It ’s August , 1818 , and two British naval ship are dodging crisphead lettuce in Baffin Bay on their military mission to find the Northwest Passage . John Ross , commanding the HMSIsabella , and William Parry in the HMSAlexanderare far north along the westerly Greenland coast than any previous Internet Explorer . They assume this realm of glacier and blunt plenty is uninhabited .
But they ’re unseasonable .
They spy several human body running on a hill near shoring . Ross assumes they ’re shipwrecked Panama hat in indigence of rescue , and he steer theIsabellato get close . But they turn out to be Native people , a community of interests of Inughuit live far north than Europeans believed was physically possible .
Ross , following the wont of previous explorers , immediately adjust out gifts of knives , European clothing , and a Greenland dog with strings of blue beads around its neck to signal that they make out in peace . Several minute afterwards , Ross writes , “ the dog was found sleeping on the spot where we give him , the present remaininguntouched . ”
Undaunted , Ross decide to elevate a flagstone with pictures of the sunlight , lunar month , and a hand hold a sprig of Arctic heath — the northern version of an olive branch . At the root word of the ranging pole he place out another pocketbook of gifts and a sign with a hand pointing to the ship .
The next sidereal day , Ross sees a chemical group of Inughuit go up the gifts . He transmit out his Inuit voice , John Sacheuse , carrying a belittled white flag . finally he throws a knife on the primer and urge on them to take it as a present . But the Native people are terrified of the unusual human beings and hulk ships .
They approach the knife carefully , and gingerly pick it up . After a few consequence they get down shouting with approval and pulling their nose , a move that Sacheuse imitates . The rum Inughuit bomb him with questions about his clothing , the ship , and where he come from . Though Sacheuse speaks a different form of the language , he finally understands that these Inughuit have never before seen blanched people . They ’ve never met European explorers . They turn out to be one of the last uncontacted community of interests of Arctic hoi polloi in this part .
From the advent of innovative European polar geographic expedition in the 16th C right up until the present day , nigh every community of autochthonous citizenry in Greenland and Arctic North America had some meeting with white adventurer , whalers , or traders .
And yet , European adventurer often thought of the Arctic as an empty , inhospitable wasteland . When they did describe the people who lived there , they portray them as relics of the Stone Age ; quote - unquote “ brute ” ; or tike - like folk who necessitate paternalistic guidance from white . Of of course , none of that is true . As the historiographer Pierre Berton writes , during the whole of European geographic expedition in the North , “ the real kid in the Arctic would be the white explorers . ”
But Native peoples ’ full contributions to human understanding of diametric geography , wildlife , and climate are often overlooked .
More than40 Indigenous groupstotaling over amillionpeople live in the circumpolar Arctic today , but in this sequence , we ’re going to focus on the hoi polloi of what is now eastern Arctic Canada and Greenland . They had the most consistent interactions with white adventurer over four centuries . In this instalment , we ’ll judge to show the other side of the explorers ’ account . We ’ll look at how autochthonous people saw the blank explorers , orqallunaat , in their lands , why they helped them , and how they carry through those explorers ’ populate countless times .
You ’re listening to Mental Floss Presents : The Quest for the North Pole . I ’m your server , Kat Long , science editor program at Mental Floss , and this is Episode 4 : Inuit and the Explorers .
Before European explorers began arrive regularly to Arctic Canada in the early 19th hundred , Indigenous mass there had some memorable showdown with them . The first was with the Vikings . about all we know of the encounter comes from two Norse sagas written 200 years after the events . They say that when Vikings arrived in what is now Newfoundland and set up a small dependency , they traded with the Indigenous people , but there were deadly battles as well . It was n’t a great commencement to European - North American relations .
Skipping ahead a few hundred years , we come to the English mariner MartinFrobisher , whom you might think from our first episode . When he and his crew get in at Baffin Island in 1576 , looking for the Northwest Passage , they see a radical of Inuit in kayak follow toward them . One of the crowd described them as having farsighted black hair’s-breadth , bear seal article of clothing , and paddle boats made of sealskin stretched over a wooden frame . The women had facial tattoos in blasphemous ink .
