54.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 1:312.
55.Ibid., 1:320, 323, 325, 328.
56.Ibid., 1:329.
57.Wild, Diary, December 25, 1908, 93.
58.Marshall, Diary, December 25, 1908.
59.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 1:331.
60.Marshall, Diary, December 25, 1908.
61.Pitman, Diary of Mackay, December 25, 1908, 5.
62.Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, December 20, 1908, 31.
63.T. W. Edgeworth David, Diary, December 19, 1908, P11, series 5, University of Sydney Archives.
64.Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, December 16, 1908, 30.
65.Ibid., December 25, 1908, 33.
66.Pitman, Diary of Mackay, January 13 and 15, 1909, 9.
67.Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, January 1, 3, and 6, 1909, 33, 35, 36.
68.Pitman, Diary of Mackay, December 29 and 30, 1908, 6.
69.Ibid., January 13, 1908, 8–9.
70.David, “Professor David’s Narrative,” 2:179.
71.Ibid., 2:180–81.
72.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 1:335.
73.Ibid., 1:332.
74.Ibid., 2:18.
75.Wild, Diary, December 29, 1908, 95.
76.Marshall, “Antarctic Episode,” 360. “Degrees of frost” are degrees F below freezing, or 32°F.
77.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 1:338–39. At this point, Marshall wrote in his diary, “Shack’s suffering from altitude, and getting very thin and weaker.” [Marshall, “Antarctic Episode,” 360.]
78.Wild, “Memoirs,” 87–88.
79.Shackleton, “Some Results,” 490.
80.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 1:337.
81.Marshall, Diary, January 6, 1909.
82.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 1:341.
83.Marshall, “Antarctic Episode,” 360.
84.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 1:347.
85.Wild, Diary, January 7, 1909, 98.
86.Marshall, “Antarctic Episode,” 360 (here Marshall stated that the party left camp at 3 A.M.).
87.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 1:343.
88.Ibid. (Here Shackleton stated that the party left camp at 4 A.M.).
89.Marshall, Diary, January 9, 1909.
90.Ibid. It was Roland Huntford, in his biography of Shackleton, who aptly characterized 100 miles from the pole as the party’s “goal of consolation.” [Huntford, Shackleton, 272.]
91.Jameson Adams, Interview, November 17, 1955, MS 1436/63 D, SPRI.
92.Shackleton, Diary, January 9, 1909. The version of this diary entry that Shackleton published ended with “we have done our best.”
93.Emily Shackleton to H. R. Mill, August 16, 1922, MS 100/104/39 D, SPRI. She added, “We left it at that.”
94.Marshall, “Antarctic Episode,” 360.
95.Jameson Adams, Interview, October 5, 1955, SPRI, MS 1436/63 D.
Chapter 9: On Top of the World
1.George Borup, A Tenderfoot with Peary (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1911), 160.
2.Robert A. Bartlett, The Log of Bob Bartlett (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1928), 191.
3.Robert E. Peary, The North Pole (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1910), 205.
4.Robert E. Peary, “The Discovery of the North Pole,” Hampton’s Magazine, June 1910, 786.
5.Borup, Tenderfoot with Peary, 144; John W. Goodsell, On Polar Trails: The Peary Expedition to the North Pole, 1908–09, rev. and ed. by Donald W. Whisenhunt (Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1983), 117.
6.Matthew A. Henson, “The Negro at the North Pole,” World’s Work, April 1910, 12, 835.
7.Peary, North Pole, 222.
8.Goodsell, On Polar Trails, 120.
9.Robert E. Peary, Diary, March 4, 1909, North Pole Diaries 1909, A1/1-V/box 1, Robert E. Peary Papers, National Archives (hereafter cited as Peary Papers).
10.Peary, “Discovery,” May 1910, 787.
11.Peary, North Pole, 228 (first quote); Peary, “Discovery,” July 1910, 4 (second quote).
12.Matthew A. Henson, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1912), 89 (quoting Bartlett).
13.Peary, Diary, March 7, 1909.
14.Henson, “Negro at the North Pole,” 12, 827.
15.Goodsell, On Polar Trails, 122.
16.Bartlett, Log of Bob Bartlett, 193.
