North Pole Legacy

by S. Allen Counter

  On the morning of March 1, 1909, Peary, along with six American assistants and eighteen Polar Eskimo assistants, left his land base at Ellesmere Island, Canada, for the North Pole, which lay 413 nautical miles (475 statute miles) ahead of them. This is approximately the same as the distance between Richmond, Virginia, and Boston, Massachusetts. Once they set their line of travel along the seventieth meridian of west longitude, Peary and Henson used a simplified navigational technique that experience had taught them was equally accurate and much less time-consuming than conventional marine navigation, which involves ex-meridian observations and longitude sights. In fact, there is evidence that they had used the latter method on the unsuccessful 1906 North Pole expedition, when it nearly cost them their lives.

  Using their compasses, sextants, and heated mercury sinks as an artificial horizon, the two men made frequent latitude observations and azimuth observations. Their navigational technique for steering north was based on the simple fact that the sun is due south at its noon high point and due north at its midnight low point, and that it is virtually impossible to steer a sledge closer than five degrees to a compass. They made midday latitude determinations, noting when upper culmination (the maximum elevation angle) of the sun occurred as it passed the meridian; the position of the sun is lower earlier and later in the day. Longitude lines narrow to within a few miles apart at latitudes near the Pole and are not critical to measurements of location. They checked their compasses for deviation every noon and midnight. The margin of error using this technique is self-correcting, not cumulative. In describing this navigational system, which is well known to professional explorers, Polar Record, a publication of Scott Polar Research Institute of Cambridge University, observed that it demonstrated “precision and elegance.”4

  There is also considerable evidence that Peary and his assistants calculated for ice drift due to the changing winds. Although we have only recently gained enough bathymetric (ocean-depth) data to predict Arctic ice drift with any precision, Peary and Henson were both aware of the “Nansen rule,” which has long been used by navigators to provide a rough estimate of drift.

  For a more objective assessment of my conclusions, I consulted several established authorities in the field of navigation. One of my primary sources was Terris Moore, former president of the University of Alaska, a decorated pilot, a navigator, and an Arctic bush pilot with the Canadian International Geophysical Year. Moore has studied Peary’s navigational techniques for years and has written extensively on the subject. According to him, “Even if you have no idea what longitude meridian you’re on, you can still continue to steer north in this way, wandering five to ten degrees in your ‘pointing’ back and forth, but pulled back constantly to averaging true north by your compass and by the periodic check of the sun to correct for any observed change in the magnetic deviation.” Moore added, “I have done it innumerable times.”

  It is interesting to note that Peary’s simplified navigational technique was precisely the same as that used by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his navigators in their attainment of the South Pole on December 14, 1911. Yet Amundsen’s feat is today accepted universally. In fact, Amundsen “borrowed” Peary’s system of navigation. Amundsen had planned to join the race for the North Pole, but when he received word in 1909 that it had already been claimed, he changed his plans and aimed for the South Pole. When Amundsen reached the South Pole, like Peary at ninety degrees north, he also measured his position with a “sextant” and an “artificial horizon” (a tray of mercury).5

  Like Peary, Amundsen met with disbelief when he first reported that he had reached the South Pole. Like Peary, too (and all other polar explorers, for that matter), he had only his own word as proof. From the time of his announcement on March 7, 1912, in Hobart, Tasmania, until months later, Amundsen’s claim was treated with great suspicion and distrust, especially by the British, whose favorite son, Captain Robert Falcon Scott, was in a race with Amundsen (similar to that between Peary and Cook) for the national prestige and personal honor of reaching the South Pole first. Scott’s wife publicly scoffed at Amundsen’s claim, and much of Europe simply refused to accept his records or proofs as authentic. This treatment so angered Amundsen that he publicly charged that the British “are bad losers” who “feel obligated to detract from the success of an explorer just because he is not of their own nation.”6 Amundsen wrote in his autobiography: “The year after the capture of the Pole, the son of a prominent Norwegian in London came home from his classes at an English school one evening, protesting to his father that he was being taught that Scott was the discoverer of the South Pole.”7

  The scientific article in the January 1979 edition of Polar Record reported that with his “system of navigation” Amundsen “took no longitude sights during the whole polar journey, depending instead on a single longitude fix. . . . Thereafter he trusted to latitude observations alone, combined with dead reckoning based on compass courses and distances run.”8 Polar Record goes on to point out that “in contrast, Scott used conventional marine navigation as employed at lower latitudes, . . . made ex-meridian observations and longitude sights, spending considerable time and effort on calculations for a few kilometers, sometimes a few hundred metres of meaningless accuracy.”

