he was mainly occupied in transporting masses of meteoric iron from Greenland to the United States. Between 1898 and 1902 he reconnoitred routes to the pole from Etah, in Inglefield Land, northwestern Greenland, and from Fort Conger, Ellesmere Island, in the Canadian Northwest Territories. On a second attempt to reach the pole he was provided with a ship built to his specifications, the Roosevelt, which he sailed to Cape Sheridan, Ellesmere Island, in 1905. But the sledging season was unsuccessful owing to adverse weather and ice conditions, and his party reached only 87º06' N. Peary returned to Ellesmere in 1908 for his third attempt and early the following March left Cape Columbia on his successful journey to the pole. On the last stage of the trek he was accompanied by Henson and four Eskimo. Peary and his companions purportedly reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. Peary returned to civilization only to discover that his former colleague, Cook, was claiming to have reached the North Pole independently in April 1908. Cook's claim, though subsequently discredited, marred Peary's enjoyment of his triumph. In 1911 Peary retired from the navy with the rank of rear admiral. His published works include Northward over the "Great Ice" (1898), The North Pole (1910), and Secrets of Polar Travel (1917).
Although it is generally accepted that Robert Peary was the first to reach the North Pole , a series of examinations of his diary pertaining to navigational error and flaws in his records made some believe that he actually only advanced to a point 30-60 miles (50-100 km) short of the pole. The truth remains uncertain.
Biography................Robert Peary
|