17.Henson, “Negro at the North Pole,” 12, 836.
18.Goodsell, On Polar Trails, 125.
19.Henson, “Negro at the North Pole,” 12, 836.
20.Borup, Tenderfoot with Peary, 178.
21.Peary, “Discovery,” June 1910, 784.
22.Goodsell, On Polar Trails, 121.
23.Peary, Diary, March 8, 1909.
24.Borup, Tenderfoot with Peary, 164.
25.Peary, “Discovery,” July 1910, 4.
26.Peary, Diary, March 11, 1909.
27.Peary, North Pole, 233.
28.Peary, “Discovery,” July 1910, 9.
29.Borup, Tenderfoot with Peary, 170–71.
30.Goodsell, On Polar Trails, 121.
31.Borup, Tenderfoot with Peary, 173–75.
32.Peary, North Pole, 236.
33.Henson, A Negro Explorer, 97.
34.Borup, Tenderfoot with Peary, 169.
35.Henson, A Negro Explorer, 98.
36.Borup, Tenderfoot with Peary, 166.
37.Peary, Diary, March 18, 1909.
38.Peary, “Discovery,” July 1910, 12.
39.Ibid.
40.Ibid.
41.Bartlett, Log of Bob Bartlett, 195.
42.Borup, Tenderfoot with Peary, 179.
43.Peary, North Pole, 245.
44.Ibid.
45.Peary, Diary, March 23, 1909.
46.Peary, “Discovery,” July 1910, 16.
47.Ibid., 17.
48.Peary, Diary, April 6, 1909. He wrote this about a later day but described it as “like the march after Marvin turned back.”
49.Peary, “Discovery,” July 1910, 18.
50.Henson, A Negro Explorer, 121.
51.Peary, “Discovery,” July 1910, 18.
52.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 165–66.
53.Henson, A Negro Explorer, 117–18; Peary, North Pole, 257.
54.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 166. Peary’s diary entry for this date is almost identical.
55.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 166.
56.Bartlett, Log of Bob Bartlett, 195.
57.Peary, Diary, April 1, 1909.
58.“Matt Henson Tells the Real Story of Peary’s Trip to Pole,” Boston American, July 17, 1910 (reprinted online from fragile Boston Public Library copy). The Boston American was part of the Hearst chain of newspapers, which at this point in the Peary-Cook controversy often contained articles highly critical of Peary. Although the article carried Henson’s byline and presumably reflected his opinions, like Peary’s published accounts it appears to have been heavily edited or revised by others. For similar recollections by Henson, see Lowell Thomas, “First at the Pole: Lowell Thomas Interviews Matthew Henson,” Lowell Thomas Interviews ([New York: NBC Radio Network], 1939), 3. Thomas quotes Henson in 1939 as saying about Peary on the return trip, “He couldn’t walk. We had to put him on a sledge.” See also Robert H. Fowler, “The Negro Who Went to the Pole with Peary,” American History Illustrated, April 1966, 47–49, who quotes Henson in 1953 as saying about Peary on the outbound trip, “I know the last 133 miles he didn’t walk.”
59.“Matt Henson Tells the Real Story,” Boston American, July 17, 1910.
60.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 170.
61.Ibid.
62.Ibid. Here Peary disparaged Henson, adding, “He would not have been so competent as the least experienced of my white companions in getting himself and his party back to the land.” See also Peary, North Pole, 273.
63.For example, compare Goodsell, On Polar Trails, 126, with Peary, North Pole, 276. Goodsell estimated th
at, due to its winding way, the trail was about 25 percent longer than a straight-line course.
64.Thomas, “First at the Pole,” 2.
65.Ibid.
66.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 171–72.
67.Peary, North Pole, 271. Both this source and the one cited in the prior note agree that Peary left camp “a little after midnight” on April 2, but his diary puts the time at 5 A.M. [Peary, Diary, April 2, 2017.] The comment about the responsiveness of his men also appeared in Robert E. Peary, “How Peary Reached the North Pole,” New York Times, September 12, 1909. Peary’s later published accounts were revised by editors under his supervision from the text of this New York Times article, which was compiled from drafts wired by Peary on his return journey from his first port of call with a telegraph. Among Peary’s published accounts, the New York Times article is the closest to being the product of his own hand.
