North Pole Legacy

by S. Allen Counter

  The four Polar Eskimos who accompanied Henson and Peary to the North Pole. Left to right: Egingwah, Ootah, Ooqueah, and Seegloo. Peary Collection, National Archives

  Five months after the Peary Expedition reached the North Pole, newspapers widely circulated the story that Frederick Cook had accomplished the same feat a year earlier. The front-page photograph shown below purported to confirm Cook’s claim, but subsequent investigation proved otherwise. From To Stand at the Pole by William R. Hunt

  The first black to be elected to the exclusive Explorers Club, Matthew Henson poses with other members for the official club portrait in 1947. Next to Henson, in the center of the front row, is the noted Danish Arctic explorer, Peter Freuchen. Courtesy of the Explorers Club

  Matthew Henson displays a watch and gold chain awarded to him by black American leaders after his return from the North Pole. A medal presented to him by the U.S. Navy in recognition of his achievement is pinned to his lapel (1947).

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Now I know I have relatives”

  The trip had not been uneventful. It almost never is. The lumbering C-141 military transport lifted off the runway at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey at 2300 hours, en route to Thule, Greenland. Before long the aircraft gained cruising altitude, and the military crew, a few other scientists, and I settled into our seats for the long haul. Although the flight sergeant had provided us with ear plugs, the absence of any windows or insulation intensified the high-pitched whine of the jet’s engines. Adding to our discomfort, tons of cargo teetered menacingly just ahead of us in the open hold.

  Several hours into the trip, I was awakened by the flight sergeant tugging at my arm. He told me that we had developed engine trouble and would be landing at a nearby air base. Despite the momentary surge of adrenaline one feels upon hearing this kind of news, I was more worried about my scheduled connections in Greenland. If we arrived too late, I would be unable to get a helicopter to take me over the mountain range. I would have to travel over the frozen sea by dogsled, a more exciting but more time-consuming means of transportation.

  It was pitch black when we landed and disembarked at the air base in Canada. We rushed through the cold night air and huddled into what looked like a small brick bunker while the plane underwent repairs. After a while, the flight sergeant came in to inform us that the mechanics could not repair the plane and we would be returning to the American air base on the next available flight. The news was depressing. It was more than an inconvenience because even a few hours of delay here could result in a layover of several days in Greenland. “Such is life,” I reflected, as I began to rearrange in my schedule book my plans to visit Moriussaq. There is probably no sadder or lonelier feeling than being stranded in a bunker on an isolated air base.

  A few hours later—just as the full implications of what had happened began to sink in—the flight sergeant reappeared. “I have good news,” he said. “The mechanics have repaired the plane and the flight crew is ready to take us to Thule.”

  “All right!” I shouted. Everyone else in the room just stared at me. Thule, Greenland, it seems, is not the favorite station of our military men and women.

  Subzero temperatures and howling winds greeted us on our arrival in northwest Greenland. To minimize our exposure to the dangerous cold, we rushed from the giant green plane into a nearby hangar. I knew that even in the unlikely event that the helicopter was still at the base, it could not take off in these strong winds. I would have to try to get a dogteam to travel north.

  By late fall, the sun disappears at the top of the world, not to be seen again until spring. A kind of twilight appears for several hours during the day, but since the sun never breaks the horizon, the short day resembles an extended gray-blue dusk. By early December, the last vestige of daylight has disappeared altogether, and the area is thrust into total darkness until the sun begins to reappear briefly in mid-February. From March through July, the sun rises higher and higher, eventually circling the sky for twenty-four hours.

  The entire settlement appeared deserted as I approached Moriussaq that fall. Although most of the food stores had already been gathered for the winter, I wondered whether the men were out hunting and had taken their families with them. But as I neared the center of the settlement, I spotted several children playing with a bobsled on a small hill. The children rushed forward to greet the visitor, with Ajako’s daughter—and Matthew Henson’s ten-year-old great-granddaughter—Aviaq leading the bunch.

