The Arctic and Its Future
April 2009
Banner photo: © Tim Hibo/Getty Images
"The Prize of the Centuries": the centennial of the discovery of the North Pole
Matthew Henson
Matthew Henson, born in 1866, was an African-American who went to sea as a cabin boy aged 12, trained as a navigator sailing around the world and, in 1887, joined Commander Robert E. Peary as a colleague and right-hand man, undertaking many journeys, first to Nicaragua and then the Arctic, where Peary was determined to reach the North Pole. Henson learned to speak the local Inuit language, traded with the Inuit, trained the sledge dogs and undertook multiple duties as the organizer of a diverse team of explorers. Peary, Henson and four Inuit men succeeded in reaching the Pole 100 years ago. Peary often deferred to Henson's judgment and experience, saying that he was as skillful in ice technique as the Inuit and that if he had taken another man, "he would have been a passenger." In the foreword to Henson's book, Robert Peary wrote, using the terminology that was current at the time, "On that bitter brilliant day in April 1909, when the Stars and Stripes floated at the North Pole, Caucasian, Ethiopian and Mongolian stood side by side at the apex of the earth in the harmonious companionship resulting from hard work, exposure, danger and a common object."
After the expedition, although Henson did tour and give lectures, he made his living as a customs clerk in New York City. In 1944, Congress finally awarded him a duplicate silver medal to that awarded to Peary, and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower honored him before his death in 1955.
Extracts from Henson's book A Negro Explorer at the North Pole, published in 1912 by Frederick A. Stokes Co.
Captain Bartlett [a member of the expedition, who had to turn back before reaching the North Pole] and his two boys had commenced their return journey, and the main column, depleted to its final strength, started northward. We were six: Peary, the commander, the Esquimos, Ootah, Egingwah, Seegloo and Ooqueah, and myself.
Day and night were the same. My thoughts were on the going and getting forward, and on nothing else. The wind was from the southeast, and seemed to push us on, and the sun was at our backs, a ball of livid fire, rolling his way above the horizon in never-ending day.
The Captain had gone, Commander Peary and I were alone (save for the four Esquimos), the same as we had been so often in the past years, and as we looked at each other we realized our position and we knew without speaking that the time had come for us to demonstrate that we were the men who, it had been ordained, should unlock the door which held the mystery of the Arctic. Without an instant's hesitation, the order to push on was given, and we started off in the trail made by the Captain to cover the Farthest North he had made and to push on over one hundred and thirty miles to our final destination.
We made excellent distance without any trouble, and only stopped when we came to a lead [an area of seawater in the middle of the ice] barely frozen over, a full twenty-five miles beyond. We camped and waited for the strong southeast wind to force the sides of the lead together. The Esquimos had eaten a meal of stewed dog, cooked over a fire of wood from a discarded sledge, and, owing to their wonderful powers of recuperation, were in good condition; Commander Peary and myself, rested and invigorated by our thirty hours in the last camp. With my proven ability in gauging distances, Commander Peary was ready to take the reckoning as I made it and he did not resort to solar observations until we were within a hand's grasp of the Pole.
The memory of those last five marches from the Farthest North of Captain Bartlett to the arrival of our party at the Pole, is a memory of toil, fatigue and exhaustion, but we were urged on and encouraged by our relentless commander, who was himself being scourged by the final lashings of the dominating influence that had controlled his life.
Onward we forced our weary way. Commander Peary took his sights from the time our chronometer-watches gave, and I, knowing that we had kept on going in practically a straight line, was sure that we had more than covered the necessary distance to insure our arrival at the top of the earth.
Historical map of the North Pole
[University of Texas Libraries]
It was during the march of the 3rd of April that I endured an instant of hideous horror. We were crossing a lane of moving ice. Commander Peary was in the lead setting the pace, and a half hour later the four boys and myself followed in single file. They had all gone before, and I was standing and pushing at the upstanders of my sledge, when the block of ice I was using as a support slipped from underneath my feet, and before I knew it the sledge was out of my grasp, and I was floundering in the water of the lead. I did the best I could. I tore my hood from off my head and struggled frantically. My hands were gloved and I could not take hold of the ice, but before I could give the "Grand Hailing Sigh of Distress," faithful old Ootah had grabbed me by the nape of the neck, the same as he would have grabbed a dog, and with one hand he pulled me out of the water, and with the other hurried the team across.
It was about ten or ten thirty a.m. on the 7th of April 1909 that the Commander gave the order to build a snow-shield to protect him from the flying drift of the surface snow. I knew that he was about to take an observation, and while we worked I was nervously apprehensive, for I felt that the end of our journey had come. Laying flat on his stomach, he took the elevation and made the notes on a piece of tissue-paper at his head. With sun-blinded eyes, he snapped shut the vernier (a graduated scale that subdivides the smallest divisions on the sector of the circular scale of the sextant) and with the resolute squaring of his jaws, I was sure that he was satisfied, and I was confident that the journey had ended.
The Commander gave the word, "We will plant the stars and stripes--at the North Pole!" and it was done; on the peak of a huge paleocrystic floeberg, the glorious banner was unfurled to the breeze, and as it snapped and crackled with the wind, I felt a savage joy and exultation. Another world's accomplishment was done and finished and as in the past, from the beginning of history, wherever the world's work was done by a white man, he had been accompanied by a colored man.
The four Esquimos who stood with Commander Peary at the North Pole were the brothers, Ootah and Egingwah, the old campaigner, Seegloo, and the sturdy, boyish Ooqueah. Four devoted companions, blindly confident in the leader, they worked only that he might succeed and for the promise of reward that had been made before they had left the ship, which promise they were sure would be kept.
If there was any sentiment among the Esquimos in regard to the success of the venture, Ootah and Seegloo by their unswerving loyalty and fidelity expressed it. They had been members of the "Farthest North party" in 1906, the party that was almost lost beyond and in the "Big Lead," and only reached the land again in a state of almost complete collapse. They were the ones who, on bidding Commander Peary farewell in 1906, when he was returning, a saddened and discouraged man, told him to be of good cheer and that when he came back again Ootah and Seegloo would go along and stay until Commander Peary had succeeded, and they did. When they were absolutely alone on the trail with every chance to turn back and return to comfort, wife and family, they remained steadfast and true, and ever northward guided their sledges.
