Third Time’s the Charm

now within reach. As they and the new Wheat guides unpacked their supplies, tend to the dogs, and begin food preparations, Peery unfurls an American flag that his wife Josephine, had sewn for him years earlier. He fastens it to the top of the camp's igloo. Henson watches as the star spangled silk springs to life on a polar breeze, a symbol of their triumph. When Peery takes the first measurements of their location, his instruments give him a position of

eighty nine degrees fifty seven minutes north. They're just a hair's breadth away from true north at ninety degrees. It won't be long now. With success all but secured, Henson seeks a well earned moment with Perry. Henson later remembers feeling that the time had come, I ungloved my right hand and went forward to congratulate him on the success of our eighteen years of effort. But a gust of

wind blew something into his eye or else. The burning pain caused by his prolonged look at the reflection of the limb of the sun forced him to turn aside, and with both hands covering his eyes, he gave us orders not to let him sleep for more than four hours. There's still more measurements to be taken, and Perry is seemingly in no mood to delay his work with platitudes. And as for the spurned handshake, well, this isn't the first time Perry refuses to share his victory with his

most valued assistant. It's a pattern that will color their working relationship for the rest of their lives. After traveling around the area and taking more readings, Perry returns to camp on April seven and makes the official announcement, we will plant the stars and stripes at the north Pole. Pera's American flag is placed at the proper location near true North, and the group gathers for a photo to

capture the moment. They are now the first men to reach the top of the world, or so they believe. For Robert Perry and Matthew Henson, it was the culmination of seven polar expeditions together nearly two decades of trying for a barely tangible spot on the icy landscape. In this episode, we'll look at how they did it. From Mental Floss and I our radio. This is the Quest for the North Pole. I'm your host Cat Long, science editor at Mental Floss and this is episode six third

Times the Charm. In July, Robert E. Peary was fifty two, Matthew Henson was forty one. Both had been battling the Arctic in search of icy glory for almost twenty years. Each time they had traveled to the harsh region to attack the North Pole, they had failed, and when they had returned home it had taken them longer to regain their physical and mental strength. Still, they weren't ready to give up the quest. As Peery later wrote, I realized

that the project was something too big to die. Pierry convinced his rich donors in the Perio Arctic Club that he would succeed this time. Failure was inconceivable. All of the hard won experience and knowledge from his earlier polar forays had led to this moment, pointing the way toward his achievement and for the donors a namesake island or glacier.

The club's president, Morris K. Jessup, assured Perry he would be given the means for another trip north Perry recalled his promise meant that I should not have to beg all the money in small sums from a more or less reluctant world. Maybe the fact that Perry had named what was thought to be the northernmost point of land in the world, Cape Morris Jessup had something to do with it. Peery's less than successful attempts to reach the North Pole had dried up other funding streams, but Arctic

fever still raged among the public. Pierry signed a deal with the New York Times to break the story of his success. When the time came, and other newspapers breathlessly reported the preparations for Perry's journey. This was the era of the penny press, when an explosion and of cheap newspapers competed for content like a gilded age Netflix or Amazon. They also created exciting stories to drive their circulations through

the roof. Here's Edward J. Larson, historian and author of most recently, To the Edges of the Earth, the Race for the Three Polls, and the climax of the Age of Exploration. So one thing that would give them content that was enormously popular were tales of daring do which polar exploration stood right at the top. They were pushing these expeditions because there was such a popular interesting And

then it was the cycle. People are interested in it because they're told they're interested in it, they read about it. You know, you get going in a cycle. So this was in many ways an artificial goal, but not a meaningless gold in the sense that it tested the explorer and it proved the worthiness, you'd say, of a country in a highly nationalistic period, and this was part of showing that prowess. It's like countries compete today to win the most Olympic medals on the idea that somehow that

showed something. This was the same sort of thing. This was the Olympic gold of the day, and no one took more pride in their expedition than the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt. Pierry and Roosevelt were two of a kind. They believed in the value of rugged pursuits for building man and country. Pierry even named his custom designed expedition ship after t R. The Roosevelt departed from the pier at East twenty four Street on July six,

in the middle of a deadly heat wave. Peery wrote about the weather and his journal, noting it was an interesting coincidence that the day on which we started for the coldest spot on Earth was about the hottest which New York had known in years. But New Yorkers weren't the type of people to let blistering heat slow them down. That pisens lined up to watch the Roosevelt sail up the East River, with Pierri's handpicked team waving from the deck.