  “Allen,” Aviaq shouted, as she and the other children and sled-dog pups ran through the snow toward me. I immediately recognized several of the children whose ears I had examined during my previous visit. I greeted them and Aviaq with big hugs. Hearing the commotion, several older children and adults came out of their igloos to see what was going on. The area came alive. After exchanging greetings of affection, the children and adults helped me with my small packages and bags as I headed off toward the home of Anaukaq Henson.

  From a distance, I could make out the figure of a man wearing a heavy blue winter jacket. He walked toward us with the help of a cane in rapid, solid steps. I knew at once it was Anaukaq. I walked forward at a hurried pace, hand extended to meet my old friend. From several yards away, his unmistakable laugh cracked through the cold, crisp air. It lifted my spirits. As we approached each other, he shouted, “Allen, you came back. I did not think you would come back.” He then burst into laughter as we shook hands and embraced. The crowd of children and young people gathering around us seemed vicariously to share the old man’s delight as they giggled and chuckled shyly at our joyful reunion. We all headed for Anaukaq’s igloo.

  As we stepped into the warm house, I was greeted by the odor of fresh meat. Just inside the door, a large, freshly skinned bearded seal hung from a rope attached to a ceiling timber. The fleshy mammal was about the size of a small human. A huge bowl on the floor, directly under the seal, collected the blood that slowly dripped from the thawing carcass. Several of the family members cut off small pieces of the raw meat and ate them as snacks as we settled into the central room of the house.

  Anaukaq made the usual gesture of offering me tea, which seems to be brewing in almost every Eskimo home one visits. He was all smiles. I had brought along some freshly ground coffee and some spiced tea for him. He suggested that we start with the spiced tea he had been so fond of during my last visit. They don’t have such tea in Greenland.

  “I am very happy to see you, Allen,” Anaukaq said. “We missed your laugh.”

  “Thank you, Anaukaq, I am happy to see you and your family again,” I said, charmed by the idea that Anaukaq and the other Eskimos had discovered my essence and persona in, of all things, my laugh.

  “I am so glad you came back,” Anaukaq repeated. “Many times I have said to myself and to my children that you would probably not return to this cold land. But you kept your word,” he said, patting my shoulder.

  By now, all the Amer-Eskimo Hensons were gathering around us in the central room, each greeting me warmly. They were much too modest to ask me questions right away, but I knew what was on their minds.

  I had brought along small gifts for the entire family, mainly hunting knives for the men, as well as wool caps and other useful items. I distributed the gifts to the children, and then to the older family members. They accepted the gifts with gracious smiles and soft kooyounahs [thank yous]. The polar Eskimos are generally not a very expressive people. Even in joyous moments they typically exhibit a quiet reserve. Anaukaq seemed to be somewhat exceptional in this respect. He was more outgoing, more expressive than the other Eskimos, and endowed with a great sense of humor.

  A short time later, Anaukaq asked the question on everyone’s mind. “Did you find any of my relatives over there in Mahri-Pahluk’s homeland?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I have found several of your relatives in America—and they were very pleased to learn about you and your family.” The room lit up with a cheer and smiles from the
entire family.

  “Do I have any brothers and sisters still alive?” Anaukaq asked pointedly.

  “No, I’m afraid I did not locate any brothers or sisters, but I found several of Mahri-Pahluk’s brothers’ and sisters’ children and grandchildren in Maryland, in Washington, D.C., and in Boston, Massachusetts, and they are very excited about meeting your family.” Again, when my sentence was translated for them, Anaukaq and the family clapped their hands with pleasure.

  “Do you mean Mahri-Pahluk and his American wife had no children that I could call brother or sister?” Anaukaq asked.

  “No, not that I could find. Matthew and your stepmother Lucy Jane Ross Henson never had children, according to the records I found. But his brothers and sisters had plenty, and you have several first and second cousins still alive and well.”