68.Peary, North Pole, 274.
69.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 173.
70.Peary, “How Peary Reached the North Pole,” New York Times, September 12, 1909.
71.Peary, North Pole, 277, 281–82.
72.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 174; Peary, North Pole, 284.
73.Peary, North Pole, 285.
74.Peary, Diary, on back of pages beginning with April 4, 1909 entry.
75.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 175.
76.Ibid., 174.
77.Peary, Diary, April 6, 1909.
78.Henson, “Negro at the North Pole,” 12, 837.
79.Ibid.
80.Ibid.
81.Peary, North Pole, 287.
82.Ibid., 287. The sense is the same in Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 175.
83.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 176.
84.Ibid.
85.Henson, “Matt Henson Tells the Real Story,” Boston American, July 17, 1910.
86.Peary, “Discovery,” August 1910, 176.
87.Robert E. Peary, “Certificate of Peary as to the Movements of the Expedition from April 1st 1909 to April 7th 1909,” Papers Relating to Arctic Expeditions, Ai/I-V/box 25C, Peary Papers.
88.Wally Herbert, The Noose of Laurels: Robert E. Peary and the Race to the North Pole (New York: Atheneum, 1989), 270. Herbert estimated the distance as “at least fifty miles, and probably more than sixty.” In reaching this conclusion, Herbert noted that “Peary did not prove by his altitudes of the sun that he had, beyond doubt, reached the North Pole, for the simple reason that Pole observations can very easily be faked.” [Ibid., 250.] To a reporter, Henson later said that, at the North Pole camp, he told Peary that from his own tracking of the distance, “I have a feeling that we have just about covered the 132 miles since Captain Bartlett turned back. If we have not traveled in the right direction, then that is your own fault.” [Henson, “Matt Henson Tells the Real Story,” Boston American, July 17, 1910.] Herbert suspected that Peary did not take Henson along on his various trips from his North Pole camp because Henson might have detected the fraud, and noted that the critical evidence is either missing from Peary’s diary or inserted rather than integral to it. [Ibid., 246–50.]
89.For an analysis of this study, see Robert M. Bruce, Cook & Peary: The Polar Controversy, Resolved (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1997), 758–61.
90.Henson reported that he proposed the three cheers, which Peary then led. [Henson, A Negro Explorer, 133; Henson, “Negro at the North Pole,” 12, 837.] Peary stated that he proposed the three cheers, which Henson then led. [Peary, North Pole, 296.]
91.Peary’s initial telegraph to the Associated Press news service after arriving at the first harbor with telegraph service read, “Stars and Stripes nailed to the Pole.” [“Peary Discovers North Pole after Eight Trials in 23 Years,” New York Times, September 7, 1909.]
Chapter 10: The Third Pole
1.A. Ferrari, “La Spedizione del Duca Degli Abruzzi al Karakorum-Himalaya,” Rivista del Club Alpino Italiano 28 (1909): 113, 115.
2.H. W. Tilman, The Seven Mountain-Travel Books (London: Bâton Wicks, 2003), 431 (repr., Mount Everest, 1938, Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1948).
3.Filippo De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 1909 (New York: Dutton, 1912), 1, 3. The second quote referred generally to the remote western Himalayas but was clearly meant to include the Karakoram.
4.Ibid., 9.
5.Maurice Isserman and Stewart Weaver, Fallen Giants: A History of Himalayan Mountaineering from the Age of Empire to the Age of Extremes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 43 (quoting Matthias Zurbriggen). A highly recommended book.
6.See Ferrari, “La Spedizione del Duca,” 115 (noting that the expedition traveled with the broad support and protection of the British government and its officers and local authorities).
7.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, Duca degli Abruzzi, “Esplorazione nei Monti del Karakoram,” Bollettino della Societa Geografica Italiana 4:11 (1910): 436.
8.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 18.
9.Thomas Hungerford Holdich, “Ladakh and Baltistan,” Encyclopedia Britannica 16 (New York: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1911), 58.
10.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 29–30.
11.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 438.
