Peary's Map (Click to enlarge) |
First, members of Peary’s expedition swore they had interviewed Cook’s Inuit
companions while still in Greenland. They were said to have denied
they had ever been out of sight of land on Cook’s recent attempt, and therefore
never closer than hundreds of miles to the Pole. Peary published
a map on which he said the two Eskimos had traced their actual route.
An odd feature of the map was a previously unknown island the
Inuit said they had visited. At the time, few in the public were willing
to take the word of “savages” against Cook, especially when they were delivered
by his sworn rival, and the “Eskimo Testimony” had little effect. But
in 1915 an island of the approximate shape and position of the one on Peary’s
map was discovered, though Cook always maintained he never had seen it.
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