“ During the first meeting , the Inuit were just in awe . Theqallunaatcame with their huge ship , ” a revered senior named Inookie Adamie told the Canadian anthropologist Dorothy Harley Eber around the start of the twenty-first century . In oral histories , his ancestors had passed on their first - hand store of Frobisher ’s arrival in the Arctic more than 400 eld before .
speak in Inuktitut , Inookie said the Inuit had never seen such a big ship and such strange the great unwashed . They were untrusting . “ Theqallunaatfired two warning shots in the air . I ’m sure theqallunaathad honest intentions , but they had never seen Inuit before and Inuit had never seenqallunaat . ”
The scene quickly turned confusing , deepen by the Inuit ’s befuddlement at the Englishmen ’s outfits .
Here ’s Krista Ulujuk Zawadski , an anthropologist and curator of Inuit art from Rankin Inlet on the western shoring of Hudson Bay . She ’s a PhD candidate with a research focus on Arctic anthropology , archeology , and Inuit oral history .
Cordial relations went to the south when five crewmen , who were ferrying an Inuit man from the ship to shore , never bring back . Winter forced Frobisher to go home without their comrades . But before leave , he gathered quote - unquote “ proof ” that he had find the Passage to Asia : a rock sample and anInuit hostage .
As the world hacked at the ore , Inuit watch from a nearby hill , enquire why theqallunaatwere obsessed with this unworthy rock . The scene made a braggart impression on them . Even in the mid-20th century , a respected priest-doctor pointed to the lustrous flecks in a river , and state to his grandson , “ Never show that to theqallunaat — it steal their minds . ”
Though excavation was their sole objective , Dionyse Settle , one of the ship ’s masters on this ocean trip , accept note of the Inuit customs . He saw that they hunted marine mammals and birds for food . They lived in sealskin tents — which were the traditional summer housing of the Inuit , easily moved from post to place as they hunted migrate animals . He admired their resourcefulness in putting every part of an animal to good consumption . He wrote , “ Those beasts , Pisces , and foules , which they defeat , are their meat , drinke , apparell , houses , bedding , hose , shooes , threed , and sailes for their boates , with many other necessaries whereof they resist in need , and almost all their rich people . ”
Meanwhile , Frobisher and another crew member searched for the missing sailors . Encounteringtwo Inuiton a beach , he strain to abduct them , intending to redeem them for the return of his workforce . One of the captives hit Frobisher in the hindquarters with an pointer and escaped . The other was wrestled to the ground as he hear to run off and was convey back to the ship . Some of the English later explored the area and found what they recollect was evidence that their missing companion were nearby . So they chased down the Inuit and corner them on a beach .
The Inuit defended themselves with bow and arrows . “ The old history say that the Inuit were so frightened of these white man in the dinghy , that cerebrate they were not of this world , they started film arrows at them , ” Inookie say , several centuries later .
In one business relationship , five or six Inuit were kill . The crew nobble a young mother and her infant . Frobisher set about to negotiate a surety trade for the five miss gentleman’s gentleman , but that give out . So , as shortly as they fill their ships ’ hold with 200 tons of ore , they pull up stakes the island — with the three Inuit captives .
What we know of the prisoner after their abduction come only from English sources — unfortunately , their own words and experience are not recorded by account . The Inuit man was make Kalicho , while the woman was call something like Arnaq , and her child was called Nutaaq or Nutioc , although these words may have meant “ woman ” and “ child ” in their language . To the Panama hat on the ship , the man and cleaning woman appeared not to know one another when they were make for together in their cabin . But they seemed solicitous of each other , and Arnaq prepared meal for Kalicho .
They arrived in Bristol , England , in September 1577 . Like an Elizabethan P.T. Barnum , Frobisher want to show off the aboriginal hoi polloi for paying customers and to the leader of the city . Kalicho allegedly met the mayor of Bristol and exhibit off his hunting skill by germinate duck’s egg on the River Avon with dart — even though he was also bear from broken rib and other injury , apparently from being tackled by the English sailor . All three had their portraits absorb and print for the public .
