Robert E. Peary’s Sins

The Ancients suspected the existence of the North and South Poles from astronomical calculations and the Mandaean religion prayed facing the North as the World of Light. For thousands of years the North Pole existed as a myth, however in the 19th Century Europeans sought the Northwest Passage through the the endless archipelago of barren islands.

Drawn by the myth of Ultima Thule every summer expeditions attempted assaults of the Land of the Ice and Snow. Many of their ships ended up trapped in the ice pack for years. While polar bears hunted seals in the white wasteland, only frozen death awaited men passing 82 degrees longitude.

The native Inuits of Greenland believing that Nunaup Kajjinga or the Big Nail crowned the world.

Never never ventured father than the range of the sea lions, only frozen death anyone beyond that.

Westerners thought otherwise.

After the Franco-Prussian War imperial peace dominated Europe and Pax Americana controlled the New World. The only route of advancement for Naval officers was a shot at the North or South Pole. While the possibility of frozen death awaited most of these polar adventurers and in 1908 two men led their teams due north.

Frederick Cook and Robert E. Peary.

One time friends now rivals.

Peary committed three grave sin on his polar expedition

Sin # 1.

Cook declared his winning the race, but was discredited by Peary, who supposedly reached the North Pole with his black companion Matthew Henson and four Inuits; Ooqueah, Ootah, Eginghah,and Seeglo. Peary was too far gone to actually reach Ultime Thule, but claimed victory without any credit to Henson or the Inuits. In fact he denigrated Henson's achievement and refused him any honors for decades. White people never gave credit to Africans for anything.

Sin # 2.

The explorers and whalers wintered in Greenland with the Inuit. Many had Inuit wives. Peary was no exception. He had a child with Aleqasina, a teenager, and when his American wife during a surprise visit demanded that her husband give up this savage, he refused and later had a son with his young love. His white daughter Marie, the Snow Bird, was friends with them and they regarded her as a half-sister, however Peary abandoned his native wife and children without regret to reap the rewards of fame in the USA.

Sin # 3.

Six Inuits accompanied his southward voyage. He left them at the Museum of Natural History in New York and returned to Maine. Five of them succumbed to typhoid leaving a young Inuit boy, Minnik, alone. Promised a proper burial of his father and friends, Minnik later discovered that the the museum officials had boiled the flesh off their bodies to display the bare bones to visitors.

Death also stalked the warm lands.

Minnik begged for his fathers bones for years. Peary never responded to his requests. Finally Minnik as a young man escaped the museum and fled north toCanada and the eternal cold. The Royal Mounted Police arrested him and he was transported back to New York. Finally he was granted his wish and he traveled north to Greenland on a whaler along with the bones of his people. Peary had nothing to say about it.

My grandfather was his doctor and the Snowbird was my grandmother's best friend, but that's another story for another time in the frozen lands of the North.

Ajunngigiarlutit or good luck to them all.

Hail Matthew Henson.