  Anaukaq gave a momentary sigh of sadness, partially masked by a smile and a soft chuckle. “It seems so strange to me sometimes—that I have so many parents and yet no brothers or sisters.”

  Sometimes Anaukaq would say the profoundest things with such simplicity. I felt his sadness even in this moment of joy. He had really hoped for a brother or sister—some close, tangible evidence of a connection to his father. His mother, Akatingwah, had no other children, so he had grown up in Greenland without siblings. In fact, “Cousin Kali” had been the closest to a brother he had known. A true biological brother or sister, albeit a half brother or sister, might even look something like his father, whom he had not seen since he was three years old. A real brother or sister could tell him something about the father he had never known—what he was really like. Anaukaq had always dreamed of meeting a brother or sister. And now, I had to tell him he had none, living or dead.

  I did not know at the time, but learned later, that in the spring of 1896, Matthew Henson’s first wife, Eva, had given birth to a child, but that Henson had disowned the infant. He later complained to Robert and Josephine Peary that he was “only home [from Greenland] for seven months when the child was born in my family, and they want to say that it was my child. . . . Do you think I ought to live with that woman any longer? I will ask you and Mrs. Peary for your advice.” This prompted Eva’s brother “Flint” to threaten Henson with plans to write his employers at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and Peary to complain that Henson “did not treat Eva right.” Henson continued to support Eva for about another year, but he never claimed the child as his own biological offspring. His belief in her infidelity during his absence caused him to leave her in the spring of 1897.

  That summer, Henson went back to Greenland to help Peary collect the last of the Eskimos’ sacred meteorites. On October 8, 1897, Eva wrote to Robert Peary too and asked, “Will you please inform me of the whereabouts of my husband? . . . I did not know that he had been away with you, until I read his name among the crew [of Peary’s expeditionary ship].” She asked Peary to “please excuse the liberty,” but indicated that she sought no further aid from Henson, only Peary’s help in getting Henson to give her a “bill of divorce.”

  I reached into my backpack and pulled out the colorful blanket that Olive had sent Anaukaq. “It’s from your cousin Olive,” I said.

  “My cousin?” Anaukaq echoed, with a big smile.

  “Yes, your cousin Olive in Boston sent you this blanket. She made it herself.”

  “Irriahnocktoe, irriahnocktoe [Beautiful, beautiful],” Anaukaq declared with a wide grin. “Pretty good,” he shouted as he looked around the room, holding up the blanket for the family to see. He patted my shoulder several times with the strong hands of an old hunter, and said, “Kooyounah, this is a wonderful day for me. Now I know I have relatives over there!” He passed the gift around the room to his children and grandchildren. They too marveled at the handsome blanket, made even lovelier by the fact that it came from one of their heretofore only imagined relatives in America.

  When the blanket came back to Anaukaq, he wrapped it around his shoulders like a shawl, then quietly rocked from side to side and from front to back, humming to himself as if meditating, relishing the moment.

  “I also brought along some photographs of your relatives,” I said, pulling a stack of old and new photographs out of my backpack. The rest of the family quickly crowded around Anaukaq and me, chattering away excitedly. “This is a photo of your cousin Olive, who sent you the blanket,” I said.

  “This is my cousin?” Anaukaq asked, holding the photo close to his face and gazing at it with his better eye. “She looks very good. She could be an Eskimo woman,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Yes, and this is her father David, Mahri-Pahluk’s brother.”

  “Ooh, look at them. They are very good—very beautiful.” After examining each print carefully, the old patriarch passed the photos down the line among his children. He continued to rock back and forth, chuckling all the while, as he reached for the next photo.

  I had even brought along a few photos of the most recent American Hensons, babies born to Matthew Henson’s brothers’ and sisters’ grandchildren. “Look at them, they are so fat—so cute. They look like Eskimo babies,” Anaukaq and his granddaughters were saying. “Oh this baby is so beautiful. I want to keep her,” Malina said of one of the American Henson babies.