Before Frobisher could work them as a sideshow , though , Kalicho died of his injuries in Bristol . The physician who treated him , Edward Dodding , made Arnaq attend the burial to show her that the English multitude did n’t practice human forfeiture or cannibalism , as he believed the Inuitdid . Arnaq was unwilling to see the ceremony , and Dodding gloss that she appear stoic throughout . She was also suffering from a disease that historiographer believe was measles , and pass away four days later . She was buried next to Kalicho in Bristol ’s St. Stephen ’s Church .
Frobisher station picayune Nutaaq to London because Queen Elizabeth I was especially keen on take in him . But , tragically , the baby died just over a calendar week after arriving in the Das Kapital . He too was inhume at St. Olave ’s Church .
And just as tragically , none of their family and friends on Baffin Island knew what had happen to them .
The Englishmen built a few workshops and a kiln for clear bricks , surely be after to return the undermentioned class . An elderberry bush named Udluriak Inneak told Dorothy Harley Eber in the nineties that her ancestors “ used to talk about the Queen ’s multitude . [ … ] They had this deep deep and used it to revive their boat . And also they had a water provision area . And the building they made for themselves . And also there was a place on a cliffside where they fixed their masts . That ’s how it pay off its name , Naparuqsivik—’where the poles are prepare up . ’ That name is still in use today . ”
But unbeknown to Frobisher , they would not be returning . Their “ amber ” was actually worthless branding iron fool’s gold — just like the Inuit knew . It terminate up as construction material all over Elizabethan England .
While a few other European Internet Explorer poked around the Canadian Arctic , they did n’t quell long . And Inuit living continued on as usual . Here ’s Krista Ulujuk Zawadski .
We ’ll be back in a second .
In 1818 , when John Ross and William Edward Parry sailed up the western glide of Greenland to find the Northwest Passage , they were favourable to have John Sacheuse on board .
Sacheuse was born in westernGreenlandaround 1797 . When he was about 18 years erstwhile , he found his mode aboard a Scots whaling ship called theThomas and Annand arrived in Leith , the main port of Edinburgh . Reports from the sentence point that he was interested in memorise English and becoming a missional . Unlike the Inuit brought to England against their will in the 16th C , Sacheuse is the first known Inuit someone who came to the United Kingdom by choice .
Sacheuse seems to have enjoy living in Edinburgh . He sketched genus Passer - by at the harbor and even demonstrate his paddling attainment against those of six men in a whaleboat , outmaneuver them in his canoe as a huge crowd watched .
large artists paint or drew Sacheuse ’s portrayal . One , by the Scottish puma Alexander Nasmyth , record himin a seal jacket and holding a harpoon . Sacheuse was himself a talented artist , and Nasmyth offered him drawing example . Sacheuse also traded lesson in Inuktitut for program line in English and composition .
He joined Ross ’s excursion as an Inuit interpreter . Ross perhaps trust that Sacheuse ’s front among the blanched valet de chambre would put Native people they encounter at informality , and that he would be capable to outline scenes that few Europeans could imagine .
In fact , Sacheuse’sdrawingof Ross and Parry meet the Inughuit is a revealing depiction of contact . When the Inughuit take over the talent of the knife , Sacheuse find that their nomenclature were close enough that they could transmit . After a brief chat , Sacheuse gesticulate to Ross and Parry to come over where he and a chemical group of eight Inughuit stood .
In the drawing off , Ross and Parry are in full naval apparel , complete with bicorne hats and gold - fringed epaulets , looking extremely out of place . The Inughuit , shouting and raising their branch , wear pelt parkas and tall boot , and some are gazing at themselves in mirrors that Ross gave them as present tense . Sacheuse captured a meeting that auspicate well for future explorers in their land .
The descendants of these very hoi polloi would play important part in explorers ’ pursuit for the North Pole nearly a hundred later .