  When Scott finally reached the South Pole, he found Amundsen’s Norwegian flag and a tent containing jettisoned paraphernalia, a letter for the king of Norway, and a message addressed to Captain Robert Falcon Scott. Fortunately for Amundsen, the South Pole has stable, solid terrain and does not shift like the ever-changing ice floes of the North Pole. Amundsen’s flag and other materials left behind as proof remained permanently in place.

  Tragically, Scott and his men perished on their return journey. It was only after a search party found his body and his diary, along with some of the proof Amundsen left behind at the Pole, that the explorers and scientific societies accepted Amundsen’s claim. It is ironic that the deceased Englishman became the verifier of Amundsen’s South Pole discovery. If Scott’s remains had not been found, it is possible that there might have been years of bitter dispute about whether Amundsen reached the South Pole with such an “astonishingly slack” navigational system.

  The second argument used by Peary’s critics since 1909 is that it was impossible for him to have covered the distances he claimed—more than 296 miles from Bartlett’s farthest north camp to the Pole and back—in the time he was gone. This charge is also erroneous.

  Let us examine the points on which most observers agree. First, Peary had five “credible” witnesses on the North Pole trek, in addition to Henson and the Eskimos. Dr. J. W. Goodsell, the surgeon from Kensington, Pennsylvania, and Donald B. MacMillan, a mathematics and physical training instructor from Worcester Academy in Massachusetts, verified that they traveled north with the Peary expedition on the first leg, along the Cape Columbia meridian, for two weeks, ferrying Peary’s supplies to 84° 29′ (about the distance from Richmond to Washington, D.C.). MacMillan, who later became a U.S. naval commander and a famous explorer in his own right, never recanted his support of Peary’s North Pole claim. MacMillan might have been permitted to travel with Peary and Henson closer to the Pole had he not injured his foot. George Borup, a recent graduate of Yale and an outstanding athlete, testified that he and his Eskimo assistants traveled with the expedition farther north, carrying supplies to 85° 23′ (about the distance from Washington to Philadelphia). Ross Marvin and his Eskimo assistants then took fuel, food, and other supplies to 86° 38′ (say, Philadelphia to New York), where he wrote and signed a message for Peary saying he had taken a measurement showing “Latitude at noon March 25th 86 degrees 38′ north. Distance made in three marches, 50 minutes of latitude, an average of 16 2/3 nautical miles per march. The weather is fine, going good, and improving each day.”9 Unfortunately, Marvin lost his life on the return trip.

  Finally, on April 1, 1909, Robert Bartlett, captain of Peary’s ship the Roosevelt and an experienced navigator who had been
a member of Peary’s 1906 expedition (which came within 175 miles [87° 6′] of the Pole) wrote, “I have today personally determined our latitude by sextant observations. 87 degrees 46 minutes 49 seconds north. I return from here in command of the fourth supporting party. I leave Commander Peary with five men, five sledges with full loads, and forty picked dogs. The going fair, the weather good. At the same average as our last eight marches Commander Peary should reach the Pole in eight days.”10 This meant that according to the best instrument readings of that time and at the end of a line of five reliable witnesses, they were “133 nautical miles [153 statute miles] from the Pole.” This is about the distance from Stamford, Connecticut, to Boston.

  It is unlikely that all five men would falsify their records. Moreover, even if the expedition had traveled no farther north than Bartlett’s position, they would still have achieved the record for “farthest north.”

