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In February of 1909 Peary's North Pole expedition left their ship, beset in the ice of Ellesmere Island's Cape Sheridan, and sledged ninety miles west to Cape Columbia, where the northward march to the Pole would begin. On the march over the sea ice, the expedition was to be composed of two parties: the pioneer party and the main party, which was broken up into smaller supporting parties composed of several Eskimos and teams each headed by a white man. The pioneer party was to break the trail, set the pace of travel, and establish igloo camps which would designate the end of each march, while the main party followed twenty-four hours in the rear. Every five marches the pioneer party was to be alternated with one of the supporting parties. Thus the hardship of cutting the trail was equalized among all the members. As the main party progressed they were fed from the rations carried by one of the supporting parties, and when the food from that sledge was gone the unit was given enough rations to return to land. With five such parties supporting him, Peary estimated accurately that he and Henson could be placed within striking distance of the Pole with ample food and equipment for them to proceed alone and then return to land. Why it was that Peary chose to take Henson, the Negro, with him to the Pole is best answered in the simple statement that there was no one better qualified. Without Henson, Peary might never have reached the Pole. No man in the expedition, except Peary himself, had had as much Arctic experience as Henson. Peary spoke Eskimo falteringly, while Henson spoke as fluently as a native. Peary, his toes amputated, had difficulty walking on snowshoes, not to mention driving a dog sledge, and Henson could handle a team and sledge more competently than many of the Eskimos. Peary was a weary, battle-scarred man of fifty-three, while Henson, ten years his junior, was tough and hard, with an unlimited amount of endurance. And then, there was no man Peary could trust as he could Henson. When two men have faced the same hardships, the same threat of starvation and death, together for so many years, a deep bond of trust and understanding is bound to grow between them. That bond certainly existed, and had every reason to exist between Peary and Henson, and the credit of the discovery of the Pole should go to the curious cord of interdependency that bound these two valiant men to a common cause. Bradley Robinson, 1947 |
A colorized print from the Library of Congress. Scene in back is from a Tom Lovell (deceased) painting circa 1970. |
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