To the Edges of the Earth

by Edward J. Larson

  Even the places these explorers left behind only a century ago have changed beyond recognition. County Kildare, where the staunchly unionist Anglo-Irish Shackleton was born, is now part of an independent Irish state. The colonial Sydney of David and Mawson’s day, British to the core, has become a global city with more of its residents born in Asia than in Europe and a rapidly growing percentage of its citizens of non-British ancestry. Civil war has reduced the Duke of the Abruzzi’s once-thriving agricultural community in Somalia to rubble, while the thousand-year reign of his House of Savoy abruptly ended with a popular referendum in 1946.

  Of all the places shaped by these men, only Peary’s Eagle Island home remains much as he left it. Built over several stages under Peary’s watchful eye, in retirement it became his refuge from controversy and a monument to his Arctic dreams. His desk still stands in his office facing the sea with the clock from the Roosevelt keeping time on the wall. The island’s location at “Long. 70°03'10" W”—Peary’s Columbia Meridian to the pole—appears above the main doorway with a compass image painted on the floor below. Scattered about for visitors to see, as if Peary just put them down, are faded publications with titles such as Peary and the North Pole: Not a Shadow of a Doubt and How Doctor Cook tried to pervert American History. Sitting on the front steps looking over the sea while writing these words, I can all but see the Roosevelt steaming past with its prow pointing north. “Bully,” they would shout, “give it to ’um, Teddy, give it to ’um!”43

  Notes

  Preface: The Wonderful Year 1909

  1.“After the Unknown in Many Parts of the World,” The New York Times Sunday Magazine, February 2, 1908.

  2.[Charlotte Brontë], Jane Eyre: An Autography (London: Smith, Elder, 1847), 1:3–4.

  3.Ibid., 1:206.

  4.Daily Mail, The Wonderful Year 1909: An Illustrated Record of Notable Achievements and Events (London: Headley Brothers, 1910), 82.

  5.Robert E. Peary to Theodore Roosevelt, August 17, 1908, Theodore Roosevelt Papers, reel 84, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress.

  Chapter 1: The Aristocracy of Adventure, Circa 1909

  1.“Imperial and Foreign Intelligence,” Times (London), March 23, 1908.

  2.“Imperial and Foreign Intelligence,” Times (London), April 13, 1908.

  3.Mirella Tenderini and Michael Shandrick, The Duke of the Abruzzi: An Explorer’s Life (Seattle: Mountaineers Books, 1997), 100.

  4.Ibid.

  5.“Court Circular,” Times (London), October 14, 1908.

  6.“Abruzzi-Elkins Wedding Expected,” New York Times, October 12, 1908.

  7.The American polar explorer and mountaineer Frederick Cook, upon claiming the North Pole in 1908, wrote in his expedition diary, “Now that the NP has been reached, it is natural to seek about for other poles to conquer.” He listed three: the South Pole, the south magnetic pole, and the “Pole of highest alt[itude]. nearest heaven.” [Robert M. Bryce, The Lost Polar Notebook of Dr. Frederick A. Cook (Monrovia, MD: Openlead Books, 2013), 190.] Cook had already claimed the first ascent of Denali, North America’s highest peak. His claim to reach the North Pole led others to reevaluate and most to reject his claims for both summiting Denali and reaching the North Pole. Until debunked, however, these claims made him a world-famous celebrity. Because of Cook’s keen sense of what generated publicity, sold books, and attracted lecture audiences, his equation of the high Himalayas with a pole is telling. In their book on the Duke of the Abruzzi, mountaineers Mirella Tenderini and Michael Shandrick quoted a member of the Scottish Royal Geographical Society as asking the duke, following his North Pole expedition, when he would take on the “Third Pole,” which they defined as “an altitude record in the Himalaya.” [Tenderini and Shandrick, Duke of the Abruzzi, 87.] In his book To the Third Pole, German mountaineering historian G. O. Dyhrenfurth dated the published use of the term the Third Pole, which he defined “to include all of the highest mountains of the world—the ‘Eight Thousanders’ of the Himalaya and the Karakoram,” to 1933. [G. O. Dyhrenfurth, To the Third Pole: The History of the High Himalaya (London: Werner, 1955).] Whatever its origin, the term is now widely used to refer to the Himalayas and the Karakoram regions of south-central Asia.

  8.“Abruzzi, In France, Keeps Plans Secret,” New York Times, September 13, 1909.

  9.Sherard Osborn, “On the Exploration of the North Polar Region,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (1865): 9:62.

  10.Ibid., 57–58 (quoting Sabine letter).

