From Hero to Humbug

In 2005, Denali State Park erected a prominent 3×4 foot sign about Dr. Cook as part of its renovation of the viewpoint of the southern flank of the Alaska Range. The viewpoint is located in the park on Route 3, the main road that runs between Anchorage and Fairbanks, and is visited by thousands of tourists traveling to Denali National Park. It affords the closest view of the Alaska Range possible from any paved highway. The greatly expanded parking lot and tourist facilities features a panoramic sign identifying each of the main peaks visible about 30 miles distant, and the Cook sign. Entitled “Tall Mountain, Taller Tales,” the sign details Cook’s fraudulent claim to have made the first ascent of the tallest of these, Mount McKinley, in 1906. The sign features the uncropped version of Cook’s fake “summit” picture, discovered by the author of this website in 1991, and shows Belmore Browne’s picture of the same, comparatively tiny, point of rocks, 19 miles from Mount McKinley’s 20,230 foot summit and only 5,100 feet high, where Cook took his fake picture. The panel also features a picture of Ed Barrill, Cook’s climbing companion, who swore an affidavit in 1909 that neither he nor Cook had ever been near the actual summit. The background of the panel shows a picture of the Ruth Glacier apporach to the mountain with a yellow circle around the tiny “Fake Peak” where Cook took the photo.