Matthew Henson would again serve as Pirie's senior assistant and right hand man. Robert Bartlett returned as the Roosevelt's captain. Ross Marvin signed on as Pieri's secretary for the second time, and three other members of the ship's crew rejoined. New members included Donald McMillan, a Bowden College graduate and teacher, and Yale grad George Borup as Perie's assistants. As the vessel made its way up the river, factories blew their

whistles to see them off. Theodore Roosevelt's presidential yacht, the Mayflower, followed suit. Even the prisoners at Blackwell Island lined up outside the penitentiary to cheer them on. The Next day, the Roosevelt docked at Oyster Bay, on the north shore of Long Island, where tr had a summer home. Roosevelt treated Peery, his wife Josephine, and members of the Perie

Arctic Club to lunch. The President was a curious adventurer and much the same mold as Peery, and it's easy to imagine t R himself tagging along on the expedition if he hadn't had a country to run. Roosevelt, a fan boy of big ships if there ever was one, took this lunch as an opportunity to inspect every inch

of his namesake vessel before it departed. Decked Out in an all white suit, he spent an hour shaking every hand he came across, powering through the engine room, petting all of the sleddogs on board, and admiring Peery's cramped yellow pine cabin, complete with its library of Arctic books and equipment. At the end of the lunch, Peery all but promised Roosevelt that he would reach the North Pole.

No matter what, Mr President, I shall put into this effort everything there is in me, physical, mental, and moral, he said. Roosevelt replied, I believe in you, Perry, and I believe in your success if it is within the possibility of in Peery felt no qualms about what lay ahead. He and his team had made every preparation and taken every possible obstacle into account. Everything they had to do was done, he wrote. Perhaps this feeling of surety was

because every possible contingency had been discounted. Perhaps because the setbacks and knockout blows received in the past had dulled my sense of danger. Whether it was enough to get them to the North Pole this time would be up to fate. From Oyster Bay, the Roosevelt traveled the familiar route to Sydney, Nova Scotia, for its convenient proximity to

coal supplies that the ship took on board. By July seventeenth, the Roosevelt had cleared North Sydney, and on August one, they made it to Cape York, Greenland, an area Peery described as the dividing line between the civilized world on one side and the Arctic world on the other. But to put it in perspective, Peery wrote that Cape York is farther from the North Pole than New York City is from Tampa, Florida. There was still a long way

to go. Just a few weeks earlier, throngs of well wishers had cheered the expedition on as they cut through New York's East River, one of the world's busiest arteries of commerce. Now, as the Roosevelt approached the tree Less Cape, the explorers were greeted by a handful of the new wheat and kayaks. But these tiny communities at the edge of Greenland's ice sheet would make or break Pierri's dream. Pierri's men bartered with the inw wheat for the essential

equipment they couldn't get back home. Additional dogs, bear skins, sealskin whips, and walrus blubber. From Cape York, they traveled north to Eta, a village that Henson and Pierri had visited on previous expeditions, where they greeted the inw wheat families who had helped them on so many of their Arctic efforts. Henson was delighted to see old friends who had nicknamed him Marie Paluk, the kind one. Utah, his most trusted and new wheat assistant, was the leader of

the dozens of hunters in his community. The people looked up to him and followed his advice. If Utah agreed to help Pierry and Henson, others would too. As he had before, Peery hired the in New wheat men to hunt and drive sledges, and the men's wives to sew fur, clothing and prepare food. Whole families clambered onto the Roosevelt's deck for the adventure. The new wheats familiarity with the polar conditions, their survival skills, and their willingness to work

hard was invaluable to Peery. In return, Peary paid them in trade goods that were otherwise hard to come by in Greenland. Their relationship was transactional. He respected them, but you know he was also using them. That's Susan Kaplan, professor of anthropology and director of the Pierry McMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center at Bowden College. They were also using him because, first of all, he would go to northwest Greenland and ask people to join his expedition.

