Frederick Cook
Encyclopedia
Frederick Albert Cook was an American
explorer and physician, noted for his claim of having reached the North Pole
on April 21, 1908. This would have been a year before April 6, 1909, the date claimed by Robert Peary
.
. His parents were Dr. Theodore A. Koch and Magdalena Long, recent German immigrants to the United States
.
Cook attended Columbia University
, receiving his M.D.
in 1890. In 1889 he married Libby Forbes, who died in 1890. On his 37th birthday he married Marie Fidele Hunt; they had one daughter, Helene. In 1923 they were divorced, possibly for financial reasons related to an upcoming fraud trial.
on Robert Peary
's 1891–1892 Arctic
expedition, and on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition
of 1897–1899 led by Adrien de Gerlache
. He contributed greatly to saving the lives of the crew when their ship (the Belgica) was ice-bound during the winter. A fellow crew-member was Norwegian
explorer Roald Amundsen
, with whom he established a friendship and life-long relationship of mutual respect. In 1898, during this expedition, Cook visited Tierra del Fuego
, where he met Thomas Bridges shortly before his death. As a result of that meeting, Cook brought back the manuscript of Bridges' Yamana
dictionary, and several years later acquiesced in the attempted publication of the dictionary as his own work.
In 1903 Cook led an expedition to Mount McKinley
, which resulted in his circumnavigation of the Denali range. He would subsequently make a second expedition in 1906, and claim to have made the first ascent of that mountain (this claim is discussed at length below).
(1904–present). In 1907–1908 Cook served as the second President of The Explorers Club.
Cook claimed to have achieved the first summit of Mount McKinley in September 1906, reaching the top with one other member of his expedition. Other members of the team (e. g., Belmore Browne), whom he had left lower on the mountain, expressed private doubts about this immediately. His claims were not publicly challenged however until the 1909 fight with Peary over which had first reached the North Pole, at which time it was publicly alleged by Peary's supporters that Cook's ascent of Mt. McKinley was fraudulent. Ed Barrill, Cook's sole companion during the 1906 climb, signed an affidavit in 1909 denying that they had reached the top. He was paid by Peary supporters to do so (Henderson, 2005) (a fact which Henderson claims was covered up and Bryce claims was never a secret), although Barrill had consistently until a month before asserted that he and Cook had reached the summit. Unlike Hudson Stuck
in 1913 (Ascent of Denali, 1914, photograph opposite p. 102) Cook took no photograph of the view from atop McKinley, and his photograph which he claimed to be of the summit was found to have been taken of a tiny peak
19 miles away. An expedition by the Mazama Club in 1910 reported that Cook's map departed abruptly from reality while the summit was still 10 miles distant. Critics of Cook's claims have compared Cook's map of his alleged 1906 route versus reality, over the last 10 miles. Modern climber Bradford Washburn
made it a personal mission to determine the truth of Cook's 1906 claim. Washburn and Brian Okonek ultimately (between 1956 and 1995) were able to identify the location of most of the photographs Cook took during his 1906 McKinley foray, and reproduce them, and in 1997 Bryce identified the locations of the remaining photographs, including his "summit" photograph. None was taken anywhere near the summit. Washburn showed that none of Cook's 1906 photos was taken past the "Gateway" (north end of the Great Gorge), 12 horizontal bee-line miles from McKinley and 3 miles below its top. Barrill's 1909 affidavit included a map correctly locating the Fake Peak
of Cook's "summit" photo and showing that Cook and he had turned back at the Gateway. Cook's descriptions of the summit ridge are variously claimed to bear no resemblance to the actual mountain and to have been verified by many subsequent climbers. In the 1970s Hans Waale found a route which fitted Cook's narrative and descriptions, but according to Washburn no-one else has tried to climb McKinley by that route. No evidence of Cook's presence between the "Gateway" and the summit has been found. His claim to have reached the summit is not supported by his photos' vistas, his two sketch maps' markers and peak-numberings for points attained, his compass bearings, his barometer readings, his route-map or his camp trash — though samples of all such evidences have been found short of the Gateway.
