In the archives of the American Geographical Society in Milwaukee lies a hundred - old map with a particular secret . Just northerly of Greenland , the map shows a small , hook - shaped island labeled “ Crocker Land ” with the words “ Seen By Peary , 1906 ” printed just below .
The Peary in interrogative is Robert Peary , one of the most famous polar explorers of the late 19th and former twentieth century , and the man whoclaimed to have beenthe first to tread groundwork on the North Pole . But what makes this map remarkable is that Crocker Land was all but a phantasm . It was n’t “ seen by Peary”—as later expeditions would prove , the adventurer had manufacture it out of the lean Arctic air .
By 1906 , Peary was the temper veteranof five expedition to the Arctic Circle . Desperate to be the first to the North Pole , he leave New York in the summer of 1905 in a state - of - the - prowess internal-combustion engine - breaking vas , theRoosevelt — named in pureness of one of the principal backers of the expedition , President Theodore Roosevelt . The delegation to fix foot on the top of the mankind ended in failure , however : Peary allege he sledge to within 175 miles of the pole ( a title others would later question ) , but was forced to turn back by tempest and dwindling provision .
Peary immediately begin plan another endeavor , but found himself short of cash . He on the face of it tried to palaver funds from one of his previous backers , San Francisco financierGeorge Crocker — who had donate $ 50,000 to the 1905-‘06 missionary post — by naming a previously unexplored land mass after him . In his 1907 bookNearest the Pole , Peary claimed that during his 1906 mission he ’d spotted “ the lightheaded white peak ” of previously undiscovered land 130 miles northwest of Cape Thomas Hubbard , one of the most northerly component part of Canada . Peary key this newfound island “ Crocker Land ” in his benefactor ’s accolade , hoping to batten down another $ 50,000 for the next expedition .
Hisefforts were for naught : Crocker diverted much of his resource to help San Francisco rebuild after the 1906 earthquake , with little apparently destitute for funding Arctic exploration . But Peary did make another attempt at the North Pole after securing backing from the National Geographic Society , and on April 6 , 1909 , he stand on the ceiling of the planet — at least by his own account . “ The Pole at last ! ! ! " the explorerwrote in his journal . " The pillage of 3 centuries , my ambition and ambitiousness for 23 long time . Mine at last . "
Peary would n’t observe his accomplishment for foresightful , though : When the IE returned home , he discovered that Frederick Cook — who had served under Peary on his 1891 North Greenland jaunt — was exact he ’d been the first to pass the pole a full yr earlier . For a clip , a disputation over the two man ’s claim raged — and Crocker Land became part of the fight . Cook claimed that on his mode to the North Pole he ’d traveled to the region where the island was guess to be , but had seen nothing there . Crocker Land , he articulate , did n’t be .
Peary ’s jock begin to counter - flak , and one of his helper on the 1909 trip , Donald MacMillan , announced that he would lead an despatch to examine the macrocosm of Crocker Land , vindicate Peary and forever ruining the reputation of Cook .
There was also , of course of instruction , the glory of being the first to set up substructure on the antecedently undiscovered island . Historian David Welky , author ofA Wretched and Precarious Situation : In lookup of the Last Arctic Frontier , late explained toNational Geographicthat with both pole subdue , Crocker Land was “ the last great unknown place in the man . ”
After obtain championship from the American Museum of Natural History , the University of Illinois , and the American Geographical Society , the MacMillan expedition departed from the Brooklyn Navy Yard inJuly 1913 . MacMillan andhis teamtook provisions , dogs , a cook , “ a prompt picture political machine , ” and wireless equipment , with the noble-minded plan of making a radio program live to the United States from the island .
But almost straightaway , the pleasure trip was met with misfortune : MacMillan ’s ship , theDiana , was wrecked on the voyage to Greenland by herallegedly drunkencaptain , so MacMillan transfer to another ship , theErik , to remain his journey . By early 1914 , with the seas freeze down , MacMillan fructify out to attempt a 1200 - mi farsighted sled journey from Etah , Greenland , through one of the most inhospitable and harsh landscapes on Earth , in hunting of Peary ’s phantom island .
Though initially animate by their charge to get hold Crocker Land , MacMillan ’s squad grew dishearten as they sledged through the Arctic landscape painting without finding it . “ you may imagine how seriously we run down every foot of that horizon — not a thing in sight,”MacMillan wrotein his 1918 book , Four Years In The White North .