But what he knew who he had got in return were tremendous amounts of Western goods such as rifles and ammunition that they really valued. For instance, with the rifle, here was a piece of technology that they could use very effectively, and so they went home. And Peery's payment to both the men and the women who were on the expedition made them very wealthy, well off individuals in their own community. So Peery certainly used them, but they

were not without agency themselves. Despite being skilled hunters and infamiliar terror tory, the a New Wheat weren't immune to the anxieties of a mission like this. In their normal, everyday lives, A New Wheat had no reason to venture far from land over sea ice, since the sea mammals they hunted for food tended to hang out close to shore. But Peery was asking them to leave land behind and

march hundreds of miles across the frozen ocean. From what we can gather, they thought it was kind of crazy, and they certainly got more and more nervous. The further out on the Polar Sea, Peery ventured and had them go. They traveled on the Polar Sea, but close to shore. The further out you get on the Polar Sea, fewer marine mammals are going to be around, and the more dangerous it is because leads will open up and you may get stuck in not be able to get back

to land. So they got very, very nervous, and there are instances in the journals where you can see that people like Donald McMillan is having to distract them and cajole them to continue going north. They didn't see the point After Eta, the expedition's next stop was Cape Sheridan. To get there, the Roosevelt had to cut through miles of treacherous ice, some of which may have been eighty

to one ft thick. For most ships at the time, it would have been impossible to survive the maze of ice, but the Roosevelt was designed to deal with these exact types of obstacles. The ship barreled through the unforgiving waters for weeks, finally arriving at Cape Sheridan on September five. This would be the location of their winter base camp,

for the next few months. Cape Sheridan lies on the north eastern coast of Canada's Ellesmere Island, located just a few miles from modern day Alert, the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world. Sir George Strong Naires whom we met in our third episode, wintered at Cape Sheridan, and Perry made it his jumping off point on his previous two expeditions. Now the plan was to set up a

winter camp at the Cape. It wasn't a time to rest and conserve strength for the final push to the North Pole, though Perry expected everyone to prepare supplies, build equipment, and get ready for victory at the camp. Henson again proved invaluable to Parry. He joined New Wheat hunters on two ten day excursions out in the elements to provide the camp with fresh meat, and when he wasn't out on dog sleds, he was at the base camp building over two dozen sledges and handling any other tasks that

came his way. But Henson was much more than just someone who could manage physical tasks. He acted as a liaison between Peery and the New Wheat on the voyage and as the New Wheat People became more important to Peri's organization, so too did Henson. Here's kaplan. Matthew Henson becomes an absolutely indispensable part of Peri's expeditions. From what we can tell, also a very charismatic individual, a lovely individual, and also linguistically talented. He learns enough to the language

spoken by Inuit. From that perspective, you know, he's able to communicate more effectively. Peery knows some language, but not the way that Henson does. But also I think a combination of his charisma and also his race, the Intuit look at him and they go, Okay, he's not like these other Westerners who are white. His skin is darker. It certainly isn't like ours, but it's he's sort of more like us. And I think that he had an easier acceptance with them. But he certainly was infolded into

their community. He had a wonderful relationship with the in New Weeds, and Peery counted on that relationship. The sledges that Henson and the other members of the party built were then used to move supplies and equipment miles from Cape Sheridan to Cape Columbia. The northernmost point in all of Canada. This is where the final push to the poll would begin. Let's take a break here, we'll be

right back. M On their way towards the North Pole from Cape Columbia, Robert Peery and his entire team would carry all of the equipment and supplies they need on sledges. Pulling those sledges was the other vital part of the operation, the dogs themselves. There is evidence of humans using sled dogs as far back as nine thousand, five hundred years ago, and for the Inuite it was a way of life. They had taught hens in the skills years earlier. It was the only way anyone would make it to the

North Pole and more importantly, back to safety. Henson described the animals as more wolf like than doglike. There were over one hundred of these dogs on the period expedition, and caring for them was a community effort. Henson in particular became intimately familiar with dogcare. He fed them, kept them stimulated, broke up fights, and observed their behavior. He wrote at length about the troubles the men had with

loose dogs rummaging through the camps. Provisions on previous expeditions, and how there would be constant fights to break up among the pack if the dogs weren't tied down. But he also praised their intelligence and loyalty, later, writing without the Eskimo dog, the story of the North Pole would remain untold. Among Pieri's men. Only Henson could drive dog teams as well as the native people. Only Henson had

spent the time and effort in learning the skills. For that reason, Peery probably decided early on, without revealing his thoughts to anyone, that Henson would accompany him in the Polar Party, the final group in Pierrie's relay system, the only party that would stand at the North Pole. According to the Peery system, advanced parties set out from Cape Columbia to break the trail and set up the temporary camps.