in 1907. He planned to attempt to reach the North Pole
, although his intention was not announced until August 1907, when he was already in the Arctic. He left Annoatok
, a small settlement in the north of Greenland
, in February 1908. Cook claimed that he reached the pole on April 22, 1908 after traveling north from Axel Heiberg Island
, taking with him only two Inuit men, Ahpellah and Etukishook. On the journey south, he claimed to have been cut off from his intended route to Annoatok by open water. Living off local game, his party was forced to push south to Jones Sound
, spending the open water season and part of the winter on Devon Island
. From there they traveled north, eventually crossing Nares Strait
to Annoatok on the Greenland side in the spring of 1909, allegedly almost dying of starvation during the journey.
Cook and his two companions were gone from Annoatok for 14 months, and their whereabouts in that period is a matter of intense controversy. In the view of Canadian historian Pierre Berton
(Berton, 2001), Cook's story of his trek around the Arctic islands is probably legitimate; others put more faith in the story told by Cook's companions to later investigators. It has been suggested that Cook’s account actually describes his attainment of Jules Verne
’s "Pole du Froid" (Pole of Cold
), which was much easier to reach and to locate than the North Pole. If so, Cook might have altered the geographical details of his journey south through the islands to mislead investigators and cover up this fictional and largely forgotten pole. This would account for the discrepancy between his account and that of his companions. There are striking similarities between Ahpellah and Etukishook's sketched route of their journey south and the route taken by the fictional shipwrecked explorers in Jules Verne's novel "The English at the North Pole". For example, the route the two Inuit traced on a map goes right over both the Pole of Cold and the wintering site of the fictional expedition, and both expeditions went to the same area of Jones Sound in hope of finding a whaling ship to take them to civilization. For details, see Osczevski (2003) "Frederick Cook and the Forgotten Pole".
Cook's claim was initially widely believed. But it was disputed by Cook's now-rival polar explorer Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the North Pole himself in April 1909. Cook initially congratulated Peary for his achievement, but Peary and his supporters launched a campaign to discredit Cook, even enlisting the aid of socially-prominent persons outside the field of science such as football
coach
Fielding H. Yost (as related in Fred Russell
's 1943 book, I'll Go Quietly).
Cook never produced detailed original navigational records to substantiate his claim to have reached the North Pole. He claimed that his detailed records were part of his belongings contained in three boxes, which he left at Annoatok in April 1909 in the keeping of Harry Whitney
, an American hunter who had traveled to Greenland with Peary the previous year. According to Cook's account, he was unable to bring back the boxes, because his two companions had returned to their village and there was insufficient manpower at Annoatok for a second sledge for the onward 700-mile journey south to Upernavik
. When Whitney tried to bring Cook's belongings with him on his return to the USA on Peary's ship, Peary refused to allow them on board. So Whitney left Cook's boxes in a cache in Greenland. They were never found.
Cook intermittently claimed he had kept copies of his sextant navigational data and in 1911 published some which have the incorrect solar diameter. Ahwelah and Etukishook, Cook's Inuit companions, gave seemingly conflicting details about where they had gone with him. The major conflicts have been resolved in the light of improved geographical knowledge. Whitney was convinced that they had reached the North Pole with Cook, but hesitant to be drawn into the controversy. The Peary expedition's people (primarily Matthew Henson
, who had a working knowledge of their language, and George Borup, who did not) claimed that Ahwelah and Etukishook told them that they had traveled only a few days journey from land. A map allegedly drawn by Ahwelaw and Etukishook correctly located and accurately depicted then-unknown Meighen Island
, which strongly suggests that they visited it, as they claimed.
For more detail see Bryce, 1997 and Henderson, 2005. The conflicting, and possibly dual fraudulent claims, of Cook and Peary prompted Roald Amundsen
to take particularly extensive precautions in navigation during his South Pole expedition to leave no room for doubt concerning attainment of the pole. See Polheim
. (Amundsen also had the advantage of traveling over an actual continent and was able to leave unmistakable evidence of his presence at the South Pole, whereas any ice on which Cook might or might not have camped would have drifted many miles in the year between the competing claims.)