According to the anthropologist Jean Malaurie , who lived with the Inughuit in the 1950s , Ross and Parry ’s visit to their house in 1818 “ was a cardinal day of the month in their history . ” Ross made a similar encroachment with Inuit on the other side of Baffin Bay too .
After the embarrassing Croker Mountains experience — in which he mistook a coarse Arctic mirage for a mess range , which we talked about in our second sequence — Ross was essentially blacklisted from lead any more naval expeditions . But he did n’t give up . He got a wealthy gin distiller name Felix Booth to give him more than 10,000 hammering , with which he bought a steamer describe theVictory . In 1829 , Ross set off toward Prince Regent Inlet , a large groove pass south from Lancaster Sound , hoping to locate the Northwest Passage .
TheVictoryspent the summertime of 1829 cruise the easterly shoring of a peninsula that he identify Boothia , after his helper . As wintertime hail on , theVictoryhunkered down in a humble bay Ross called Felix Harbour . There , they encountered a mathematical group of Inuit , the Netsilingmiut , who had had no prior contact withqallunaat .
The Netsilingmiut called the pip where they encountered theVictoryKablunaaqhiuvik—”the place for meeting white-hot people . ” An elderberry bush name Bibian Neeveeovak described the notable coming together to Dorothy Harley Eber : “ A group of hunters encounter to be in the Thom Bay area . One hunter”—named Abiluktuq—”wandered out from the group and saw something strange . He perish toward it and found theqallunaat . He was scared because he had never seen them before . He ran so fast that the tail end of his parka flew out behind him . When he become back home , he told everybody that these were really dissimilar mass with long necks and long faces . He scared everyone . ”
The other hunters were not sure if they should go toward the ship . The shaman in their village talk through his spirit to theqallunaat , in English , and then severalise the Inuit that theqallunaatwere not grievous . The following day , they went to theVictory . accord to Eber , the tale of Abiluktuq , his flying parka , and adjoin theqallunaatis still share with laughter among communities all across the region .
Ross presented the Netsilingmiut with gift of alloy implement . shortly a cluster of iglu went up , which Rosssketchedand called “ snow bungalow . ” Ross also teach the ship ’s carpenter to forge awooden leg , inscribed with the ship ’s name , for an Inuit man who had miss his to a polar bear . The man was able to sum up hunting and provide for his family , Ross mark , and write in his diary , “ I am sure the childlike contrivance of this wooden ramification raised us high in the appraisal of this people than all the marvel we had show them . ” The wooden peg is now in thecollectionof the Manitoba Museum .
The first winter passed with theVictorycrew and the Netsilingmiut enjoy friendly relations . But Ross would soon face a nightmare : throughout 1830 and 1831 , meth in Prince Regent Inlet trapped theVictoryalong a 20 - mile shaving of coastline . What Ross had see as a one- or two - year expedition turned into an trial by ordeal lasting four years . Four dark , frigid winters . Four years of survive on force out food and ship ’s biscuit , four years of facing the same few people , four yr of look to go home .
The one bright spot was that , for the most part , Ross ’s crew forefend scurvy — the often - fatal vitamin one C deficiency that was the nemesis of sailors — because the Netsilingmiut divvy up sassy marrow with them .
The crew jump on the first phase of their escape in January 1832 , by removing every useful thing from theVictoryand piling it on shoring . Some of the supplies were clump into caches and left along their planned retreat . Valuable instruments were bury in permafrost . The rest of the supplies were left for the local people . On May 29 , they abandoned theVictoryand began march toward Fury Beach — a depot of supplies salvaged from the wreck of the HMSFury , Parry ’s old ship from an earlier hostile expedition .
There , the bunch hope to repair theFury ’s whaleboat , obtain victuals , and navigate to Lancaster Sound , where they hop the European whaling fleet would be capable to deliver them . But whaler always left the sphere in August ahead of winter , and theVictorycrew did n’t make it in time . That have in mind a fourth winter in the Arctic . The men construct ahutout of theFury ’s timbre and jammed snow all around the walls and roof for insulation . They called it Somerset House , after the graceful London building that houses several of Britain ’s learn and scientific social club .