Peery appointed Henson, Bartlett, Borup, McMillan, and Marvin to lead advance parties, each with two or three new wheat assistants and four dog slids. Bartlett left first to break the trail, followed by others to build igloos and carry supplies to the temporary camps. Peer's team would bring up the rear after the trail had been smoothed and the camps established. This strategy reduced the amount of gear Pierry needed to carry and allowed him to increase his pace over a

prepared trail. Pierry had developed the system over his years in the Arctic. He had tried various methods of polar travel and refined his plan down to be as energy efficient as possible, but it was still dangerous and riddled with potential pitfalls. He certainly took risks, but they were calculated risks. He was not interested in risk taking forwards

the thrillivance. People might say that just going to the North Pole as a risk that seems crazy to take, though, but he spent years trying and refining his equipment and his techniques to do it. He experimented with every kind of sledge design you can imagine. He just planned everything. We found when we were going through his papers in

the National Archives, that drafts of letters. There were these little doodles in the margins where he's trying to design the most perfect camp stoves that will burn the least amount of fuel as fast as possible, to turn ice into boiling water so that his crews could have tea and warm up I mean, he was just so meticulous in his training and over the years just refined it and refined it. And the same with decisions as to where he was going to leave the land and venture

out onto the polar seat. He was adjusting his approaches and his locations, and he realized that he was trying to get to the North Pole was too many people and too much equipment, and so he paired that down. He was a student of how to get there, and so he left as little to chance as he could. On February, while darkness still enveloped the landscape, Bartlett's team was the first to depart the Roosevelt. They went ahead to break the trail for the advanced parties that followed.

Peery's party left last, abandoning the safety of the ship on February. All of the personnel rendezvous at Cape Columbia on the last day of February, where Peery arranged the dogs into nineteen teams of seven dogs apiece. From Cape Columbia, Bartlett's and Borreps teams left first. Peer he wrote, One by one, the divisions drew out from the main army of sledges and dog teams took up Bartlett's trail over the ice and disappeared to the northward in the wind haze.

This departure of the procession was a noiseless one, for the freezing east wind carried all sounds away. Peary, the last man in the chain, found relatively easy traveling conditions thanks to his men's hard work. After three days of traveling, he saw that Borip was on his way back to Cape Columbia. Pierry sent Marvin's team back to join him, with instructions to fetch additional fuel at Cape Columbia and

then rejoin the line of advanced parties. Everything was going according to plan until he reached the big Lead, the unpredictable stretch of black water that had blocked his way on his previous attempt at the pole. His team now caught up to the remaining advanced parties, including Bartlett's pioneer party that had also been stopped at the edge of the water. No more progress could be made until they could cross the lead. The five days of forced inaction

took a psychological toll on the men. I think that more of mental wear and tear was crowded into those days then into all of the rest of the fifteen months we were absent from civilization. Perry recalled. Once they crossed the lead, the teams could travel twenty five miles on a good day. Barip and Marvin reappeared with the

supplies of fuel. Again. The team spread out in a chain across miles of ice, each building eigloos or laying caches of supplies, but with temperatures as low as fifty degrees below zero and high winds and other calamities popping up without warning, progress was not guaranteed. In mid March, Pierry had to send McMillan and his dog team back to base camp due to frostbite, but the others remained

in formation. At certain points, ice had built up in hummocks, forcing the men to break it up with pick axes in order to move the sledges. As they worked to clear the trail, the dogs would curl up and fall asleep. As frustrated as Henson was about chipping away at ice for hours at a time, he was even less enthusiastic about having to wake up sleeping, temperamental dogs to get back to work. He wrote, we would have to come back and start them, which was always the signal for

a fight or two. On March Ninete Peery told the remaining team leaders Marvin, Bartlett, Borup, and Henson his plan for the rest of their journey. After the next day's march, Boraps team would turn back. Five marches after that, Marvin would turn around, and five marches after that, Bartlett's team would return to base camp, leaving Peary, Henson, and the four new wheat assistants Utah, a, Gingwa, Seaglu, and Uquia

