Frederick Cook

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Frederick Cook : biography

June 10, 1865 – August 5, 1940

Cook intermittently claimed he had kept copies of his sextant navigational data and in 1911 published someF. Cook, My Attainment of the Pole, 1911, pages 258 and 274. Cook’s first account of what he left with Whitney did not mention data, and Whitney knew of no data in what was left with him. See Rawlins, 1973, pages 87, 166, 301–302. which have the incorrect solar diameter.Rawlins, Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift (Oslo University), volume 26, pages 135–140, 1972 Ahwelah and Etukishook, Cook’s Inuit companions, gave seemingly conflicting details about where they had gone with him. The major conflicts have been resolved in the light of improved geographical knowledge.Osczevski, R. J. (2003)Arctic Vol. 56, no. 4 Whitney was convinced that they had reached the North Pole with Cook, but hesitant to be drawn into the controversy. The Peary expedition’s people (primarily Matthew Henson, who had a working knowledge of their language, and George Borup, who did not) claimed that Ahwelah and Etukishook told them that they had traveled only a few days journey from land. A map allegedly drawn by Ahwelaw and Etukishook correctly located and accurately depicted then-unknown Meighen Island, which strongly suggests that they visited it, as they claimed.Osczevski R. J.(2003a) Frederick Cook and the Forgotten Pole, Arctic, vol 56, no.2 p207–217Rawlins, 1973, Chapter 6. A genuine Cook discovery, Meighen Island is the island discovered in the American arctic by a United States expedition.

For more detail see Bryce, 1997 and Henderson, 2005. The conflicting, and possibly dual fraudulent claims, of Cook and Peary prompted Roald Amundsen to take particularly extensive precautions in navigation during his South Pole expedition to leave no room for doubt concerning attainment of the pole. See Polheim. (Amundsen also had the advantage of traveling over an actual continent and was able to leave unmistakable evidence of his presence at the South Pole, whereas any ice on which Cook might or might not have camped would have drifted many miles in the year between the competing claims.)

The 1906 Mt. McKinley climb

Cook claimed to have achieved the first summit of Mount McKinley in September 1906, reaching the top with one other member of his expedition. Other members of the team (e. g., Belmore Browne), whom he had left lower on the mountain, expressed private doubts about this immediately. His claims were not publicly challenged however until the 1909 fight with Peary over which had first reached the North Pole, at which time it was publicly alleged by Peary’s supporters that Cook’s ascent of Mt. McKinley was fraudulent. Ed Barrill, Cook’s sole companion during the 1906 climb, signed an affidavit in 1909 denying that they had reached the top. He was paid by Peary supporters to do so (Henderson, 2005) (a fact which Henderson claims was covered up and Bryce claims was never a secret),, volume 9, number 3, page 129, note 18 although Barrill had consistently until a month before asserted that he and Cook had reached the summit.

Unlike Hudson Stuck in 1913 (Ascent of Denali, 1914, photograph opposite p. 102) Cook took no photograph of the view from atop McKinley, and his photograph which he claimed to be of the summit was found to have been taken of a tiny peakAn aerial photograph by Bradford Washburn (, volume 7, number 2, page 40) dramatizes the mountain-versus-molehill contrast of claim-versus-reality. 19 miles away. An expedition by the Mazama Club in 1910 reported that Cook’s map departed abruptly from reality while the summit was still 10 miles distant. Critics of Cook’s claims have compared, volume 7, number 3, page 96 versus page 97 Cook’s map of his alleged 1906 route versus reality, over the last 10 miles. Modern climber Bradford Washburn made it a personal mission to determine the truth of Cook’s 1906 claim. Washburn and Brian Okonek ultimately (between 1956 and 1995) were able to identify the location of most of the photographs Cook took during his 1906 McKinley foray, and reproduce them, and in 1997 Bryce identified the locations of the remaining photographs, including his "summit" photograph.Compare rock-by-rock the left side of Cook’s 1906 "summit" photo to the corresponding parts of the 1957 photo by Adams Carter and Bradford Washburn. Photos juxtaposed at , volume 9, number 3, page 116. Compare also the background features in Cook’s "summit" photo versus those in his own photo taken a few minutes later (towards the same direction) from the top of Fake Peak: , volume 7, number 2, figure 4 versus figure 18; detailed-blowup comparisons in figures 6 and 8. None was taken anywhere near the summit. Washburn showed that none of Cook’s 1906 photos was taken past the "Gateway" (north end of the Great Gorge), 12 horizontal bee-line miles from McKinley and 3 miles below its top. Barrill’s 1909 affidavit included a mapR. Bryce, , volume 7, number 2, page 57 correctly locating the Fake Peak of Cook’s "summit" photo and showing that Cook and he had turned back at the Gateway. Cook’s descriptions of the summit ridge are variously claimed to bear no resemblance to the actual mountain and to have been verified by many subsequent climbers.Henderson (2005) p.282 In the 1970s Hans Waale found a route which fitted Cook’s narrative and descriptions; p.73 in 2005 and 2006, this route was successfully climbed by a group of Russian mountaineers..