Robert E. Peary's (1856-1920) obsession with discovering the North Pole touched many people in his lifetime. With his first expedition to find the North Pole behind him, Peary met Matthew Henson in 1888 by chance while he was working in a hat shop in Washington, D.C. where Peary was acquiring supplies and support for his second expedition to Nicaragua. Peary asked if Matthew would like to join him on
this voyage as his personal servant and Henson agreed. Becoming Peary's assistant as described by Henson himself was a position that "covered a multitude of duties, abilities and responsibilities."Peary was a goal oriented man and his obsession with finding the North Pole took him to the Arctic a total of eight times with Henson by his side for seven of them. During his time in Greenland, Peary got to know the Inuit and he would ask for Inuit men and women to join them and teach his men how to build sledges and dog sleds in addition to hunt and utilize the goods they needed to survive the biting cold. Henson took to the task of learning the language and skills necessary to get the teams through to the North Pole, he could speak the Inuit language fluently and learned how to drive the dog sleds with the best of them. According to Peary because of these acquired skills, he chose to take Henson on what would be his last expedition, a journey that reportedly took them all the way to ninety degrees North, the true North Pole.
Image Caption: This photograph is titled "Robert Peary, full-length portrait, standing, facing front, in fur garments" and was taken between 1886 and 1909 after an expedition to the North Pole, courtesy of Library of Congress.
No comments:
Post a Comment