  From this point, Peary and Henson—each with two Eskimo associates and with five sleds loaded with food, fuel, and scientific instruments—headed north. They traveled as rapidly as possible, with Henson leading and breaking the trail most of the way. On April 5, 1909, after several “marches” (uninterrupted sledge travel before rest) north, Peary “took a latitude sight and indicated [their] position to be 89° 25′, or thirty-five miles from the Pole” (about the distance from North Providence, Rhode Island, to Boston).11

  After a rest and before midnight on April 5, they “were again on trail.” According to Peary, “In twelve hours of actual traveling time we made thirty miles. The last march northward ended at ten o’clock on the forenoon of April 6. I had now made the five marches planned from the point at which Bartlett turned back. Our average for five marches was about twenty-six miles.” In other words, since leaving the point where Bartlett turned back, they had covered about 130 miles in about six days. Then Peary noted, “at approximate local noon, of the Columbia meridian, I made my first observation at our polar camp. It indicated 89° 57′.”12 He called this reading out to Henson, who wrote it down. According to Peary’s records, they were now only three miles south of the theoretical exact spot of the North Pole (or the distance from South Boston to, say, Beacon Hill, a point they would have seen from such a distance). Peary and his team then traveled five to ten miles in different directions, taking latitude and meridian observations with what was then state-of-the-art technology (a sextant and an artificial horizon). With the sextant one can measure positions to an accuracy of one to three minutes of arc (or nautical miles). Peary and Henson were both quite capable of using a sextant proficiently.

  At this point, the two Americans and four Eskimos had literally reached the top of our planet. If the North Pole were a fixed geographic feature, as Hispaniola was for Columbus, Robert Peary, Matthew Henson, Ootah, Seeglo, Egingwah, and Ooqueah would have been the first human beings to lay eyes on it. But, of course, this is the problem. The North Pole is a point on a vast, ever-shifting expanse of ice—a sort unverifiable by the human eye. Its exact position can only be measured by modern electronic instruments. Any other measurement is imprecise. Yet if, as Wally Herbert surmises, Peary and his party were some thirty or so miles from the actual Pole, they were still the first Americans (and Greenlanders) to have reached the very top of the globe. Or, as retired glaciologist William O. Field told me, “I feel that Peary and his group got close enough to the Pole to be given credit for reaching it first.” Field, a member of the American Geographic Society, a scientific group, has conducted research in the Arctic regions for many years. In personal communication with me George Michanowsky, a historian-explorer and member of the Explorers Club, added, “as a partisan of the concept of sufficiency, I would say that the Peary expedition came close enough to the exact North Pole to be credited with discovering it.”

  After about thirty-six hours of measurements and rest at the Pole, the expedition set out at about four o’clock on the afternoon of April 7 for the land base at Camp Columbia. According to Henson, they traveled at “the break-neck pace that enabled us to cover three of our upward marches on one of our return marches.”13 On much of the return trip, they simply had to follow their outward tracks back to the next camp, which made their travel comparatively easier and faster. According to some experienced explorers, there are fewer pressure ridges (giant hills of broken ice blocks) and more smooth ice in the area near the Pole than near land, thus making it easier to travel at faster sledge speeds far out in the Arctic Ocean. “Our return from the Pole was accomplished in sixteen marches,” wrote Peary, “and the entire journey from land to the Pole and back again occupied fifty-three days, or forty-three marches.” This means that Peary, Henson, and the Polar Eskimos, using five sleds, covered about twenty-six nautical (twenty-nine statute miles) per march on the return trip and approximately nineteen miles per march for the entire round-trip to the Pole and back. Each march involved eight to fourteen hours without rest.

