Robert Peary

Robert Peary (1856-1920), American explorer generally credited with leading the first party to reach the North Pole. Robert Edwin Peary was born in Cresson, Pennsylvania, and educated at Bowdoin College. In 1881 he became a civil engineer in the United States Navy; in this capacity he participated in the Nicaragua Canal Survey in 1884 and 1885 and explored Greenland in 1886, in his first of seven polar explorations. Peary discovered and named Independence Bay on the northeastern coast of Greenland on July 4, 1892. In 1895 he reached the northern coast area now known as Peary Land. In 1900 Peary reached Greenland's northernmost point, which he named Cape Morris Jesup in honor of one of his chief patrons, the president of the American Museum of Natural History. Peary proved Greenland was an island rather than a continent and that the Greenland ice cap extended no farther north than latitude 82° north; he also contributed to scientific knowledge of Inuit ethnology and of glacial formation. He adopted Inuit survival skills and established advanced placements of supply depots in developing the so-called Peary System of Arctic travel. Between 1898 and 1902 Peary engaged in surveys of Greenland. In 1902 and in 1905 and 1906 he made unsuccessful attempts to reach the North Pole, coming within 280 km (174 mi) of his goal on the latter trip.

On July 17, 1908, Peary led another expedition to the North Pole, and on April 6, 1909, he and a small party consisting of his assistant Matthew A. Henson and four Inuit either reached the Pole or came very close to it. On September 6, 1909, the day he announced his achievement, Peary learned that the [1908] discovery of the pole had been claimed five days previously by the American explorer and surgeon Frederick Albert Cook. Examination by experts established that the doctor's claim was false; Peary's records were accepted as genuine. In 1911, the year Peary retired, the Congress of the United States recognized his discovery, and he was given the rank of rear admiral before his retirement. Nevertheless, the scientific community still debates whether Peary actually reached the exact location of the North Pole. His books include The North Pole (1910) and Secrets of Polar Travel (1917).