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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crocker Land Expedition | 1/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocker_Land_Expedition | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T12:44:29.570086+00:00 | kb-cron |
The Crocker Land Expedition took place in 1913. Its purpose was to investigate the existence of Crocker Land, a huge island supposedly sighted by the explorer Robert Peary from the top of Cape Colgate in 1906. It is now believed that Peary fraudulently invented the island.
== Background == Following his 1906 expedition that failed to reach the North Pole, Robert E. Peary reported in his book that he had sighted distant land from the heights of the northwestern shore of Ellesmere Island. He named it Crocker Land, after San Francisco banker George Crocker, one of his financial backers. It is now known that Peary's claim was fraudulent, as he wrote in his diary at the time that no land was visible. The invention of Crocker Land was apparently an attempt to secure further support from Crocker for Peary's 1909 expedition. If so, the attempt failed, as Crocker had diverted all of his available resources to the rebuilding of San Francisco following the 1906 earthquake. The existence or non-existence of Crocker Land became important following the controversial events of the autumn of 1909, when both Peary and Frederick Cook returned to civilization, claiming to have reached the North Pole. Since Cook claimed to have traversed the alleged region of Crocker Land and found no such land, the existence of Crocker Land would be proof of the falsity of Cook's claim. Backers of Peary's claim therefore set out to find it. The expedition was organized by Donald Baxter MacMillan and George Borup, and sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, the American Geographical Society and the University of Illinois' Museum of Natural History. After Borup's death in 1912, MacMillan took sole control over the expedition. MacMillan's geologist, ornithologist and botanist was Walter Elmer Ekblaw of the University of Illinois. Navy Ensign Fitzhugh Green served as engineer and physicist. Maurice Cole Tanquary, of the University of Illinois, was the zoologist, and Harrison J. Hunt the surgeon.
Minik Wallace, the Inuk brought to the United States as a child by Robert Peary in 1897, was the guide and translator for the expedition. As well as confirming and mapping the position of Crocker Land, the declared purpose of the expedition was to investigate "geology, geography, glaciology, meteorology, terrestrial magnetism, electrical phenomena, seismology, zoology (both vertebrate and invertebrate), botany, oceanography, ethnology, and archaeology". In newspapers of the time, MacMillan described Crocker Land as "the world’s last geographical problem".
In June 1906, Commander Peary, from the summit of Cape Thomas Hubbard, at about latitude 83 degrees N, longitude 100 degrees W, reported seeing land glimmering in the northwest, approximately 130 miles [210 km] away across the Polar Sea. He did not go there, but he gave it a name in honor of the late George Crocker of the Peary Arctic Club. That is Crocker Land. Its boundaries and extent can only be guessed at, but I am certain that strange animals will be found there, and I hope to discover a new race of men.
== The expedition == The expedition left Brooklyn Navy Yard aboard the steamer Diana on 2 July 1913. Two weeks later, at midnight on 16 July, the Diana struck rocks while trying to avoid an iceberg. MacMillan blamed the collision on the captain, who was drunk at the time. The expedition transferred to another ship, the Erik, and eventually arrived at Etah, in north-west Greenland, on the second week of August. The next three weeks were spent constructing a large eight-room shed, with electricity generation capabilities, that was to serve as the local headquarters of the expedition. An attempt was also made to set up a radio room, but it was not successful, and the expedition was never able to establish reliable radio communications with the outside world. After making a number of preliminary trips to place supply caches along the route, MacMillan, Green, Ekblaw and seven Inuit set off on the 1,200-mile (1,900 km) journey to Crocker Land on 11 March 1914. The temperature was many degrees below zero and weather conditions were very poor. Eventually, the party reached the 4,700-foot-high (1,400 m) Beitstadt Glacier, which took them three days to climb. The temperature dropped dramatically and Ekblaw suffered severe frostbite. He was evacuated back to Etah by some of the Inuit. One by one, the other members of the party gave up and turned back. By the time the expedition reached the edge of the Arctic Ocean on 11 April, only MacMillan, Green and two Inuit, Piugaattoq and Ittukusuk, remained. The four dog sleds set off across the treacherous sea ice, avoiding thin patches and expanses of open water, and eventually, on 21 April, the party saw what appeared to be a huge island on the north-western horizon. As MacMillan later said, "Hills, valleys, snow-capped peaks extending through at least one hundred and twenty degrees of the horizon.” Piugaattoq, an Inuk hunter with 20 years of experience of the area, explained that it was just an illusion. He called it poo-jok, which means 'mist'. However, MacMillan insisted they press on, even though it was late in the season and the sea ice was breaking up. For five days they went on, following the mirage. Finally, on 27 April, after they had covered some 125 miles (201 km) of dangerous sea ice, MacMillan was forced to admit that Piugaattoq was right—the land that they had sighted was in fact a mirage. (It was probably a rare form of mirage called a Fata Morgana.) Later MacMillan wrote: