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| Peary's diary pages | ||
Peary’s
proof of his polar position--observations of the sun made on April 6 and 7 — was provided to the National
Geographic Society and later to the congressional committee considering his claim. Critics have contended
the observations could have been faked, but the Foundation has compared them with many other Peary
observations and considers them genuine.
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With these technical proofs of Peary’s account, what are we to make of the anecdotal evidence his critics use against him—the lack of a destination on the cover of his 1909 diary, the blank pages for the return trip, the unattached page on which he noted “the Pole at last!!!”, his diffident attitude toward Henson at the Pole and later, and his delay in claiming success after reaching the Roosevelt. These are not matters that a foundation such as ours is designed to examine, belonging to historians or psychologists rather than navigators. But having delved so deeply into the Peary archives, we can hazard a few speculations of our own. For example, Peary’s answer to the congressional committee that he was too busy to fill in his diary on certain dates seems credible. He was certainly busy during the 30 hours spent at the Pole--during which he made two excursions totaling 36 miles to make certain that he had nailed down its location—and afterward, driven by the need to survive, hastening back to his base as quickly as humanly possible. Keeping a complete diary must sometimes be secondary to survival. The incomplete cover is typical of virtually every journal of Peary’s in the archives. We must remember that the diary was never intended for public inspection but as an aid in preparing books and articles. We surmise that Peary made the entry on the loose page from a second notebook that he carried on the trip and used on several occasions to write notes to other members of his party. It seems to us that had Peary faked the diary as his detractors suggest, he would not have invited suspicion by leaving pages empty, nor would he have scrawled his dramatic announcement on a loose insert. Peary’s coolness toward Henson may have resulted from resentment that his assistant and two Eskimos actually reached the location of Camp Jesup ahead of him and that Henson had suggested that he was “the first man to sit on top of the world.” In any event, in his many conflicting accounts of his journey, Henson never once questioned that he and Peary had reached the Pole. Contrary to what some critics have stated or implied, Peary let expedition members know upon his return to the Roosevelt that his assault on the Pole had met with success. True, he was afterward withdrawn and despondent, but this may have been due to his grief over the death of the dedicated young Professor Marvin on the latter’s trek back to the ship with two Eskimo companions, or it just may be that the man was physically and emotionally exhausted. In the light of all the data we have assimilated and analyzed, the board members of the Navigation Foundation had unanimously agreed that Peary realized his lifelong goal by attaining the North Pole on the last of his many expeditions.* We found no evidence to the contrary. And, on a personal note, we cannot but hope that this marks the end of a long process of vilification of a courageous American explorer. END |
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| MAP TO POLE | |
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| Always north until the goal was reached. Combining the evidence of ice movement, soundings, noon sightings, and photogrammetric rectification, the Foundation was able to reconstruct a route for the expedition, which places it “essentially at the Pole” on April 6 and 7, 1909. The movement of ice that carried the party west after leaving Cape Columbia reversed as Ross Marvin and George Borup returned for supplies, and put the track closer again to the 70th meridian. The locations of the soundings correspond to estimates of position made by the party. Marvin’s and Bob Bartlett’s noon sights give latitudes as they journeyed north. The track assumes that the party headed due north after each sun sight. The early going was slow, particularly after the party was delayed by open water from the 5th to the 11th of March, but after passing the southern dogleg of the Lomonosov Ridge, the going improved noticeably, and north of 88° the surface permitted higher speeds, as modern expeditions have confirmed. The Foundation unanimously agreed that Peary realized his lifelong goal of attaining the North Pole. It expressed the hope that is report marks the end of a historic controversy. |