  11.C. R. Markham, “On the Best Route for North Polar Exploration,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (1865) 9:143.

  12.“The Arctic Expedition,” Times (London), May 13, 1875.

  13.A. H. Markham, “On Sledge Travel,” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society (1876) 21:114.

  14.Ibid., 114–15, 119.

  15.“The Arctic Expedition,” Times (London), October 18, 1876.

  16.Fridtjof Nansen, Farthest North: The Exploration of the Fram, 1893–1896 (1898; repr. Edinburgh: Birlinn, 2002), 25 (quoting Greely).

  17.Frederick Jackson, A Thousand Days in the Arctic (London and New York: Harper and Brothers, 1899), 2:62.

  18.Fergus Fleming, Off the Map: Tales of Endurance and Exploration (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 391 (quoting Whymper’s review of Nansen’s book about the expedition).

  19.Luigi Amedeo of Savoy, On the “Polar Star” in the Arctic Sea (London: Hutchinson, 1903), 1:viii.

  20.“The Abruzzi Polar Expedition,” Times (London), October 18, 1900 (“the Duke was simply worshiped by his men”).

  21.Robert E. Peary, Northward Over the “Great Ice” (New York: F. A. Stokes, 1898), 1:346.

  22.For the duke’s discussion of this plan, including the use of Peary’s rate of speed and methods of formulating it, see Amedeo, “On the “Polar Star,” 1:13–18.

  23.Ibid., 1:15.

  24.Ibid., 1:vii.

  25.Ibid., 1:167.

  26.Ibid., 1:21.

  27.Ibid., 2:441.

  28.Ibid., 2:452.

  29.Ibid., 2:444.

  30.Ibid., 2:468.

  31.Ibid., 2:470.

  32.Ibid., 2:479.

  33.Ibid., 2:479–80.

  34.Ibid., 2:488.

  35.Ibid., 2:484.

  36.Ibid., 2:483.

  37.Ibid., 2:486.

  38.Ibid., 2:490.

  39.Ibid., 2:529.

  40.Ibid., 2:525.

  41.Ibid., 2:577.

  42.Ibid., 2:597. See also page 586, where Cagni writes, “We kill Ladro, and put the heart, kidney, and a leg into the pot, and find them excellent. The well-scraped leg-bone, the head, the intestines, and the skin form the meal of the twelve surviving dogs. The remainder of the victim is put in a kayak, to serve for our food to-morrow and the day after.”

  43.Ibid., 2:540.

  44.Ibid., 2:573.

  45.Ibid., 2:571.

  46.Ibid., 1:269.

  47.Ibid., 1:346.

  48.“Duke of Abruzzi Honored,” New York Times, September 12, 1900. See also, for example, “Nearest to North Pole,” New York Times, September 7, 1900. This article carried the erroneous subtitle “The Duke of Abruzzi Penetrated Farther North Than Nansen” and mentioned Cagni only in its listing of all members of the expedition, without noting his role in the sledge journey.

  49.In the titles of its articles reporting on the expedition’s successes, the Times of London, then the English-language paper of record for the world, headlined the duke’s role. For example, “The Duke of the Abruzzi,” Times (London), September 12, 1900; “The Abruzzi Expedition,” Times (London), October 18, 1900; “The Abruzzi Expedition,” Times (London), November 6, 1900.

  50.For example, a beautifully edited and illustrated 2005 volume of first-hand accounts by adventurers and explorers includes a selection written by Cagni about his farthest north, but the selection is both titled and cited to “Duke of Abruzzi” or “Abruzzi, L.,” so that most readers would presume that the account was by and
about the duke. [Fergus Fleming and Annabel Merullo, eds., The Explorer’s Eye: First-Hand Accounts of Adventure and Exploration (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2005), 126–29.]

  Chapter 2: The Audacity of Adventure, Circa 1909

  1.“Cook Not Near Pole, Says Peary; Proofs Still Held Back by Cook,” New York Times, September 9, 1909.

  2.For example, “Peary Denounces Cook,” New York Times, September 11, 1909.

  3.For example, “The Goal of Centuries Achieved by Peary,” New York Times, September 11, 1909.

  4.Peary later wrote about this point in his life, “My interest in the Arctic work dates back to 1885, when as a young man my imagination was stirred by reading accounts of explorations by Nordenskjold in the interior of Greenland. These studies took full possession of my mind and led to my undertaking, entirely alone, a summer trip to Greenland in the following year.” [Robert Peary, The North Pole (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1910), 25.]