Cook's reputation never recovered, while Peary's North Pole claim was widely accepted for most of the 20th century. Cook spent the next few years defending his claim and attempting to sue writers who claimed that he had faked the trip. In 1922 he became involved in the Texas oil business. In 1923 he was convicted of using the mails to defraud by signing mailers which overstated the oil discovery prospects of his company, and was imprisoned until 1930. (Roald Amundsen
, who felt he owed his life to Cook's extrication of the Belgica, visited several times.) It has been claimed (Henderson, 2005) that the sentence was considered excessive even by the district attorney, and that the judge was a friend of the Peary family. More to the point, the actual oil finds eventually exceeded the expectations outlined by Cook. He was pardon
ed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
in 1940, shortly before his death on August 5 of that year.
Cook is a major character in a fiction book, The Navigator of New York, by Wayne Johnston
, published in 2003. In recent years Peary's account has encountered renewed criticism and skepticism (Rawlins, 1973; Berton, 2001; Henderson, 2005). Which man, if either, was first to reach the North Pole continues to be a matter of considerable controversy in the arena of popular publications, though among professionals both of Cook's claims have been almost unanimously rejected for nearly a century.
At the end of his 1911 book, Cook wrote: I have stated my case, presented my proofs. As to the relative merits of my claim, and Mr Peary's, place the two records side by side. Compare them. I shall be satisfied with your decision. Frederick Cook’s remains are at the Chapel of Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
explorer and physician, noted for his claim of having reached the North Pole
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
on April 21, 1908. This would have been a year before April 6, 1909, the date claimed by Robert Peary
Robert Peary
Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole...
.
Biography
Cook was born in Hortonville, in Sullivan County, New YorkSullivan County, New York
Sullivan County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2010 census, the population was 77,547. The county seat is Monticello. The name is in honor of Major General John Sullivan, who was a hero in the American Revolutionary War...
. His parents were Dr. Theodore A. Koch and Magdalena Long, recent German immigrants to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Cook attended Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, receiving his M.D.
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
in 1890. In 1889 he married Libby Forbes, who died in 1890. On his 37th birthday he married Marie Fidele Hunt; they had one daughter, Helene. In 1923 they were divorced, possibly for financial reasons related to an upcoming fraud trial.
Early expeditions
Cook was the surgeonSurgery
Surgery is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance.An act of performing surgery may be called a surgical...
on Robert Peary
Robert Peary
Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole...
's 1891–1892 Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
expedition, and on the Belgian Antarctic Expedition
Belgian Antarctic Expedition
The Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 to 1899, named after its expedition vessel Belgica, was the first expedition to winter in the Antarctic region.- Preparation and Surveying :...
of 1897–1899 led by Adrien de Gerlache
Adrien de Gerlache
Baron Adrien Victor Joseph de Gerlache de Gomery was an officer in the Belgian Royal Navy who led the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of 1897 to 1899.-His early years:...
. He contributed greatly to saving the lives of the crew when their ship (the Belgica) was ice-bound during the winter. A fellow crew-member was Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
explorer Roald Amundsen
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....
, with whom he established a friendship and life-long relationship of mutual respect. In 1898, during this expedition, Cook visited Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of a main island Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego divided between Chile and Argentina with an area of , and a group of smaller islands including Cape...
, where he met Thomas Bridges shortly before his death. As a result of that meeting, Cook brought back the manuscript of Bridges' Yamana
Yaghan language
Yagán , also known as Yámana and Háusi Kúta, is one of the indigenous languages of Tierra del Fuego, spoken by the Yagán people...
dictionary, and several years later acquiesced in the attempted publication of the dictionary as his own work.
In 1903 Cook led an expedition to Mount McKinley
Mount McKinley
Mount McKinley or Denali in Alaska, United States is the highest mountain peak in North America and the United States, with a summit elevation of above sea level. It is the centerpiece of Denali National Park and Preserve.- Geology and features :Mount McKinley is a granitic pluton...