  But one old photograph that I pulled from my collection really caught Anaukaq’s eye. It was one of his father at the age of eighty-one—almost Anaukaq’s own age—taken in 1947 by the Urban League of New York as part of a new magazine series on black heroes. The photograph showed a distinguished-looking Matthew Henson in a dark three-piece suit, showing an issue of Negro Heroes to an African-American boy of about ten, who is sitting on his knee.

  “Who is this boy?” Anaukaq inquired right away. “Is he related to Mahri-Pahluk?”

  “I really don’t know, but I am still trying to locate him through old records,” I said. “If he still is alive, he would be about fifty years old now.”

  “Maybe he is the son of one of my uncles,” Anaukaq offered.

  “Perhaps. But I shall try to find out who he is when I return to America.”

  He looked at the photograph, then back at me, and laughed, “My father was a good-looking man.”

  Anaukaq took this photograph and put it on a shelf behind him in a “special place.”

  “Do you have a picture of my father’s grave?” he asked.

  “No. Unfortunately, I did not take a photograph of his grave site. But I can tell you that he is buried in a place called Woodlawn Cemetery, in the city where he spent most of his life, New York.”

  “Is he buried alone or among others?” he asked softly.

  “He is buried among many others, in a large burial ground,” I replied.

  Anaukaq thought for a moment, looking back at the photograph on the shelf.

  “Is he buried next to his wife?” Anaukaq asked.

  “No, not exactly,” I answered. “She died thirteen years after Mahri-Pahluk’s death and was buried in the nearest space available, about thirty meters from Mahri-Pahluk’s grave.”

  “A man and his wife should be buried beside each other. So they can be together again as in old times. So that they can talk about old times. When I die, I will be buried next to my Aviaq.”

  “I agree,” I said. “But I believe Mahri-Pahluk and his wife were poor in their old age. When he died, she had just enough money to bury him in the same grave as her mother, Susan Ross. Then when she died some years later, her friends and relatives buried her in the nearest gravesite available.”

  Anaukaq sat quietly for a moment, taking this all in. The others in the room, who had been quietly but intently listening to our conversation, now began to talk softly among themselves.

  “I would like very much to see my father’s grave one day,” Anaukaq said, as he took the 1947 photo from the shelf and stared at it again. “I would also like to see my relatives. But I haven’t much time. I am an old man now. I have been ill in recent years. I hope I live to see some of my relatives a
nd Mahri-Pahluk’s grave. I hope I live to see the day.”

  “I too hope that you will someday meet your American relatives and see your father’s grave. I can only promise you that I will do all that I can to help you.”

  “Did you find Cousin Kali’s relatives too,” Anaukaq inquired.

  “Yes, I found some of Kali’s relatives in the United States also,” I responded, somewhat hesitantly.

  “Then they must have been happy to learn of Kali,” he said, questioningly, then continued. “They say that some of Peeuree’s family came up here many years ago, but we never saw them.”

  “Well, I never really met any of Kali’s relatives, but I spoke with them by phone, and they seemed surprised to learn that I had found you and Kali,” I said, trying to skirt the issue.

  “Did Kali have any living brothers and sisters?” Anaukaq asked.

  “Oh, yes,” I replied. “Peary had one son in America, and he is still living. He is now eighty-three years old.”

  “He is eighty-three years old? That is wonderful,” Anaukaq responded. “I know Kali will be very happy to meet his brother.”

  “Well, Robert Peary had a big family in America,” I said. “Two children, seven grandchildren, and many great-grandchildren. I told the family about Kali, and I am sure that he will meet some of them.”

  In spite of my efforts to disguise the reaction of Kali’s American family, I had a feeling that Anaukaq detected my reservations. He ended the conversation by saying, “It is good that Kali has a living brother. They should meet. They are brothers and should know one another.”

  Over the next few weeks, I followed Anaukaq all about the village, filming him and just observing him as he visited his Eskimo relatives, old friends, and some of the young people of the settlement. He was immensely popular.