Peary’s North Pole epic fascinated Mainers

Many Mainers read the news from the North with intense interest, even relief, on Nov. 3, 1906, a century ago last Friday. The multitiered headline filling up much of the front page in the Bangor Daily News told most of the story: “News at Last From Commander Peary … NEARLY REACHED THE POLE, WENT ‘FARTHEST NORTH’ … Penetrates to 87 Deg and 6 Min … DELAYED BY MILD WINTER … The Roosevelt a Magnificent Ice Fighter … BATTLE WITH HEADWINDS … No Deaths or Illness in the Expedition.” Robert E. Peary had failed for the second time to reach the North Pole, but he had set a new world record, he said, going farther north than any previous Arctic explorer.

Residents of the Pine Tree State took a special interest in this Arctic epic. Raised in Maine, Peary was already a national hero, described by one BDN reporter the year before as “a man of steel.” The Bowdoin College graduate had launched his magnificent polar steamer, the Roosevelt, from a Verona Island shipyard the year before. Across the Penobscot was Bucksport, the home of an important member of the crew, George H. Wardwell, the vessel’s chief engineer. Peary had given several speeches in Bangor and other area towns including Bar Harbor, where Morris K. Jesup, president of the Peary Arctic Club and the explorer’s chief financial backer, was a summer resident. The previous July, on his way north, Peary had made Bar Harbor his last American port of departure.

The Roosevelt and its stalwart crew had disappeared from public view months before on the coast of Greenland before Peary and a handpicked group had started in March 1906 on what was to have been the last grueling “race” to the Pole, across shifting pack ice and through unpredictable storms and thaws. Peary reached “farthest north” on April 21. By May a steady drumbeat of front-page newspaper speculation began. Where was the great man and his companions?

By midsummer, worries surfaced. “Gravest Fears Felt for Peary … Scientists in New York Alarmed at Absence of News from Arctic Explorer,” according to the Commercial on July 6. The BDN responded in disgust on July 19, rejecting the “Peary Prophets” and the “pessimists and croakers” who were manufacturing rumors. Those closest to the explorer such as Morris Jesup and the explorer’s wife, Jo, who was at the couple’s summer home on Eagle Island in Casco Bay, continued to maintain a steely calm. Mrs. Peary told reporters she thought Peary was already at the Pole, and, if he wasn’t, this would be his last trip. “He is getting too old to try again,” she said hopefully.

Jo Peary hoped her words might be a self-fulfilling prophecy. She already knew of her husband’s affair with a young Eskimo woman, a liaison that produced two sons, one in 1900 and another in May or June 1906, according to Wally Herbert, a Peary biographer who has cast doubts on Peary’s claims to the North Pole in 1909 and even to his “farthest north” claim in 1906.

During this period, Jo wrote these poignant words to her husband, as quoted in Herbert’s book “The Noose of Laurels: Robert E. Peary and the Race to the North Pole”: “Oh, I pray you will return in safety to your ship and come home … I shall not let you get away again. I have waited in vain for you to show me some consideration, now I demand it. I can’t live this way any longer, besides, your children have some claim upon you also.”

Meanwhile, the Roosevelt was lumbering back to civilization, badly damaged and out of coal. On Nov. 2, after officials at the Peary Arctic Club had given up hope that they would hear from the expedition that winter, a telegram from Hopedale, Labrador, by way of Twillingate, Newfoundland, was delivered and reprinted in the BDN and other newspapers the next day.

Seldom has so much human drama been expressed in so few words: “Roosevelt wintered north coast Grant land and somewhat north Alert winter quarters. Went north with sledges February Hekla and Columbia. Delayed by open winter between 84 and 85 degrees [latitude]. Beyond 85 six days. Gale disrupted ice, destroyed caches, cut off communication with supporting bodies and drifted due east. Reached 87 degrees, 6 minutes north latitude over ice, drifting steadily eastward. Returning ate eight dogs. Drifted eastward, delayed by open water, reached north coast Greenland in straitened circumstances. Killed musk ox and returned along eastern coast to ship … Homeward voyage incessant battle with ice, storms and head winds. Roosevelt magnificent ice fighter and sea boat. No deaths, nor sickness on board.” (Signed) PEARY

Just two days later, a front-page headline in the Commercial predicted, “PEARY TO TRY AGAIN. ” It was based more on supposition than fact. By the time he had reached Maine, the explorer evaded discussion of the subject with a Commercial reporter who hopped aboard the train with him at Old Town and badgered him all the way to Bangor. “Will you make another attempt to reach the pole?” asked the reporter for a story that appeared on Nov. 27.

“Well, now, that I can’t answer very well. It is always best to be home from one trip before you start out on another,” the grizzled explorer replied tartly.

Whatever the future, Peary had turned failure into success as he usually managed to do. He was still a great American hero, a superhero, especially in Maine. The BDN editorialized on Nov. 30: “The history of Arctic exploration has no finer chapter than this dash for the pole … For sheer success … in setting human intelligence and courage against the forces of the frozen North, it is not likely that Peary’s latest journey will be surpassed.”

Another date, April 6, 1909, was still just a page on a distant calendar.

Wayne E. Reilly can be reached at wreilly@bangordailynews.net.