to actually go to the North Pole. We'll talk more about Perry's reasons for this decision in a later episode. The men who had traveled this far and had suffered such extreme conditions were surely devastated that they would not ultimately go to the pole themselves. They hid their true feelings, however, and did not try to argue their case with Perry. Laurap later remarked that I would have given my immortal

soul to have gone on. As a matter of fact, the commander lugged some of us a good deal farther than necessary, knowing our feelings, but they stuck to the plan. Around March twenty, according to protocol, Laura turned back, followed by Marvin. On march. On April one, after reaching eighty seven degrees forty eight minutes north, Bartlett was told the head back to base camp. That meant Peery, Henson, and the four drivers were on their own for the final

one hundred and thirty nautical miles to the pole. Henson would often be the one at the front of the party, breaking the trail, so Peery and the new Wheat could follow from behind. Peery could barely walk at times due to the pain in its feet, where frostbite had claimed eight toes during his eight expedition. It's unclear when or how often Peery had to ride on a sledge rather

than walk. Henson later wrote, the memory of those last five marches from the farthest north of Captain Bartlett to the arrival of our party of the poll is a memory of toil, fatigue, and exhaustion. But we were urged on and encouraged by our relentless commander, who was himself being scourged by the final lashings of the dominating influence

that had controlled his life. Though the fulfillment of a dream may have been in sight for Perry, the team was soon reminded how little the polar world cares about the goals of men. On April third, the team was traveling through a section of moving ice, where flows could crash against each other or suddenly pull away to leave lanes of open water. As the men traveled over the shifting floes, Pierry setting the pace half an hour ahead of the five other men, Henson struggled to get his

dog sled across a patch of ice. Suddenly, the ice slipped from beneath Henson's feet and he plunged through the crack into the freezing waters below. Henson knew it wouldn't take long for waters like this to become an icy tomb partially in the water. He struggled frantically to pull himself up, but his gloved hands couldn't make purchase on the ice. In just a few seconds, his heavy fur clothing would become saturated with water and drag him beneath

the surface forever. Suddenly, Henson felt himself being grabbed at the nape of the neck. With one hand, Utah pulled Henson upward and back onto the solid surface, and with the other hand guided Henson's dogs and sled across the fragile ice. Utah had undoubtedly saved Henson's life and their chance of reaching the pole. That quick thinking heroism probably didn't come as much of a shock to Perry or Henson. Utah was already the expedition's most trust to guide and

a personal favorite of Perry. He'd proven himself more than capable during the n six expedition, and Pierry knew that if he wanted to stake his claim at the Big Nail, he'd need Utah by his side on occasions just like this. Once out of the water, Henson acted quickly beating the eyes out of his pants and changing into dry boots. He and Utah continued on until they caught up with

the rest of the party on April six nine. After traveling more than four hundred miles over the frozen Arctic Sea, the crew settled down to make camp, as they had so many times before. When Henson asked what the name of this camp would be, Pierry responded it would be called Camp Morris k Jessup, after Peri's Arctic Club President, the last and most northerly camp on Earth, Henson recalled as their leader, took his first round of observations that day.

Anticipation among the men grew, could they already have reached their goal? Perious observations indicated that they were at eighty nine degrees fifty seven minutes north, just three short nautical miles from the top of the earth. The North Pole was all but theirs. After a few hours sleep in his igloo, Perry wrote the famous words in his journal, the poll at last, the prize of three centuries, my dream and ambition for twenty years mine at last. I

cannot bring myself to realize it. It seems all so simple and commonplace. He also couldn't bring himself to even write the word we, or team or us once in his journal on that night. For Perry, it was his goal, his journey, his achievement. Those selfishness is one explanation for perious behavior, there could be another reason. According to the account Henson told after the expedition, he was actually the one who stepped foot on the North Pole first, not Peery.

