From Hero to Humbug

The author has recently published a new study drawing on original sources. It is now available on Amazon.com.

In 1907, Robert E. Peary first claimed that when he stood on the heights of Axel Heiberg Island in June 1906, he sighted a distant land to the northwest.

Peary named it “Crocker Land,” after the banker George Crocker, who had contributed $50,000 toward the outfitting of his 1905 expedition aimed at reaching the North Pole. Although he failed in that effort, he claimed that in his attempt he had achieved a new “Farthest North,” exceeding the record claimed in 1901 by the Italian expedition led by the Duke of Abruzzi. Today, this claim is doubted, as is Peary’s unsupported assertion that he succeeded in reached the North Pole on his next expedition in 1909.

As to the first claim of discovering Crocker Land, an expedition led by Peary’s protege, Donald B. MacMillan, sent out to explore it, proved beyond doubt that it did not exist. On MacMillan’s attempt to reach Crocker Land he retrieved cairn records left by Peary at his points of observation, none of which made any mention of the discovery, which Peary rated as the second most important accomplishment of his 1906 effort to reach the Pole. Nevertheless, MacMillan excused Peary of deception by claiming that his experiences, on his own journey toward the position at which Crocker Land was supposed to lie, conclusively showed that Peary had been deceived by a Fata Morgana—a mirage caused by extreme refraction as rays of light bend when they pass through air layers of different temperatures.

In this first detailed comparison of the original field diaries kept by MacMillan and his companion, Fitzhugh Green, the author examines this claim that Peary was deceived rather than a deceiver, and considers whether MacMillan in claiming Peary had been deceived may have practiced deception himself. The Crocker Land Diaries also examines the questions surrounding the tragic aftermath of MacMillan’s attempt to reach Peary’s mythical land, which resulted in the death of one of his Inuit guides at the hands of Fitzhugh Green. Green claimed he was compelled to kill the Inuit to save his own life. The Crocker Land Diaries examines the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident, and based on the original sources, suggests other possible motives for the killing.