12.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 52, 55–56. De Filippi referred to the expedition’s Kashmiri and Balti porters as “coolies,” but the journal of the Italian Alpine Club called them by the more accurate term “porters,” which is used here. [Ferrari, “La Spedizione del Duca,” 114.]
13.Ibid., 72.
14.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 440.
15.Fredric Drew, The Jummoo and Kashmir Territories: A Geographical Account (London: E. Stanford, 1875), 362.
16.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 92–93.
17.Ibid., 157.
18.Ibid., 162.
19.Ibid., 171.
20.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 446.
21.Ibid., 447.
22.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 218.
23.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 447.
24.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 219, 225.
25.Ibid., 225.
26.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 448.
27.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 226–27.
28.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 450.
29.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 238.
30.Ibid.
31.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 451.
32.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 246.
33.Ibid., 247.
34.Ibid., 252.
35.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 453.
36.Isserman and Weaver, Fallen Giants, 70.
37.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 258.
38.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 454.
39.Ansel Adams, “Vittorio Sella: His Photographs,” Sierra Club Bulletin 31 (December 1946): 16–17.
40.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 455.
41.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 296.
42.Ibid., 297.
43.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 459.
44.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 305.
45.Ibid., 310–11.
46.Ibid., 318.
47.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 461.
48.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 319.
49.Luigi Amedeo di Savoia, “Explorazione nei Monti,” 461.
50.“Reviews and Notices,” Alpine Journal 27 (1913): 114.
51.Ibid.
52.De Filippi, Karakoram and Western Himalaya, 316, 322.
53.Ibid., 324.
Chapter 11: Returnings
1.T. W. Edgeworth David, “Professor David’s Narrat
ive,” in E. H. Shackleton, The Heart of the Antarctic: Being the Story of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1907–1909 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1909), 2:182.
2.Ibid.
3.Ibid., 2:183.
4.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 2:75.
5.Joy Pitman, ed., The Diary of A. Forbes Mackay, 1908–09, January 22, 1909 (Jaffrey, NH: Erebus & Terror Press, 2015), 11.
6.Fred Jacka and Eleanore Jacka, eds., Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, January 23–25, 1909 (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1988), 42.
7.“Professor David’s Narrative,” 2:189.
8.Ibid., 2:193.
9.Ibid., 2:193–94.
10.Ibid., 2:194–95.
11.Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, January 31, 1909, 45.
12.Ibid.
13.Pitman, Diary of Mackay, February 1, 1909, 12.
14.Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, February 2, 1909, 45.
15.Pitman, Diary of Mackay, February 3, 1909, 12.
16.Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, February 2, 1909, 46.
17.Pitman, Diary of Mackay, February 1, 1909, 12.
18.“Professor David’s Narrative,” 2:208.
19.Pitman, Diary of Mackay, February 1, 1909, 12.
20.Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, February 2, 1909, 46; “Professor David’s Narrative,” 2:208.
21.Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, February 4, 1909, 47.
22.“Professor David’s Narrative,” 2:211 (quoting Mawson).
23.Ibid., 2:211.
24.Ibid., 2:212.
25.Ibid., 2:213–14.
26.Frederick P. Evans, Narrative of British Antarctic Expedition, 8, MS 369 BJ, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK (hereafter cited as SPRI).
27.Ibid.
28.David Branagan, T. W. Edgeworth David: A Life (Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2005), 200 (quoting Arthur E. Harbord, Diary of the British Antarctic Expedition, February 4, 1909).
29.Philip Brocklehurst, Diary of the British Antarctic Expedition, 1907–09, February 4, 1908, MS 1635 D, SPRI.
30.Frank Wild, Diary of the Southern Journey, February 4, 1909, MS 944/1 D, SPRI, reprinted in Leif Mills, Frank Wild (Whitby, UK: Caedmon, 1999), 109.
31.Ibid.
32.Frank Wild, “Memoirs,” typescript, Frank Wild Papers, MLMSS 2198, State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, 91.
33.Shackleton, Heart of the Antarctic, 1:353.
34.Eric Marshall, Diary of the British Antarctic Expedition, February 4, 1909, MS 1456/8 D, SPRI.
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