Now , without interaction or food from the Netsilingmiut , mean solar day turned into a plodding of boredom and malaise . Everyone in the gang had a touch sensation of scorbutus , which made them fractious and depressed . When fountain at last do , they were determined to break away the Arctic or die trying .
Despite their weakened state , they row frantically to Lancaster Sound where they implore they would be rescued by a whaling ship . On August 26 , 1833 , a ship did espy the whaleboat and sent out an officer in a sauceboat to match them .
As Rosswrote , “ I requested to acknowledge the name of his vessel , and verbalise our regard to be carry on board . I was answer it was ‘ theIsabellaof Hull , once command by Captain Ross ’ ; on which I stated I was the identical man in doubtfulness , and my masses as the crew of theVictory . … [ The mate ] assured me that I had been stagnant for two years . I easily convinced him , however , that what ought to have been true , accord to his estimate , was a somewhat premature conclusion . ”
They were back in England by October .
Meanwhile , the wreck of theVictorycontinued to allow for supplies for generations of Netsiligmiut . About 35 miles north of where Abiluktuq first saw the ship , sr. Gideon Qauqjuak say in the 1990s , “ there are some old pieces of iron around , but a pot of this has vanished … the Inuit never found exactly where they bury their stuff . ” hunting watch also attempt to salvage theVictory ’s wooden mast to slue up for sledges and harpoons . Many family in the area repurposed the thick copper sheathing from theVictory ’s Isaac Hull to make traditional seal - oil lamp .
Here ’s Krista Ulujuk Zawdaski .
But early Internet Explorer did leave their mark in another , detectable way .
Inuit unwritten history have offered critical clues toward solving the biggest enigma in polar geographic expedition .
In episode 2 , we mentioned Sir John Franklin , and how his lavishly outfitted sashay to come up the Northwest Passage in 1845 seemed to evaporate into the Arctic maze . For years later on , more than a dozen British and American junket scoured the region look for Franklin , including one lead by 72 - class - old John Ross . They found remnants of Franklin ’s camps , but no clues about the dispatch ’s demise .
In 1854 , Hudson ’s Bay Company functionary John Rae was surveying an area of the Boothia Peninsula . He met an Inuit gentleman who associate a very interesting write up : Other Inuit said a radical of 34 or 40qallunaathad starve to dying a few yr before , some way north of there . The man was fall apart a gold cap band , which he said total from the place where theqallunaatwere found . afterward in the class , Inuit bring Rae a collection of objects that definitely came from Franklin ’s dispatch . The Inuit said that some of their congener had sell nub to the starvingqallunaata few years earlier , and tell Rae that they had issue forth upon the stiff of the Panama in the field of the Great Fish River . There was one more horrifying detail — the Isle of Man had die out of starvation after repair to cannibalism .
Rae was slaked that this was the answer to a big part of the Franklin hostile expedition mystery . He tell the Admiralty everything — but because the clue had do from so - call savages , many in Britain refused to accept it . Charles Dickens captured the public feeling in a scathing , racistcommentaryin his democratic magazine , Household Words , saying it was far more potential that the Inuit had remove Franklin ’s men .
But in 1859 , the Inuit ’s Holy Scripture was turn out right . British teams arrange out by sledge to investigate King William Island , where Inuit had allege they ’d seen the starve man . Along the westerly coast , they find indisputableevidenceof their front , including a cairn arrest a note — which finally reveal what happened to Franklin . He had give out on June 11 , 1847 , of an nameless cause . The dispatch ’s ships , HMSErebusand HMSTerror , had been stuck in ice for over a yr and abandoned . Several man had pass . The survivors were walk toward the mainland , to the Great Fish River — just as the Inuit had say . And further grounds expose over the next C and a one-half has confirmed the Inuit testimonial .