  5.Robert E. Peary to Mary P. Peary, August 16, 1880, quoted in Robert M. Bryce, Cook and Peary: The Polar Controversy, Resolved (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997), 19. Though a well-documented, highly reliable book, this letter is acknowledged by its author and my own research as not being in the Peary Papers at the National Archives.

  6.Fridtjof Nansen, The First Crossing of Greenland (London: Longmans, Green, 1890), 1:505–6 (“The distance of a hundred miles from the margin of the ice cannot, therefore, be established as beyond all doubt”). Nansen also questioned Peary’s estimate of altitude because it was based on an aneroid barometer rather than a boiling-point barometer.

  7.Robert Peary, Northward Over the “Great Ice” (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1898), 1:39.

  8.Robert E. Peary to Mary P. Peary, February 27, 1887, Mary W. Peary Papers, Correspondence, A1/I-BB/box 2, Robert E. Peary Papers, National Archives (hereafter cited as Peary Papers).

  9.Robert E. Peary to Mary P. Peary, February 1, 1891, Mary W. Peary Papers, Peary Papers.

  10.For historical analysis suggesting that Peary might have knowingly exaggerated this claim, see Bryce, Cook and Peary, 85–86 and Wally Herbert, The Noose of Laurels: Robert E. Peary and the Race to the North Pole (New York: Atheneum, 1989), 89–90 (“With the nagging doubt about his discoveries in North-East Greenland . . .”).

  11.A. H. Markham, “Arctic Exploration,” Report of the Sixth International Geographical Congress (London: John Murray, 1896), 193.

  12.Robert E. Peary to Mary P. Peary, December 22, 1892, Mary W. Peary Papers, Peary Papers.

  13.Robert E. Peary, “The Great White Journey,” in Josephine Diebitsch Peary, My Arctic Journal: A Year Among Ice-Fields and Eskimos (London: Longmans, Green, 1894), 239.

  14.J. B. Pond, The Eccentricities of Genius: Memories of Famous Men and Women of the Platform and Stage (London: Chatto & Windus, 1901), 295–97.

  15.Robert E. Peary’s notes, reprinted in Herbert, Noose of Laurels, 206. Herbert uses the name Aleqasina but quotes Peary’s spelling as Alakahsingwah and estimates her age as “about ten years old.” [Ibid., 205–7.] Many authors spell the name Allakasingwah or use the nickname “Ally.” A discussion of the relationship, including the conclusion that it began during the year after Josephine Peary left in 1894, is in Bruce Henderson, True North: Peary, Cook, and the Race to the Pole (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 134–35.

  16.Peary, Northward Over the “Great Ice,” 1:500. As part of his ethnological research, Peary sought to photograph as many of the local Inuit as possible, often posing them nude or in native clothing. When he first sought to photograph Allakasingwah, Peary noted that she “evinced extreme reluctance to having her picture taken, and only a direct order from her father accomplished the desired result.” [Robert E. Peary’s notes, reprinted in Herbert, Noose of Laurels, 206.]

  17.Pond, Eccentricities of Genius, 297.

  18.Robert E. Peary, “Moving on the North Pole,” McClure’s Magazine, March 1898, 424.

  19.“Peary’s Arctic Expedition, 1897,” Papers Relating to Arctic Expeditions, A1/1-V/box 11, Peary Papers, National Archives.

  20.Peary, Northward Over the “Great Ice,” 1: 508–9.

  21.Peary, “Moving on the Pole,” 425.

  22.R. E. Peary, Nearest the Pole: A Narrative of the Polar Expedition of the Peary Arctic Club in the S. S. Roosevelt, 1905–1906 (New York: Doubleday, 1907), 285.

  23.Peary, “Moving on the Pole,” 425.

  24.“Transactions of the Society, January–March, 1897,” Journal of the American Geographical Society of New York 29 (1897), 118–19 (Peary’s acceptance speech).

  25.Ibid., 120–21.

  26.Peary, “Moving on the Pole,” 422.

  27.Robert E. Peary, Secrets of Polar Travel (New York: Century, 1917), 197.

  28.Peary, Northward Over the “Great Ice,” 1:lxii.

  29.Peary, “Moving on the Pole,” 422–24.

  30.Bradley Robinson, Dark Companion, rev. ed. (New York: Fawcett, 1967), 125 (an account purportedly related by Henson).

  31.Peary, Nearest the Pole, 308.

  32.Herbert, Noose of Laurels, 114.

  33.R. E. Peary, “Report of Expedition of 1898–1902,” in Peary, Nearest the Pole, 306.

