Taissumani: April 21, 1908 – Frederick Cook Claims The North Pole

KENN HARPER

Frederick Cook was born in New York State and educated as a doctor. But he was always drawn “Poleward” and constantly interrupted his medical practice to travel as a surgeon or leader on Arctic or Antarctic expeditions.

He first ventured into the Arctic as surgeon on Robert Peary’s North Greenland Expedition in 1891. Although the two would later become bitter enemies, Peary praised the doctor at the time for his “unruffled patience and coolness in an emergency.” Two other expeditions to Greenland and Labrador followed. As a result, a group of Americans interested in the North formed the Arctic Club of America. Frederick Cook was its first president, and was later president of the prestigious Explorers Club. After practicing medicine again and lecturing on his northern experiences for four years, Cook joined the Belgian Antarctic expedition, where he was again praised for his courage.

In 1898, Peary returned north on an expedition that would last four years. In 1901 Cook joined him, having been sent north on an errand of mercy. He found Peary to be “wrecked in ambition, wrecked in physique, and wrecked in hope.” Cook attended to Peary’s health, and in the spring of 1902 Peary made an attempt to reach the North Pole. It was unsuccessful, and Cook became convinced that Peary’s so-called “American Route” to the Pole, north through Kane Basin, would never prove successful. After his return south, Cook directed his attention to other challenges, most notably, Mount McKinley in Alaska, North America’s highest peak. In 1906 he claimed to have reached its summit.

In 1907, Cook was drawn back to the High Arctic with a plan to reach the North Pole. He established a base camp at Annoatok (Anoritooq) on the Greenland coast of Kane Basin and passed the winter preparing to tackle exploration’s greatest challenge. In February, accompanied by his German assistant and 10 Inughuit (as the Inuit of northern Greeenland are known), he crossed Ellesmere Island, skirted the east coast of Axel Heiberg Island, then headed north. He sent back his last supporting party after three days’ travel over the sea ice.

Accompanied only by two young Inughuit, Ittukusuk and Aapilaq, he traveled on, and claimed to have reached the Pole on April 21, 1908. It was an anticlimax; he wrote: “The desolation… was such that it was almost palpable… What a cheerless spot this was, to have aroused the ambition of man for so many years.”

Robert Peary would claim the Pole almost a year later, on April 6, 1909, and the rivalry that would ensue would make Frederick Cook the most controversial and most maligned man in polar history. But all that was still a year away. First he had to return from the Pole to his base camp and ultimately to the south.

Getting from Annoatok to the Pole had taken two months. Getting back would take a year. Heading south from the Pole, Cook misjudged the drift of the ice and ended up to the west of Axel Heiberg Island. Eventually he and his companions reached Jones Sound and spent the winter in a cave at Cape Sparbo on Devon Island, south of present-day Grise Fiord.

The journey from there back to Greenland in the spring was made on foot – there being no dogs left. Dragging the remains of their sled behind them, surviving by chewing parts of their boots and leather ropes, they reached their base camp in mid-April. From there Cook made his way south, to announce his feat to a startled world only a few days before Peary announced his own claim to the Pole.

But Peary had wealth and influence backing him. Ten years earlier, powerful supporters had formed the Peary Arctic Club to assist him in his quest. Now, the club went into action against the upstart surgeon from New York. A concerted campaign of vilification and lies ruined Cook’s credibility. Eventually he entered the oil business in Texas.

But even there he was hounded by his old enemies. Convicted on trumped-up charges of fraud in the promotion of his oil business, Cook was sentenced in 1923 to fourteen years in Leavenworth Penitentiary. Even in 1930, when he became eligible for parole, Professor William Hobbs, a biographer of Peary, organized a protest against his release. The protest failed and Cook was released. In 1940, shortly before his death, he received a pardon from President Roosevelt. Frederick Cook died on August 5, 1940. He was seventy-five.

Calling Frederick Cook “upright, honorable, capable and conscientious in the extreme,” Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole, also said of him: “We shall always honor Dr. Frederick A. Cook as the first man at the geographical North Pole of the earth. It was a pity that Peary should besmirch his beautiful work by circulating outrageous accusations against a competitor who has won the battle in open field.”

Taissumani: A Day in Arctic History recounts a specific event of historic interest, whose anniversary is in the coming week. Kenn Harper is a historian, writer and linguist who lives in Iqaluit. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.