But vision of the fame bring by being the first to ill-use foot on Crocker Land quickly vaporise . “ I turned to Pee - a - wah - to , ” save MacMillan of his Inuit guide ( also referred to by some Explorer as Piugaattog ) . “ After critically examining the hypothesize landfall for a few minutes , he astonish me by answer that he think it was a ‘ poo - jok ' ( mist ) . ”
Indeed , MacMillan recorded that “ the landscape painting gradually changed its show and varied in extent with the swing around of the Sun ; finally at night it disappear entirely . ” For five more days , the IE pressed on , until it became clear that what Green had seen was a mirage , a polarfata morgana . make for the sorceress Morgana le Fay in the legends of King Arthur , these powerful magic are produced when light bends as it slide by through the freezing air , leading to mysterious image of patent mountains , islands , and sometimes even floating ships .
Fata morganas are a common occurrence in polar regions , but would a man like Peary have been fooled ? “ As we tope our live tea and gnaw at the pemmican , we did a good mickle of mentation , ” MacMillan save . “ Could Peary with all his experience have been misguided ? Was this mirage which had deceive us the very thing which had deceived him eight years before ? If he did see Crocker Land , then it was well more than 120 miles away , for we were now at least 100 miles from shoring , with nothing in sight . ”
MacMillan ’s mission was pull to take over the unthinkable and flex back . “ My dreams of the last four years were merely dreams ; my hopes had ended in biting letdown , ” MacMillan wrote . But the desperation at realizing that Crocker Land did n’t exist was merely the beginning of the trial by ordeal .
MacMillan sent Fitzhugh Green and the Inuit scout Piugaattog westto research a potential road back to their base summer camp in Etah . The two becametrapped in the glass , and one of their dog teams pop off . Fighting over the remaining hotdog , Green — with alarming lack of compunction — explicate in his journal what happened next : “ I shot once in the air … I then killed [ Piugaattog ] with a shot through the shoulder and another through the head . ” Green returned to the main political party and confessed to MacMillan . Rather than reveal the murder , the military expedition leader separate the Inuit extremity of the mission that Piugaattog had drop dead in the blizzard .
Several members of the MacMillan mission would remain trapped in the frosting for another three years , victim of the Arctic conditions . Two attack by the American Museum of Natural History to rescue them converge with loser , and it was n’t until 1917 that MacMillan and his party were finally saved by the steamerNeptune , captain by seasoned Arctic sailor Robert Bartlett .
While stranded in the ice , the piece put their time to good use ; they examine glaciers , astronomy , the lunar time period , Inuit culture , and anything else that attracted their curiosity . They eventually return with over 5000 photographs , thousands of specimens , and some of the earliest film taken of the Arctic ( much of which can be seen today in therepositories of the American Geographical Societyat the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee ) .
It ’s unclear whether MacMillan ever confront Peary about Crocker Land — about what precisely the explorer had get a line in 1906 , and perhaps what his motives were . When MacMillan ’s news about not having found Crocker Land reached the United States , Peary fight himself to the press by noting how unmanageable spot ground in the Arctic could be , telling reporters , “ see from a distance … an iceberg with land and stones may be taken for a rock ‘n’ roll , a cliff - fence in vale fill with daze for a fiord , and the dense low-pitched clouds above a patch of open water supply for land . ” ( He keep , however , that " strong-arm indications and possibility " still pointed to shore somewhere in the area . ) Yet subsequently researchers have note that Peary ’s notes from his 1905-‘06 expedition do n’t mention Crocker Land at all . As Welky toldNational Geographic , “ He speak about a hunting slip that day , climb the hills to get this prospect , but says perfectly nothing about see Crocker Land . Several crewmembers also kept diaries , and according to those he never name anything about ascertain a fresh continent . ”
There ’s no cite of Crocker Land in early drafts ofNearest the Pole , either — it ’s only mentioned in the final manuscript . That suggests Peary had a deliberate intellect for the the inclusion of the island .
Crocker , meanwhile , would n’t last to see if he was commemorate by this deep fresh land mass : He died in December 1909 of abdomen cancer , a class after Peary had localize out in theRooseveltagain in search of the Pole , and before MacMillan ’s jaunt .
Any remnants of the legend of Crocker Land were put to bottom in 1938 , when Isaac Schlossbach fly over where the secret island was supposed to be , wait down from his cockpit , and see nothing .