, which resulted in his circumnavigation of the Denali range. He would subsequently make a second expedition in 1906, and claim to have made the first ascent of that mountain (this claim is discussed at length below).
The Arctic Club and The Explorers Club
Dr. Cook was a founding member of two New York-based clubs: the Arctic Club (1894–1913) and the Explorers ClubThe Explorers Club
The Explorers Club is a professional society dedicated to scientific exploration of Earth, its oceans, and outer space. Founded in 1904 in New York City, it currently has 30 branches world wide...
(1904–present). In 1907–1908 Cook served as the second President of The Explorers Club.
The 1906 Mt. McKinley climb
Hudson Stuck
Hudson Stuck with Harry P. Karstens co-led the first expedition to successfully climb the South Peak of Mount McKinley.Stuck, an Episcopal Archdeacon, was born in London and graduated from King's College London...
in 1913 (Ascent of Denali, 1914, photograph opposite p. 102) Cook took no photograph of the view from atop McKinley, and his photograph which he claimed to be of the summit was found to have been taken of a tiny peak
Fake Peak
Fake Peak is a small outcrop on a ridge beside the Ruth Glacier in Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska, USA, 19 miles southeast of the summit of Mount McKinley. It has been shown by Robert M. Bryce that the "summit photograph" produced by Frederick Cook as evidence supporting his claim to...
19 miles away. An expedition by the Mazama Club in 1910 reported that Cook's map departed abruptly from reality while the summit was still 10 miles distant. Critics of Cook's claims have compared Cook's map of his alleged 1906 route versus reality, over the last 10 miles. Modern climber Bradford Washburn
Bradford Washburn
Henry Bradford Washburn, Jr. was an American explorer, mountaineer, photographer, and cartographer. He established the Boston Museum of Science, served as its director from 1939–1980, and from 1985 until his death served as its Honorary Director .Washburn is especially noted for exploits in four...
made it a personal mission to determine the truth of Cook's 1906 claim. Washburn and Brian Okonek ultimately (between 1956 and 1995) were able to identify the location of most of the photographs Cook took during his 1906 McKinley foray, and reproduce them, and in 1997 Bryce identified the locations of the remaining photographs, including his "summit" photograph. None was taken anywhere near the summit. Washburn showed that none of Cook's 1906 photos was taken past the "Gateway" (north end of the Great Gorge), 12 horizontal bee-line miles from McKinley and 3 miles below its top. Barrill's 1909 affidavit included a map correctly locating the Fake Peak
Fake Peak
Fake Peak is a small outcrop on a ridge beside the Ruth Glacier in Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska, USA, 19 miles southeast of the summit of Mount McKinley. It has been shown by Robert M. Bryce that the "summit photograph" produced by Frederick Cook as evidence supporting his claim to...
of Cook's "summit" photo and showing that Cook and he had turned back at the Gateway. Cook's descriptions of the summit ridge are variously claimed to bear no resemblance to the actual mountain and to have been verified by many subsequent climbers. In the 1970s Hans Waale found a route which fitted Cook's narrative and descriptions, but according to Washburn no-one else has tried to climb McKinley by that route. No evidence of Cook's presence between the "Gateway" and the summit has been found. His claim to have reached the summit is not supported by his photos' vistas, his two sketch maps' markers and peak-numberings for points attained, his compass bearings, his barometer readings, his route-map or his camp trash — though samples of all such evidences have been found short of the Gateway.
North Pole
After the Mount McKinley expedition, Cook returned to the ArcticArctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
in 1907. He planned to attempt to reach the North Pole
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
, although his intention was not announced until August 1907, when he was already in the Arctic. He left Annoatok
Annoatok
Annoatok , located at , was a small hunting station in Greenland, on Smith Sound about north of Etah. It is now abandoned.- History :...
, a small settlement in the north of Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
, in February 1908. Cook claimed that he reached the pole on April 22, 1908 after traveling north from Axel Heiberg Island
Axel Heiberg Island
Axel Heiberg Island is an island in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. Located in the Arctic Ocean, it is the 31st largest island in the world and Canada's seventh largest island. According to Statistics Canada, it has an area of ....