  34.Ibid., 307.

  35.Ibid., 307–8.

  36.Robinson, Dark Companion, 128.

  37.John Edward Weems, Peary: The Explorer and the Man (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967), 337 n. 5.

  38.Robinson, Dark Companion, 131.

  39.Ibid.

  40.Otto Sverdrup, New Land: Four Years in the Arctic Regions (London: Longmans, Green, 1904), 1:116.

  41.Ibid., 117.

  42.Peary, “Report of Expedition,” 311.

  43.Robert E. Peary to Josephine D. Peary, August 28, 1899, Josephine D. Peary Papers, Family Correspondence, P/4/box 4, National Archives (hereafter cited as J. D. Peary Papers).

  44.Peary, “Report of Expedition,” 325–26.

  45.Ibid., 227.

  46.Ibid.

  47.Supporting the view that this extended trek east after his polar quest ended served to complement his earlier work in North Greenland, at this point in his written account Peary wrote, “In this journey I had determined, conclusively, the northern limit of the Greenland archipelago or land group, and had practically connected the coast southward to Independence Bay.” [Ibid., 332.] Peary had still not given up referring to (and perhaps seeing) the northern end of Greenland as an archipelago.

  48.See, for example, Herbert, Noose of Laurels, 123: high praise from an otherwise critical judge.

  49.Robert E. Peary to Josephine D. Peary, April 4, 1901, J. D. Peary Papers.

  50.Ibid.

  51.Ibid., March 1901.

  52.Ibid., January 23, 1901.

  53.Frederick A. Cook, “Hell Is a Cold Place,” chap. 5, p. 9, unpublished manuscript, Writings, reel 7, Frederick Cook Collection, Library of Congress.

  54.Peary, “Report of Expedition,” 341.

  55.Ibid., 341–42.

  56.Ibid., 345 (“Grand Canal”).

  57.Ibid., 343.

  58.Ibid., 344.

  59.Robert E. Peary, Diary, May 24, 1902, Papers Relating to Arctic Expeditions, A1/I-V/box 14, Peary Papers.

  60.“Says Pole Will Be Found,” New York Times, November 20, 1902.

  61.Ibid.

  62.“Peary Supply Ship Sails,” New York Times, July 29, 1900.

  Chapter 3: The Allure of Adventure, Circa 1909

  1.“Lecture by Lieutenant Shackleton,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 7, 1907.

  2.“The Antarctic Expedition,” Evening News (Sydney), December 7, 1907.

  3.“Antarctic Exploration,” Age (Melbourne), December 4, 1907.

  4.Ibid.

  5.“The South Pole Expedition,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 16, 1907.

  6.“Lieutenant Shackleton,” Sydney Stock and Station Journal, December 10, 1907.

  7.See, for example, “Farthest South,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 9, 1907.

  8.“The South Pole,” E
vening Journal (Adelaide), December 2, 1907.

  9.“The Antarctic Expedition,” Argus (Melbourne), December 4, 1907.

  10.“Lecture by Lieutenant Shackleton,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 7, 1907.

  11.“South Pole Expedition,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 2, 1907.

  12.These terms are drawn from a widely quoted ad that Shackleton supposedly posted to solicit men for his expedition. Although the ad is an urban legend, the terms it used aptly describe the conditions that his men faced.

  13.“Through Antarctic Ice,” Express and Telegraph (Adelaide), December 2, 1907.

  14.“To the South Pole,” Sunday News (Sydney), December 8, 1907.

  15.“The Dash for the Pole,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 6, 1907.

  16.“To the South Pole,” Sunday News (Sydney), December 8, 1907.

  17.“The Dash for the Pole,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 6, 1907.

  18.“Farthest South,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 9, 1907; “An Appeal to Australia,” Sydney Morning Herald, December 14, 1907.

  19.M. E. David, Professor David: The Life of Sir Edgeworth David (London: Edward Arnold, 1937), 118. The unnamed opposition leader quoted was most likely Charles Frazer of Western Australia. News reports of the day do not contain this quote, which is taken from a biography by Edgeworth David’s wife.

  20.“Is Antarctic Exploration Possible?” The Spectator (London), September 28, 1895.

  21.Ibid.

  22.“Discussion on Antarctic Exploration,” Report of the Sixth International Geographical Congress (London: John Murray, 1896), 163.

  23.C. E. Borchgrevink, “The Voyage of the ‘Antarctic’ to Victoria Land,” in ibid., 171–74.

  24.Karl vo den Steinen, [Discussion], in ibid., 176.