Setting the record straight

Introduction to Robert E. Peary
by Russell R. Robinson

The myth that Peary missed the North Pole by up to 60 miles is not true, yet has become something of an "urban legend". There is no evidence that Peary missed the Pole. That 1988 theory was quickly disproved after the author published his controversial work.

This misinformation has been promoted by 1) a British author who wants to claim his 1969 North Pole trip as the first to reach the Pole; 2) by well financed efforts from trust fund fueled descendants of North Pole hoaxer Dr. Cook (a convicted felon, now deceased); 3) racists who discredit Peary for taking his African American assistant Matthew Henson to the Pole instead of "a white man".

These anti-Peary (and recently anti-Henson) efforts during the last 14 years have caused a segment of the public to believe Peary missed the Pole by about 20 miles. One notably racist individual claims that Peary and Henson were co-conspirators in fraud, that Peary committed "the greatest scientific hoax of the 20th century", that Henson was "a liar", etc. This is remarkable because the overwhelming majority of historian, polar experts and scientists affirm Peary reached the North Pole exactly as he stated within the limits of accuracy of his sextant. There is no evidence that Peary and Henson failed to reach the Pole.

Peary's North Pole achievement was not doubted by the press or the public in 1909 despite Frederick Cook's fraudulent claim to have reached the Pole before Peary. While Cook was quickly exposed as an impostor, Peary's success was constantly accepted.

The roots of this contemporary controversy can be directly traced to Cook's vindictive book, My Attainment of the Pole, written with encouragement from his supporters in 1911. Angry at the humiliation he suffered when exposed as a fake, Cook joined the Chautauqua lecture circuit for many years (1912–1918) to promote his nasty book while publishing additional editions totaling 60,000 copies. These were sold as he traveled from city to city. Many copies were given to the press. Cook's book included a photograph of the Eskimo woman who bore a child by Peary. This was intended to shame Peary for "abandoning his savage half breed to the Arctic wilds..." Cook called Henson a liar and was the first to openly question why "...the Negro went to the Pole in the place of a white man."

By 1917 a Cook supporter, Thomas Hall, published a similar anti-Peary work Has the North Pole Been Discovered? Cook also had a congressman lobbying on his behalf. These events became the basis of all subsequent literature claiming Peary was a fraud. After Cook's death in 1940 his descendents perpetuated what became a family vendetta to discredit Peary. 

Cook's grand daughter, Janet Vetters, was a tireless troublemaker who hounded 80 year old members of Peary's expedition to make statements supportive of Cook. None would oblige her. Vetters' correspondence, now preserved in archives, shows that she encouraged numerous writers to publish books or magazine articles supporting Cook. She was able to inspire a TV movie starring Richard Chamberlain as an innocent Fred Cook cheated out of his North Pole achievement by Peary. This created a series of events leading to Wally Herbert's publication (1988) of the worst anti-Peary work ever written; Noose of Laurels.

From Vetter's will in 1989 was born the $1,000,000.00 tax-exempt, trust-funded Frederick A. Cook Society. This not for profit corporation pays for endless pro-Cook propaganda to writers, the media, and all major encyclopedias. They provided materials, for example, that assisted Robert Bryce to produce his 1100 page biography of Cook (1997) that claimed to prove Peary never reached the Pole. However, his book is nothing but a massive biography of Cook with only 5 pages about Peary's 1909 expedition.

Bryce collected every reference unfavorable towards Peary he could unearth. He published "nigger" references about Henson from the diary of an obscure member of Peary's 1892 expedition. In similar fashion he builds a case against Peary and Henson from the diary of a disgruntled employee who became so problematic that Peary fired him in the Arctic back in 1901.

This individual, Dr. Dedrick, is described in Peary's notes as an ego maniac who resented Henson's superior position in the field and who fought for leadership with Peary himself.  Dedrick, wrote Peary, raped Eskimo women, molested the young girls he examined, and even killed a woman when he threw her to the floor. Bryce is all too ready to use Dedrick's diary entries as "evidence" that Henson was illiterate and Peary was a fool. Draw your own conclusions.

Referring to Peary critics in 1990 the National Geographic Society's (NGS) Gilbert Grosvenor had written "... beyond healthy controversy lies darker and more dubious ground." In an effort to fairly resolve this matter the Society commissioned the Navigation Foundation to examine all evidence of Peary's North Pole expedition.

Their report was published in a book and also as an article that appeared in the January, 1990 NGS Magazine titled New Evidence Places Peary at the Pole by Thomas D. Davies, Rear Admiral USN (Ret.). You will find that this historical re-examination of Peary's work redeems our historical past while providing the reader a rewarding and enlightening journey.

Later even more amazing evidence was revealed in a negative found in the files of the National Geographic. Two photos, although over exposed, show the sun in the frame. When the negatives were under exposed during printing the location of the sun becomes so sharp that one may actually reconstruct a sextant reading from them. The angle above the horizon is perfectly consistent with Peary being at the Pole.

The National Geographic article applies brilliance to a murky area that had virtually swallowed up a heroic team comprised of a Naval officer, his black assistant, 4 loyal Inuit guides, and their ship load of team mates. The now famous Navigation Report restores the honor of legendary men who had a worthy goal— to be the first to reach an axis of the earth; to stand on top of the world.

The facts that support Peary and Henson at the North Pole in 1909 are overwhelming. There is no evidence that proves otherwise.

Russell R. Robinson, April, 2002