, taking with him only two Inuit men, Ahpellah and Etukishook. On the journey south, he claimed to have been cut off from his intended route to Annoatok by open water. Living off local game, his party was forced to push south to Jones Sound
Jones Sound
Jones Sound is an uninhabited waterway in Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut, Canada. It lies between Devon Island and the southern end of Ellesmere Island. At its northwestern end it is linked by several channels to Norwegian Bay; at its eastern end it opens via Glacier Strait into Baffin Bay.The first known...
, spending the open water season and part of the winter on Devon Island
Devon Island
Devon Island , claimed to be the largest uninhabited island on Earth, is located in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is one of the larger members of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the second-largest of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, Canada's sixth largest island, and the 27th...
. From there they traveled north, eventually crossing Nares Strait
Nares Strait
Nares Strait is a waterway between Ellesmere Island and Greenland that is the northern part of Baffin Bay where it meets the Lincoln Sea. From south to north, the strait includes Smith Sound, Kane Basin, Kennedy Channel, Hall Basin and Robeson Channel...
to Annoatok on the Greenland side in the spring of 1909, allegedly almost dying of starvation during the journey.
Cook and his two companions were gone from Annoatok for 14 months, and their whereabouts in that period is a matter of intense controversy. In the view of Canadian historian Pierre Berton
Pierre Berton
Pierre Francis de Marigny Berton, was a noted Canadian author of non-fiction, especially Canadiana and Canadian history, and was a well-known television personality and journalist....
(Berton, 2001), Cook's story of his trek around the Arctic islands is probably legitimate; others put more faith in the story told by Cook's companions to later investigators. It has been suggested that Cook’s account actually describes his attainment of Jules Verne
Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...
’s "Pole du Froid" (Pole of Cold
Pole of Cold
The Poles of Cold are the places in the Northern and Southern hemispheres where the lowest air temperatures have been recorded.- Northern hemisphere :...
), which was much easier to reach and to locate than the North Pole. If so, Cook might have altered the geographical details of his journey south through the islands to mislead investigators and cover up this fictional and largely forgotten pole. This would account for the discrepancy between his account and that of his companions. There are striking similarities between Ahpellah and Etukishook's sketched route of their journey south and the route taken by the fictional shipwrecked explorers in Jules Verne's novel "The English at the North Pole". For example, the route the two Inuit traced on a map goes right over both the Pole of Cold and the wintering site of the fictional expedition, and both expeditions went to the same area of Jones Sound in hope of finding a whaling ship to take them to civilization. For details, see Osczevski (2003) "Frederick Cook and the Forgotten Pole".
Cook's claim was initially widely believed. But it was disputed by Cook's now-rival polar explorer Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the North Pole himself in April 1909. Cook initially congratulated Peary for his achievement, but Peary and his supporters launched a campaign to discredit Cook, even enlisting the aid of socially-prominent persons outside the field of science such as football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
coach
Coach (sport)
In sports, a coach is an individual involved in the direction, instruction and training of the operations of a sports team or of individual sportspeople.-Staff:...
Fielding H. Yost (as related in Fred Russell
Fred Russell
Fred Russell was an American sports writer prominent in the Golden Era of Sports in the 20th century...
's 1943 book, I'll Go Quietly).
Cook never produced detailed original navigational records to substantiate his claim to have reached the North Pole. He claimed that his detailed records were part of his belongings contained in three boxes, which he left at Annoatok in April 1909 in the keeping of Harry Whitney
Harry Whitney
Harry Whitney was an American sportsman, adventurer, and author. He traveled to northern Greenland with Robert Peary in 1908, staying over the winter with the Eskimos at Etah and Annoatok. In the spring of 1909 Whitney found himself at the center of the controversy between Frederick Cook and Peary...
, an American hunter who had traveled to Greenland with Peary the previous year. According to Cook's account, he was unable to bring back the boxes, because his two companions had returned to their village and there was insufficient manpower at Annoatok for a second sledge for the onward 700-mile journey south to Upernavik
Upernavik
Upernavik is a small town in the Qaasuitsup municipality in northwestern Greenland, located on a small island of the same name. With 1,129 inhabitants as of 2010, it is the thirteenth-largest town in Greenland. Due to the small size of the settlement, everything is within walking distance...