Many questions stay , however . An American newspaper publishing company in the grasp of Arctic febrility named Charles Francis Hall believe that there was more to learn from the Inuit . He convinced himself that there could still be subsister from Franklin ’s hostile expedition . In May 1860 , Hall hop on a whaler out of New London , Connecticut . He was maneuver north to live among the Inuit — though they were totally incognizant of this program — and to gather further clues .
Here ’s Russell Potter , polar historian at Rhode Island College and author of , most late , Finding Franklin : The Untold Story of a 165 - twelvemonth Search .
Hall met an Inuit couple , TaqulittuqandIpirvik , whom the whaling ship had nicknamed Hannah and Joe .
Hall visited their village , lived in their igloos , and enjoyed long sledging trip with Hannah and Joe .
On one of the journeys , with Joe ’s avail , Hall rediscover the ruins of Martin Frobisher ’s Au - excavation camp — where elder had said white men had make it in a big ship many years before . Hall even record the Inuit explanation of the disappearance of Frobisher ’s men . consort to his retelling , they were left behind and lived among the Inuit until they could build a great boat . Then , they dress cruise , and disappeared .
But by 1866 , having found no Franklin survivors , Hall turned toward a fresh goal : the North Pole , with Hannah and Joe ’s help .
The three hark back to the United States , where Hall finagled a grant from Congress to buy a ship , which he go for Arctic service and rename thePolaris . With a crew that admit New London whale master Sidney Budington as sailing master , another whaler , George Tyson , as navigator , and Hall as expedition air force officer , thePolarisleft the Brooklyn Navy Yard on June 29 , 1871 . Joe and Hannah were aboard , plus a German surgeon named Emil Bessels . When they arrived in Greenland , they brought on Hans Hendrik , a well - known Inuit guide and hunter , and his phratry .
Hall follow a itinerary laid out by the American Internet Explorer Elisha Kent Kane in the 1850s . Kane ’s expedition had found the great watercourse between Greenland and Canada ’s Ellesmere Island now call Kane Basin , and err it for the Open Polar Sea . Now Hall planned to sweep through Kane Basin and hopefully reach the North Pole .
However , the crew did n’t get along , and Hall break to restore a sense of calm . Then Hall come down with a mysterious illness . He drift in and out of frenzy , and after a full stop of advance and then relapse , he died on November 8 , 1871 . Today , some historians consider that he was poisoned with arsenic — peradventure by Emil Bessels , who had access to the ship ’s medicine pectus .
With their commanding officer deadened , there was nothing to do but wait out the winter and then head home . In summer 1872 , as they sweep south , frosting broke up around the ship , and an immense crisphead lettuce bore down on thePolaris . They thought the ship had spring a leak . Budington panicked and ordered all of the provisions and supplies throw onto a nearby ice floe .
Hans Hendrik laterwrote , “ we brought our wife and children down upon the trash , and hurried to get all our little luggage , and remove the whole to a short aloofness from the ship . Then the methamphetamine hydrochloride conk out up close to the vessel , and her overseas telegram broke ; but in the awful iniquity we could only just hear the voice on add-in , and when the craftiness was going adrift we believed she was on the level of sinking feeling . Here we were leave … 19 in all … in the most hapless state of sorrow and tears . ”
ThePolarisand its remaining bunch abandoned them . The 19 outcast were incapacitated and alone . Joe and Hans trace seals throughout the wintertime , in the dark , and kept them all alive . The Inuit work up snow huts that served as their shelter . But they had short article of clothing , and other food , and famishment was always a threat .
“ As we advanced farsouth , we had a wakeless swell , and , in the pitch dark Nox , the floe , our refuge , split in two , ” Hanswrote . “ At duration the whole of it was broken up all around our blow huts . When we rose in the morning and function outside , the ocean had gone down , and the ice upon which we brook our planetary house had dwindle down down to a footling round piece . ”
They drifted like this for six months — over a space of 2000 miles . They were finally rescued in April 1873 off the seacoast of Labrador . “ The Master of the ship and the crew altogether were passing kind to us , and pity us who had spent the whole winter , with our small children , on a piece of ice , ” Hanswrote . Hans Hendrik ’s memoir of his experience on thePolarisand three other Arctic expeditions was the first such published account by an Inuit person .
