| Book
Review:
THE
NORTH POLE
WAS HERE:
Puzzles and
Perils at
the Top of
the World
by
Andrew C.
Revkin
Boston:
Kingfisher
Press128 p.
with illus.
ISBN
2-46819-97531 |
|
|
Looking
at Pole while
there’s still an
ice cap
New
York Times
environmental
reporter Andrew
Revkin has covered
climate change and
climate politics for
20 years. During the
past three years, he
has visited the
Arctic on three
occasions, explored
and written about
the Amazon River and
has reported
extensively on the
Asian tsnami
disaster. He has
written two previous
books - The
Burning Season,
a New York Notable
Book of the Year in
1990, and Global
Warming. He has
won several awards
for his journalism.
The
North Pole Was Here
chronicles
Revkin’s recent
trip to the North
Pole, where he
followed a research
team studying the
relationship between
the dwindling ice
cap and global
warming. Full-color
photos and other
images support
Revkin’s cogent
discussions of polar
history and science.
The book, however,
seems to concentrate
on his vivid travel
experiences and
appears to be
targeted at a
youthful audience.
Excerpts from the Times
tend to disrupt the
flow of Revkin’s
central narrative,
but do not distract
from it, in fact,
add to the book’s
appeal:
The
frenzy peaked in
1909, when two men
separately claimed
that they had
reached the North
Pole by dogsled.
On September 1
that year. Dr.
Frederick A. Cook,
an American
physician and
seasoned
mountaineer and
polar adventurer,
showed up in
Europe after two
years in the
Arctic and
announced that he
had reached the
North Pole on
April21, 1908.
Just four days
later, a
long-anticipated
message was wired
via Labrador in
far northern
Canada by the
American navy
commander Robert
E. Peary, another
veteran Arctic
trekker, stating
that he had
planted the Stars
and Stripes at the
pole on April 6,
1909. Cook was
being toasted at a
banquet in
Copenhagen with a
garland of roses
draped around his
neck when-the news
about Peary’s
claim swept the
hall. Cook
publicly
congratulated the
man he considered
second at the
North Pole.
Cook
had been the
expedition doctor
on several of
Peary’s earlier
Arctic forays,
setting the bones
in Peary’s badly
broken leg on one
trip. But from
that September on,
and for decades to
come, the two men
and their camps of
defenders battled
over their
competing claims
of being first at
the top of the
world.
Cook
was more at home
with Eskimos and
ice than the
spotlight and
celebrity, so he
generally got the
worst of it. He
was quickly
discredited in
most circles after
facing harsh
attacks in the
press from Peary
and his
supporters. Peary,
in contrast, knew
two U.S.
presidents and was
comfortable in
high society. His
case was strongly
favored by the
National
Geographic
Society, which
supported his
expedition, and The
New York Times,
which had loaned
Peary $4,000 in
return for
exclusive access
to his story (the
equivalent of
about $92,000 in
2005).
Revkin
discusses the Cook-Peary
controversy,
describing Dr. Cook
as a “reasoned
mountaineer and
polar adventurer”.
He briefly describes
the personalities of
the two explorers
much to the benefit
of Dr. cook, but he
carefully avoids a
verdict concerning
the controversy,
leaving that to the
polar scientists.
Revkin includes a
copy of a New
York Times 1997
article by Warren
Leary which is a
review of the book
by Robert M. Bryce
on Cook and Peary.
The
book, directed
toward intermediate
readers but a good
collector’s item
for any Polar buff,
is lavishly
illustrated with
charts, maps,
reproductions of
19th and early
20thcentury
exploration and a
comprehensive
present-day overview
of the changing
nature of the north
Polar cap. There are
many fine color
prints that are
worth the price of
this small book.
-Ralph
Myerson, MD
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