Who Reached The North Pole First?

Comments on Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
#1

Cecil’s Column

It’s worth noting that one ‘serious’ attack on Peary came in 1989, when the Washington Post printed ‘newly unsealed’ observations that showed Peary more than 100 miles from the North Pole. The article made it sound like Peary had intentionally hidden these numbers, and had designed for them to be uncovered years after Peary’s death.

Unfortunately, the Washington Post took one guy’s research at face value without enough critical thinking: http://www.pearyhenson.org/polarcontroversy/rawlins.htm

More unfortunately, the story has lingered - I think most people who don’t believe Peary was first have never heard the debunking of the Peary’s ‘faked sextant readings.’

#2

As an aside to the column, there were many attempts to be the first to summit Denali, Cook’s being the least noble of the efforts. The first documented successful summit was by the 1913 expedition led by Hudson Stuck, a Jesuit missionary. In an act of generosity and cultural deference, Stuck allowed Walter Harper, an Alaska Native, to be the first to summit. Harper, along with his wife, died five years later when the Princess Sophia struck Vanderbilt Reef just north of Juneau, AK.

#3

So Who did Reached The North Pole First? I’d wadger it was a lone inuit who got there quite by accident, and never knew where he was.
Kilrati

#4

Don’t think an Inuit would be stupid enough to do that.