On September 1, 1909, the veteran American explorer Dr. Frederick A. Cook, wired the unexpected news that on April 21, 1908, he had attained the North Pole, the greatest geographical prize left on earth. His landing at Copenhagen touched off a frenzy of adulation, ending with him heaped in honors. The drama increased when word arrived that Robert E. Peary, after 23 years of intermittent arctic expeditions, had reached the North Pole on April 6, 1909. A few days later Peary intimated that Cook's story should not be taken seriously and before the week was out declared that his rival had simply "handed the world a gold brick." Thus began the greatest geographical dispute of all time. "The Polar Controversy" was front page news for the better part of four months and has been argued over ever since. Cook was the public's initial favorite because of his gentlemanly demeanor in the face of bitter attacks, but before long a skillful press campaign mounted by Peary's powerful backers began to undermine Cook's credibility. First, members of Peary's expedition swore that Cook's Inuit companions denied ever being out of sight of land on his recent attempt, and therefore never closer than hundreds of miles to the pole. Next, Ed Barrill, only witness to Cook's 1906 claimed ascent of Mt. McKinley, swore the climb was a hoax arranged to help Cook avoid financial ruin. Finally, two men swore additional affidavits saying they had been hired by Cook to fake a set of astronomical data in proof of his having been at the pole. When Cook's polar "proofs" were examined by the Copenhagen scientists to whom he had promised them while in Denmark, they found no trace of the allegedly forged observations among them. But they also could not find in them "any proof whatsoever of Dr. Cook having reached the Northpole." The negative verdict of the judges Cook had chosen for himself instantaneously branded him in the press as "a monster of duplicity." This, coupled with the fact that Cook had apparently fled the country, convinced many that their recent hero was nothing more than a contemptible cheat. At the same time it allowed Peary to step forward and claim the prize he had sought for so long: the everlasting fame that belonged to the Discoverer of the North Pole. The last thing Cook did before dropping from sight for a year was to submit one of his polar notebooks in support of his claim to the University of Copenhagen. Originally he had only sent a copy of a part of it, along with narrative material similar to that published in the newspapers in the Fall of 1909. The Danes were not impressed. They said that the notebook did not alter their previous verdict and that, in fact, it raised further doubts. The entire affair was an acute embarrassment to Denmark, where Cook had received high honors, including a gold medal and a very rare honorary doctorate from the University. He had even been personally received by the Danish king, who, along with the Danish scientists, were now being depicted as gullible fools in the American press. Although in turning over the notebook Cook had stipulated that no part of it could be copied or published, the Danes made a complete photographic copy of the book and stored it away quietly before returning the original to him in 1911. In 1993, while doing research for his monumental study, Cook & Peary, the Polar Controversy, Resolved, published in 1997, the author recovered the photographic copy of Cook's notebook, the original of which is now lost, from where it had lain unnoticed for more than 80 years. That notebook is the subject of this study. It provides the "smoking gun" that proves Cook did not reach the North Pole in 1908 in the form of a complete transcription of Cook's original diary. Its accompanying annotations clearly show why it contains convincing proof that Cook's claim was a premeditated hoax and that the verdict rendered in Copenhagen in 1909 was correct and fully justified.
About the Author: Robert M. Bryce has been a scholar of the Cook-Peary dispute over the North Pole for more than forty years. Eight years of concentrated research in the primary materials of the dispute culminated in the publication of his massive study in 1997 under the title Cook and Peary, the Polar Controversy, Resolved. To date, it is the only book based on both the personal papers of Frederick A. Cook and Robert E. Peary. Bryce's original work in manuscript materials was recognized by the Library of Congress, which featured his findings in its exhibit that marked the library's centennial. He is also the author of several papers, including a preliminary survey and preservation recommendations for the Cook materials once held by the Frederick A. Cook Society, which resulted in their donation to Ohio State University. He has published scholarly articles examining aspects of Cook's Mount McKinley hoax, including a comparative study of Cook's and Edward Barrill's 1906 Alaskan diaries, published in DIO in 1997. A paper given at Brussels on Frederick Cook in 1998 was included in the published proceedings of the Belgica Expedition Centennial Symposium in 2000. His article on his recovery of the original drafts of the telegrams Cook sent from Lerwick, Scotland on September 1, 1909, announcing his polar attainment appeared in The Polar Record in 2009 and was featured on the New York Times science blog. New, analytical introductions to modern reprints of Cook's My Attainment of the Pole, Peary's The North Pole, Matthew Henson's A Negro Explorer at the North Pole, and Josephine Peary's My Arctic Journal were published by Cooper Square Press in 2001-2002. His website, Frederick A. Cook: From Hero to Humbug, is the most comprehensive source of information on Frederick Cook on the Internet. Bryce has appeared in four film documentaries on the Polar Controversy and has lectured widely on the subject. He was a contributor to the Encyclopedia of the Arctic and has published a number of feature book reviews of polar titles in The Polar Record and other academic publications. He also reviews new polar-themed titles for the American Library Association's academic selection journal Choice.