Polar Controversy, Wally Herbert, Dennis Rawlins, Robert M. Bryce

Henson & Peary Exploration Map

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OP/ED by Bradley Robinson
Remember what Henson & Peary really did in fact as shown here on this map. Look at all their years of exploration, discovery, and the experience they gained to learn how to reach the Pole. In my opinion you should not believe some silly junior college librarian who dislikes Henson & Peary, or some money & fame motivated Scotsman who pretended he proved they didn't go to the Pole. People who write such books may be motivated only to make themselves look like some sort of expert or to gain a sense of importance they have no other way to obtain. No qualified Historian (one who has a degree in history from a real university) would dispute the scientific evidence that the Pole was reached in 1909, but a junior college librarian with a lot of time to kill, or a Scotsman wanting to be famous, with no credentials as historians would, could, and did ignore scientific evidence. Why? Because they are outside of the academic field. They are simply trying to sell their books and lectures, to make themselves seem important to other people. Why? Because they can never do anything of real merit like Henson and Peary did. The Scotsman, in fact, only reached the Pole on a year long camping trip supplied by airplanes! Now he claims he was first, not Peary, to reach the Pole. Wally Herbert painted a picture of himself at the Pole and sells them for up to $15,000. In a criminal case this is what they call "motive."

Exploration map - 18 years of expeditions

North Pole Locator - view from orbit

Magnetic North Pole - is in Canada

Arctic Ocean floor map - shows Lomonosov Ridge

Arctic Ocean Depths - from the 1909 sounding

Arctic depth map - proves Herbert theory is wrong

1909 supply teams - logistics map

1910 magazine - illustration maps

return to map room

Henson and Peary did not simply engage in some "race for the Pole" as many writers would have you believe. The idea that there was a "race" is like the "space race" of the 1960's to be first on the Moon.

Who landed second on the Moon? Was it the Soviet Union? China? France? No one. Who reached the North Pole second? France? Italy? No one did. There was no space race and there was no race to the Pole. That is all just "newspaper talk" as Matthew Henson once said.

Only the United States teams landed on the Moon. Only the United States team of Henson & Peary reached the North Pole. Britain arrived, sort of, 60 years later as part of what has been called a "polar stunt" performed apparently only for the purpose of writing a book. These great achievements had no second place winners. No one else was in the running. Although a criminal individual, Fred Cook, claimed he walked to the Pole when no one was watching (read what his guide said) it wasn't true.

Cook was just a con artist who tried to "jump Peary's claim." He did temporarily fool "the newspapers" (not hard to do) before being exposed as a fraud.

Matt and Peary spent many years exploring the Arctic because they were explorers. This map from the 1947 edition of Matt Henson's biography, Dark Companion, shows the true perspective of what they did. There wasn't anyone in the world as skilled and qualified as the Peary & Henson team. Peary raised so much money from his New York based "Peary Arctic Club" that he had his own ship custom built which he named the Roosevelt. With this excellent ice breaker he was able to penetrate far up into the tip of Ellesmere Island - the best place to build bases from which to go for the Pole.

Henson and Peary first looked for a land mass to the Pole. No one knew if Greenland ended or went all the way to the Pole. They found out through years of exploration that it did not. Matt and Peary realized at last that the only route to the Pole was over the frozen ocean.

With many years of experience and with the help of Eskimos they made several attempts to reach the Pole. Their very successful 1906 trip set the record for the farthest point North ever reached. But they had learned the secret to Arctic Ocean travel - it was very difficult and would require a large assault party to provide enough supplies.

In 1909 Matt and Peary made it to the North Pole. It was almost effortless compared to the difficult trips from past years. 24 men, with over 130 Huskies pulled sledges of supplies. Each team of Peary's expedition, Eskimos, and dogs left the base camp and took turns with the hardest part of the journey - breaking trail by hacking a way through fields of jumbled ice, cutting footholds over pressure ridges, etc. They also built igloos at each days camp stocked with food and alcohol stove fuel.

Matt, Peary and the best 4 Eskimos went the last 130 miles to the Pole. And what they discovered was that there is no North Pole! No land mass, no island - nothing but frozen ocean swaying under foot. A terrible disappointment. Even more so because Peary had not brought a sounding line long enough to reach bottom. No one was prepared for an ocean floor deeper than the 9000 feet of wire used on Peary's instrument. There is even some record that Peary became angry because Matt reached the Pole first. Peary's sled arrived 45 minutes later. When he took a sextant reading he found they were at the Pole (within 3 miles). Matt, not Peary, was the first man to reach the North Pole.

When they returned to their ship, Roosevelt, after almost 2 months of exhausting travel they were told that one of the team leaders, professor Ross, had been killed when he drown in the Arctic Ocean (later it was learned that an Eskimo shot him).

So Peary's trip was not completely successful:

• A man was killed
• They found no land at the Pole
• They couldn't measure the absolute depth of the ocean
• Matt disobeyed Peary and arrived at the Pole before Peary

A Scotsman in 1988 wrote a book saying Peary was quiet back on the ship and thinks he acted like he was depressed. Would you believe that writer alleged that this behavior shows that Peary didn't reach the North Pole? Can you believe that? I can't. So next time some writer tries to convince you that his book "proves" Peary didn't reach the North Pole - remember this map. Remember that Matt and Peary were not in a race to the Pole with anyone but themselves. They are the greatest of all Arctic explorers who learned the truth of reaching the Pole - it is terribly hard, terribly dangerous and there is nothing there but ice. But that is also why we remember them. No one knew what was at the Pole until they risked their lives to find out for us.

Oh, remember that ocean floor depth deeper than the 9000 foot line Peary had? That turned out to be the correct answer to prove the team was at the Pole. But no one knew that until 50 years later when submarines mapped the ocean floor beneath the North Pole. Peary had reported the truth half a century earlier.