As the lead driver. Most of the way, Henson was forty five minutes ahead of period times, and when Peerry reached eighty nine degrees fifty seven minutes north, three miles from the pole, his assistant had already beaten him. To it,

and then some that couldn't have made Peery happy. I didn't know it at the time, Henson said in a n interview, but I was in the lead breaking trail that final morning, as I had been through the whole last dash, and when Peery took his sights, we found out we had overshot the mark a couple of miles. We went back. Then, Yes, sir, these here feet were set down where no human being had ever put his

feet before. Though we may never know for sure who actually took those first steps, we do know that on the morning of April seven, Peary took an additional measurement at the camp with a sexton and pan of mercury, lying flat on his stomach on the ice. When Perry stood up with a resolute squaring of his jaws, Henson wrote, I was sure that he was satisfied. Now. Henson moved forward to congratulate his long time commander, knowing what the

achievement of his life's dream meant to him. With the temperature at minus twenty nine degrees fahrenheit, Henson removed his warm fur glove and went to shake Peery's hand. Pierry turned away. Perry spent the rest of the day, traveling beyond the pole in different directions and taking more measurements of their position. Upon returning to camp, Perry confirmed to Henson and the others that they had indeed made it

to the pole. Together, the six men convened at ninety degrees north and built a mound of snow to mark the spot. The flags were raised, pictures were taken, and only after Henson and the new Wheat gave three cheers for their leader did Peery shake each man's hand. History had been made. We'll be right back. The irony of spending almost twenty years trying to reach the North Pole is that Perry didn't want to spend an extra second more than absolutely necessary there. In fact, they were only

there for thirty hours. The men would soon face what Henson would describe as seventeen days of haste, toil, and misery as cannot be comprehended by the mind. Despite the sheer physical test of the return trip, it was as uneventful as a four d mile trek through thirty below temperatures could possibly be. As the team finally got off the frozen sea and back onto solid ground, Utah remarked the devil is asleep or having trouble with his life,

or we should never have come back so easily. The fact that their return went as smoothly as it did is a credit to perious planning. The team was traveling over trails that the relay sledges had already established, and they reused the igloos they had built for their Polard journey. Here's James Edward Mills, freelance journalist, independent producer, an author of the book The Adventure Gap Changing the Face of the Outdoors. Well, I mean it's all really high level reconnaissance.

I mean it was you know it also, you know, just building to the technology. And when I say technology, I mean like how much food, over how much time, how big of a party to eat? I mean, in frankly, it's not unlike how explorers trained for Everest or some of the other big mountains you know around the Himalaya, or even being able to make a good climb of Denali or Korak and Cagla. I mean, like there's all of these things that you need are and at the turn of the century no one really knew how to

do it. That's a really good point. Yeah, I feel like people kind of try and then they get to a certain point, and then the next person tries and they learn something new, and then it's kind of a cumulative effort. Oh absolutely, you know, And that's I mean, in many ways, it's kind of how it turns into a race. And I think that, you know, we're there's

all this romantic pressure to be the first. But sadly, you know, sometimes people get to where they're going out of sheer blind luck as opposed to thoughtful, deliberate skill and working really hard and establishing the things that they

need in order to be successful. In my opinion, that's one of the main reasons why people die climbing big mountains because of exposure, you know, and often rock falls happen, but sometimes things happened simply because you're so wrapped up in the summits that you forget that the goal was to get back safely, you know, not just to make it to the top. One of the things that I really have to credit Pincidentarry for they took the time to figure out how to do it right, they were

able to make it back safely. In April, at six am, Peary was back at Cape Columbia. He was alive, and he had reached his ultimate goal. He wrote in his diary, my life work is accomplished. The thing which it was intended from the beginning that I should do, the thing which I believed could be done, and that I could do. I have done. I have got the North Pole out

of my system. After twenty three years of effort, hard work, disappointments, hardships, privations, more or less suffering, and some risks, I have won the last great geographical prize, the North Pole, for the credit of the United States. This work is the finish, the cap and climax of nearly four hundred years of effort, loss of life, and expenditure of fortunes by the civilized nations of the world. And it has been accomplished in a way that is thoroughly American. I am content. But

their celebration was soon tempered by tragedy. When they returned to the Roosevelt, still stationed at Cape Sheridan, the crew greeted them with terrible news. Ross Marvin, Puri's secretary assistant and well liked advanced party leader, had drowned on his return trip to base camp. Marvin had apparently gone ahead of his two and new Wheek drivers during their journey. As the men traveled to catch up to him, they

came across a break in some thin ice. They glimpsed the top of Marvin's fur jacket under the water, but nobody could be seen. They couldn't retrieve Marvin. With the precarious ice and the lack of visibility, any attempt could have led to them slipping through two, wrote Henson. He it alone, and he passed into the great unknown alone, bravely and honorably. He is the last of Earth's grade martyrs. He is home, His work is done. He is where he longed to be. The sailor is home in the sea.

