Volume 24-25, 1976-7 - The Arctic Circle - Home

VOL. }C$/ }b . I-ffIE ARCTIC CIRCULARCook becane Anerica's leading underdog in thre years 19lO-19I5, half adecade of ragtinre years in which the public was beccnring crcnscior.r.s of thef irnncial trusts and tlre concentration of pcnaer. Threre was a genuinepublic sympathy for hjm as an establishnent victjm, and the reception ofhis book and hj-s appearance at thre Oeatagua lecture platform attested tothris popularity. Yet his adrrccates were r:nable to marshal enough feelingto force a Congressional investigation--whrich Cook himself felt was ttreonly route to a fair hearing for his case. And his case was strong.Before examining the three instances of public controversy which havestamped Cook as explorer turned confidence nErn in narry accounts of thatperiod of Anrerica' s imperial urge, it is worttrwhile to present a biographicalsketchbuttressed with scrTe draracter assessnents up thrrough Septernber ofI9O9 , for that is the nxonthr wkren his cable to ttre New York Hera1d--' "reached North Pole, April 2L , 1908 "--began it atl. Ttren, Effie-ed and byannouncenent, he had bested his arch-rival, thre naval engineer, Robert E. Pearlz.Thre latter r*culd, of course, cable thre Tines five days later that he "hadttre old Pole". fhe battle for the Pole had begun and, after that, Cook'sreputation was really not worth the oil blubber he brought back witJ: him tobase camp af ter a year lost in the nost desolate corner of tkre Arctic.Cook's story was essentially that of a doctor afield, an idealist who wouldIeave his medical practice soon after graduating frcm lbw York University'sCollege of Physicians and Surgeons to volunteer witlrout pay as surgeon forone of Pearlz's early e>peditions, where his professional skill and couragewas praised by Pearry. His travel-s in bothr polar regions (he was , incidentally ,the first Anerican to e>plore in bothr thre Arctic and tlre Antarctic) andsub-Arctic Alaska spanned trro decades.In 1891, he was surgeon and ethnologist withr thre Pearlz Ncrth Greenlande>pedition (which won praise frcrn Pearlz) ; L892, irr cqrunand of thre Zetae>pedition; I9O3, led tlre party which made thre first cirqrnrr,avigation ofIrbr:nt McKinley in Al-aska; 1906, made the first ascent of McKin1ey, which, itshould be observed, was accepted in geographic circles until the I9O9controversy wittr Pea4z @an.By the tine he had departed for his Pole guest in L9O7, Cook's reputationrivaled that of Peary. He had authored two best-selling volr.nes ofe>ploration and discovery, Tlrrough the First Antarctic ltlight and To tLreTop of the Continent, the rffiisaccount of tLre McKinley ascent,