From Hero to Humbug

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
We have now come to the end of the accounts of what the Inuit said of Dr. Cook’s journey by all contemporary witnesses of relevance. The next task will be to sift through [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
Although Rasmussen expected news by “the first post,” it was a long time in coming. In fact, it was more than a year before he revealed what Olsen had learned from Cook’s [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
Knud Rasmussen first visited the Polar Inuit in 1902 as part of the Danish Literary Expedition sent out to study Inuit culture. He was part Inuit himself, and would spend a lot of [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.

As Cook came down the Greenland coast, word of his conquest of the Pole came with him. After arriving at Upernavik on May 21, he was invited to stay at Governor Hans Peter [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
The only member of Peary’s crew we have not dealt with is Donald MacMillan. The subject of the “Eskimo Testimony” comes up a number of times in his writings over the years. [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
Since the original posting, I requested that the National Archives and Record Administration digitize the notebook in which George Borup wrote notes of the Inuit interviews conducted by Matt Henson in August 1909.  I [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
Dr. Cook’s claim to having attained the North Pole was in the nature of an unwitnessed assertion. True, Cook had with him two Inuit, Etukishuk and Ahwelah, but they were incapable of verifying [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
At first, General Hubbard seemed reluctant to become involved in the developing controversy. He wrote to Peary: “About the Cook matter—you know the man and know what he probably has in the way [...]

This is the latest in a series of posts that publish for the first time significant documents related to the Polar Controversy.
Among aficionados of the Polar Controversy, perhaps no single aspect has raised more debate than the truth and value of the testimony Peary allegedly obtained from Cook’s only two eyewitnesses to where he [...]

This is the 21st in a series examining significant unpublished documents related to the Polar Controversy.
As we have already seen, the newspapers carried an account saying Ed Barrill had been bribed with $5,000 to make his affidavit against Cook, but that General Hubbard was quoted several times as denying he had received anything for [...]