  These figures are not as unreasonable or unprecedented as Peary’s critics would have us believe. In a 1983 article in the American Alpine Journal, Terris Moore points out that the Alaskan “Iditarod” race of 1,047 miles from Anchorage to Nome is in some ways comparable to the thousand-mile distance the Peary expedition traveled from Cape Columbia and back, and that “many drivers . . . including women, have consistently done over 75 miles per day carrying sleeping gear, tent, and the necessary food provisions” in this race. Moore also points out that the 1981 Iditarod winner, “Rick Swenson, set the course record of 12 days, 8 hours, 45 minutes and 2 seconds. This would seem to be 84.8 miles per day, day after day. The times and distances have all been publicly verified.”14

  There are still other examples, such as one dogsled driver who traveled fifty-two miles in thirteen hours while rushing diphtheria serum to Nome in 1925. More recently, American explorer Will Steger, leading his first expedition on the Arctic ice, reported making thirty-eight miles in eighteen hours en route to the North Pole.15 Again, Herbert seems to have overlooked or ignored these facts and figures in the course of his research.

  Another equally important factor is that in 1909, Peary, Henson, and the four Polar Eskimos had more experience in dogsledging across the Arctic ice than probably anyone else on earth. During their years in the Arctic, Peary and Henson each had covered over ten thousand miles by dogsledge, under some of the worst conditions imaginable, and sometimes in complete darkness. Moreover, Peary, Henson, Ootah, Seegloo, and Bartlett had had the experience of traveling out on the Arctic Ocean in an attempt to reach the Pole in 1906, and had come within 175 miles (87° 6′) of their goal, only to be turned back by shortages of food and supplies. Certainly, this extraordinary experience at sledging lends some credence to Peary and Henson’s distance claims.

  Most of Peary’s modern-day critics simply ignore or fail to mention Henson’s or the Eskimos’ navigational skills. Henson was never treated as a “reliable” witness in the entire North Pole affair. Because of the racial attitudes of the times, he and the Eskimos were viewed by many whites as incapable of comprehending even the most fundamental technical concepts of navigation. This belief, often expressed in his presence by whites, hurt Henson deeply. He was particularly demoralized when the well-known general Adolphus W. Greely said in a major newspaper article that he did not believe Peary had made it to the Pole, especially since his only witness was an “ignorant Negro.”16 Greely, who had led an Arctic expedition to Fort Conger in northern Canada to set up a research station during the first International Geographical Congress in 1881, loathed Peary. Greely and his twenty-seven crewmen were left marooned for two years in the Arctic when, because of ice and other difficulties, the relief ships could not reach them. Most of his men perished of starvation as they traveled south on foot, trying to reach the rescue ships. When they were finally rescued, it was learned that the seven who survived had resorted to cannibalism. Peary (and Henson) later criticized Greely by suggesting that had he been a competent Arctic explorer, he would have found abundant game in the ar
ea to keep the group alive. Greely’s racial attitudes may have prevented him from working with the local Polar Eskimos, who could have helped his men survive the ordeal. Greely never forgave Peary or Henson for this criticism.

  But Henson knew how to determine latitude and longitude, and he confirmed Peary’s sledging distances. Terris Moore, who knew Henson for close to twenty years, interviewed Henson on several occasions about his knowledge of navigation and the expedition’s journey from Bartlett’s farthest point north, at 87° 47′, to the Pole. I asked Moore, “Are you fully satisfied from your many discussions with Matthew Henson that he knew enough about navigation to have gotten to the North Pole and back, and to have confirmed Peary’s sledging distances and direction?”

  “Yes, absolutely,” Moore replied. “Matt knew how to determine latitude and longitude from solar sights at the noon and midnight meridian passages. He fully understood the use of Greenwich Mean Time, Greenwich Hour Angle [G-H-A], and the equation of time to obtain longitude at simple meridian passages. The Eskimos too knew that the sun is due south at its noon high point and due north at its midnight low point.” Moore added that Henson had been taught navigational skills aboard the Roosevelt by Ross Marvin, a professor of engineering at Cornell University.

  Unfortunately, through his own racial naivete, Peary may have contributed to the credibility gap that has plagued him since the North Pole discovery. For example, he wrote in The North Pole that Henson “would not have been so competent as the white members of the expedition in getting himself and his party back to land. . . . He had not, as a racial inheritance, the daring initiative of Bartlett, or MacMillan, or Borup.”

  Comdr. Donald B. MacMillan, on the other hand, would later write in National Geographic (1920) that Matthew Henson “was indispensable to Peary and of more real value than the combined services of all four white men.”