. When Whitney tried to bring Cook's belongings with him on his return to the USA on Peary's ship, Peary refused to allow them on board. So Whitney left Cook's boxes in a cache in Greenland. They were never found.
Cook intermittently claimed he had kept copies of his sextant navigational data and in 1911 published some which have the incorrect solar diameter. Ahwelah and Etukishook, Cook's Inuit companions, gave seemingly conflicting details about where they had gone with him. The major conflicts have been resolved in the light of improved geographical knowledge. Whitney was convinced that they had reached the North Pole with Cook, but hesitant to be drawn into the controversy. The Peary expedition's people (primarily Matthew Henson
Matthew Henson
Matthew Alexander Henson was an African American explorer and associate of Robert Peary during various expeditions, the most famous being a 1909 expedition which it was discovered that he was the the first person to reach the Geographic North Pole.-Life:Henson was born on a farm in Nanjemoy,...
, who had a working knowledge of their language, and George Borup, who did not) claimed that Ahwelah and Etukishook told them that they had traveled only a few days journey from land. A map allegedly drawn by Ahwelaw and Etukishook correctly located and accurately depicted then-unknown Meighen Island
Meighen Island
Meighen Island is an uninhabited member of the Queen Elizabeth Islands, part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. Located at 79°55'N 99°30'W, it measures in size and is topped with an ice cap. The island is continuously icebound, and its northwestern...
, which strongly suggests that they visited it, as they claimed.
For more detail see Bryce, 1997 and Henderson, 2005. The conflicting, and possibly dual fraudulent claims, of Cook and Peary prompted Roald Amundsen
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....
to take particularly extensive precautions in navigation during his South Pole expedition to leave no room for doubt concerning attainment of the pole. See Polheim
Polheim
Polheim was Roald Amundsen's name for his camp at the South Pole. He arrived there on December 14, 1911, along with four other members of his expedition; Helmer Hanssen, Olav Bjaaland, Oscar Wisting, and Sverre Hassel....
. (Amundsen also had the advantage of traveling over an actual continent and was able to leave unmistakable evidence of his presence at the South Pole, whereas any ice on which Cook might or might not have camped would have drifted many miles in the year between the competing claims.)
Failed reputation
Roald Amundsen
Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer of polar regions. He led the first Antarctic expedition to reach the South Pole between 1910 and 1912 and he was the first person to reach both the North and South Poles. He is also known as the first to traverse the Northwest Passage....
, who felt he owed his life to Cook's extrication of the Belgica, visited several times.) It has been claimed (Henderson, 2005) that the sentence was considered excessive even by the district attorney, and that the judge was a friend of the Peary family. More to the point, the actual oil finds eventually exceeded the expectations outlined by Cook. He was pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
ed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
in 1940, shortly before his death on August 5 of that year.
Cook is a major character in a fiction book, The Navigator of New York, by Wayne Johnston
Wayne Johnston (author)
Wayne Johnston is a Canadian novelist. His fiction deals primarily with the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, often in a historical setting.-Biography:...
, published in 2003. In recent years Peary's account has encountered renewed criticism and skepticism (Rawlins, 1973; Berton, 2001; Henderson, 2005). Which man, if either, was first to reach the North Pole continues to be a matter of considerable controversy in the arena of popular publications, though among professionals both of Cook's claims have been almost unanimously rejected for nearly a century.
At the end of his 1911 book, Cook wrote: I have stated my case, presented my proofs. As to the relative merits of my claim, and Mr Peary's, place the two records side by side. Compare them. I shall be satisfied with your decision. Frederick Cook’s remains are at the Chapel of Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo
Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo
Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York was founded in 1849 by Charles E. Clark. It covers over 250 acres and over 152,000 are buried there. Notable graves include U.S. President Millard Fillmore, singer Rick James, and inventor Lawrence Dale Bell...
.