There must have also been an added bitter sweet feeling for Henson, who was celebrating his team's incredible accomplishment aboard the Roosevelt, having narrowly avoided Marvin's fate just a few weeks earlier. While Borup and McMillan conducted scientific work, Henson and Perry remained on the Roosevelt, and Perry's attitude towards his loyal assistant took a strange turn. He barely acknowledged their achievement, much less expressed as gratitude for the work

Henson had helped make possible. I would catch a fleeting glimpse of Commander Perry, but not once in all that time did he speak a word to me, Henson wrote. Then he spoke to me in the most ordinary, matter of fact way, and ordered me to get to work. Not a word about the North Pole or anything connected with it. Simply there's enough wood left, and I would like to have you make a couple of sledges and men,

the broken ones. I hope you're feeling all right. As the ice broke up in summer, the Roosevelt set a return course home. On Augustine, they stopped in Eta to drop off the new wheat families and pay them. Utah received a rowboat, a rifle, a knife, a sledge, tobacco, and a few other Western items for his year of work. After two decades of getting to know the native people, their customs, and their stories, Peery knew he'd probably never

see them again. In Ita, Peery also found Harry Whitney, a wealthy American big game hunter who had come up the previous year on the Roosevelt supply ship. During the intervening months, he had lived with the inu wheat and tried to bag polar bears, walrus and musk ox for his trophy room. Whitney told Perry news that must have

come as an utter shock. Frederick Cook, the surgeon on a couple of Perry's early expeditions, was about to announce to the world that he had reached the North Pole, and he said he had done so on April one, almost a full year before Pierry. Whitney said he had run into Cook on April eighteenth nine, struggling over the ice from Ellesmere Island. He had two young and new wheat guides. It took a shoe and appella with him. When Whitney met up with the group, Cook said he

had reached the North Pole the previous year. Whitney was certainly stunned too. Unlike Peery's huge send off from New York, there had been little publicity in advance of Cook's voyage. Cook left his journals from the trip with Whitney and then raised south to catch a ship to Copenhagen, where he told the world of his triumph. But Henson and Peery, after experiencing the excruciating journey themselves and hearing Whitney's account. I thought there was just no way Cook could have

done it, Hanson recalled. We knew Dr Cook and his abilities. He had been the surgeon on two of Perry's expeditions, and aside from his medical ability, we had no faith in him whatsoever. He was not even good for a day's work, and the idea of his making such an astounding claim as having reached the pole was so ludicrous

that after our laugh we dropped the matter altogether. Peary said little, but when Whitney attempted to bring some of Cook's records and other possessions on board the Roosevelt for the journey home, he forbade it. On August, the Roosevelt left Cape York, and on September five they docked in Indian Harbor, Labrador. There was a telegraph station there, and this was Peary's first chance to get the word of

his accomplishment out to the wider world. His first message was to his wife Josephine, simply saying half made good. At last, I have the pole, am well. The next one to hl Bridgeman of the Perie Arctic Club, which just read son. This was Peri's code word for successfully reaching the Pole. Another lengthier message was more theatrical stars and stripes snailed to the North Pole. The Roosevelt continued down to Battle Harbor, where two reporters from the Associated

Press arrived for the sensational story. Twenty three newspaper correspondents followed. All there was left for Peri to do was rest on his laurels, or so he thought. The Quest for the North Pole is hosted by Me cat Long. This episode was researched by Me and written by j Sarafino, with fact checking by Austin Thompson. The executive producers are Aaron McCarthy and Tyler Klang. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagin. The show is edited by Dylan Fagin and Lowell Berlante.

Thanks to our experts Edward Larson, Susan Kaplan, and James Edward Mills for transcripts, a glossary, and to learn more about this episode, visit Mental Flaws dot com slash podcast. The Quest for the North Pole is a production of I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.