Boreal
Ties
Edited
by Kim Farley
Gillis and Silas
Hibbard Ayer III
(University
of New Mexico
Press)
The
1901 Erik Expedition
was significant in
many ways. It
represented the
last contact in
the field between
Frederuick A. Cook
and Robert E.
Peary. It was the
occasion of the
prophetic physical
examination and
diagnosis of Peary
by Cook.
And
it was a unique
insight into the
fascination that
Arctic exploration
was held by the
North American
public at the turn
of the century,
when Pole-seeking
was at its best-
and soon to become
its worst.
In
1899 Peary, on an
extended stay in
his Northern
Greenland
Expedition, had
suffered the loss
of seven toes to
frostbite at Fort
Conger but refused
to return to
receive proper
treatment (see
Ralph Myerson, MD:
“Peary’s Toes:
A unique medical
history of the
explorer’s loss
of his toes,”: Polar
Priorities,
2001, p 39-40).
When Josephine and
their seven
year-old daughter
went to Greenland
to persuade him to
come home, the die
was cast for the
Peary Relief
Expedition,
organized in 1901.
Herbert
Bridgeman of the
Peary Arctic Club,
sensing Peary’s
failure in his
extended
expedition, asked
Cook to become
second in command
and as its
physician to
examine the
explorer after he
and his family
were located. Two
Ithaca, NY friends
soon joined the
party and make the
voyage on the
schooner “Erik”.
Clarence Wyckoff
and Louis Bement
would leave a
narrative and
photographic
legacy of the
voyage and their
accounts would
become this book,
reconstructed by
two of their
descendants a
century later.
Last
April the
co-authors spoke
to both the Byrd
Polar Research
Center Symposium
on the Inuit and
the Explorers and
the Spring board
meeting of the
Frederick A. Cook
Society (the
Society had in
2001 authorized a
grant to help in
the book’s
publication). Kim
Fairley Gillis is
the
great-granddaughter
of Clarence
Wyckoff. She
received her
graduate degree
from the
University of
Michigan, where
she specialized in
Arctic
photography. She
is an independent
researcher living
in Chelsea,
Michigan. Silas
Hibbard Ayer III
is the grandson of
Louis Bement. He
graduated from
Middlebury College
and lives in
Ellicott City,
Maryland, were he
is retired.
The
book’s striking
photographs are
interspersed with
the excerpts from
the diaries of
both Wyckoff and
Bement, who were
the prototypes of
what 21st century
travelers would
call adverture
tourism. They
envisioned
themselves hunting
wild game,
admiring and
photographing
magnificent
scenery, and
escaping the
stresses of their
lives as
businessmen. The
scenery did not
disappoint, as the
photographs
assembled here
testify, but the
stress of sailing
in polar seas was
worse then
imagined. They
endureed maggoty
food, head lice,
and hives. The ice
and the
incompetence of
the ship’s crew
threatened their
lives on more than
one occasion. In
addition to the
drama of the
journey and the
magnificent Arctic
scenery, this is a
valuable record of
the American
explorers’
encounters with
the Inuit.
Consider
the psychological
and emotional
landscape that
presented itself
when the “Erik”
caught up with the
“Windward”
and the Peary
family. The
dramatis persona
would have been
worthy of an
Arctic soap opera:
Robert E. Peary,
still in some pain
from the horrific
amputation of his
frozen toes in
January 1899,
aware that his
extended stay had
produced no great
achievements; his
wife Jo Peary, who
would in the
previous year
learn of her
husband’s
infidality with
the Inuit girl
Allakasingwah and
find their son
being proudly
displayed to the
Cape York tribe;
Thomas Dedrick,
the physician who
had performed what
was the
northernmost
surgery on
Peary’s toes,
and then would
break with the
explorer in a
bitter
falling-out.
Then
there was Matt
Henson, an
explorer in his
own right but
still relegated to
Peary’s
“manservant”
mentality, despite
the fact that he
had broken the
trail and led the
party to its
destination at
Fort Conger. The
Relief Expedition
had its own cast
of characters,
some of whom would
play roles in the
controversy that
would sweep up
many of them less
than a decade
away: Herbert
Bridgeman, the
leader of the
Peary Arctic Club,
who was to become
Peary’s manager
in the “North
Pole wars.”
Cook, the second
in command,
observed the
consequences of
the Peary-Dedrick
break, the
treatment of
Henson and the
lack of trust that
the Inuit felt for
Peary.
Wyckoff
was the son of the
founder of the
Remington
Typewriter Company
and was praised by
his shipmates as
“cheerful and
willing to take on
any task.”
Bement, was called
“the best friend
I ever had” by
Wyckoff. “He was
joyous in
everything he
touched or did.”
Their diaries
reflected their
appreciation of
life and the
survival instincts
of the people of
the far north.
Wyckoff,
like Dedrick,
would have a
unhappy break with
Peary, resigning
from the Club that
Bridgeman would
use as the command
center in a
Watergate-type
plan of defamation
against Cook after
1911. The
“Erick” relief
expedition would
be a prelude to
that unfortunate
chapter to come.