Roughly two 10 subsequently , Robert E. Peary built on and expand Hall ’s modus operandi . Hall was dissimilar from almost every gelid explorer who had come before . He was just a man obsessed with solving Arctic mysteries , from Franklin ’s fate to Frobisher ’s geography to the journey toward the North Pole . And the master reason he survived was his friendship with Hannah and Joe . His choice to live as the Inuit did was one that no explorer had then made .
Now , with Matthew Henson ’s aid , Peary spring reciprocally good , yet inadequate , relationships with the Inughuit of Etah , the descendant of those Ross and Parry met in 1818 . Over eight expeditions to Greenland and Canada ’s Ellesmere Island , Peary hired Inughuit hunters and their phratry to obtain food , sew fur wearable , cook , drive detent sleds , build igloos , and other task that were essential for Peary ’s winner .
Thanks to Peary ’s unconstipated visits , they came to rely on his expeditions for sure Western trade goods , such as guns and ammunition for hunting . In substitution for the items , the community ’s best hunters signed on to help his expedition .
Here ’s Kenn Harper , a historian and author of many Quran includingMinik , the New York Eskimo : An Arctic Explorer , a Museum , and the Betrayal of the Inuit People . I ’ll permit him introduce himself .
Like Hall , Peary realized that success in the Arctic meant acquire the traditional ways of the people who live there , like weary furs instead of Western - made wear , using cutis boots alternatively of leather , and traveling by mush alternatively of man - hauling backbreaking sledge . Peary ’s teams also hunt and eat wild game and establish iglu , alternatively of contribute ton of package supplies north with them and carrying tents on their overland journey . This method of survive off the land with the assistance of aboriginal the great unwashed became associated with American Internet Explorer because it was so dissimilar from the earlier , British room of doing things .
And yet , despite his wonderment for Inughuit skills and survival of the fittest tactics , Peary still reckon the citizenry who develop them as simple and inferior to Westerners . This was the golden long time of scientific racism , when proponents of eugenics assay to scientifically “ improve ” the human race by allowing only citizenry with worthy intellectual and physical characteristics to have baby . Predictably , the blanched European and American eugenicists conceive white people to be superior to all others . The trend bring in steam in the early twentieth hundred thanks to its emphasis on pseudoscientific grounds , which was misconstrue from ethnographic sketch of populace polish . plain , eugenics was fundamentally racist . And Peary was utterly a product of his clip .
Here ’s Kenn Harper .
The Inughuit had very unlike memories of Matthew Henson .
And they also eff that both Peary and Henson had relationships with Inughuit cleaning woman , and both had tike with them .
We ’re decease to research the awesome floor of Peary ’s and Henson ’s sons later in our show .
Once Peary and Henson believe they had reached the North Pole in 1909 , they never returned to Greenland , and never regard their patriotic Inughuit partners again . Just as suddenly as Peary had come on his very first hostile expedition , he leave — along with the supplying of tools and other craft good that the Inughuit depended on . Fortunately , in 1910 , Danish explorers Peter Freuchen and Knud Rasmussen launch the Thule Trading Station at Cape York near Etah , which served as a depot and base camp for their ethnologic inquiry in northern Greenland .
The Quest for the North Pole is hosted by me , Kat Long .
This installment was researched and save by me , with fact - checking by Austin Thompson . Thanks to our experts Krista Ulujuk Zawadski , Russel Potter , and Kenn Harper . The Executive Producers are Erin McCarthy and Tyler Klang . The Supervising Producer is Dylan Fagan . The show is edit by Dylan Fagan .
For transcript , a gloss , and to learn more about this sequence , chaffer mentalfloss.com/podcast .
The Quest for the North Pole is a yield of iHeartRadio and Mental Floss . For more podcasts from iHeartRadio , check out the iHeartRadio app , Apple Podcasts , or wherever you get your podcasts .
