Photographs and Two Diaries of the 1901 Peary Relief Expedition
Kim Fairley Gillis, Silas Hibbard Ayer III, _Boreal Ties: Photographs and Two Diaries of the 1901 Peary Relief Expedition_. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. xiii + 232 pp. Maps, notes and photographs. $66.00 (cloth), ISBN: 0826328105.
Gilles and Ayer concede they are not “experts in the history of exploration, the history of photography, or Arctic cultures” (p. ix). One wonders then why they decided to undertake this project. Clearly this is not a book for those with a scholarly interest in any of these subjects: it lacks a strong theoretical grounding in the topics that it does explore (via the diaries), and the diaries are not related to what has already been written and published regarding arctic exploration or cultures. A more popular press, as opposed to an academic publisher, would seem a better fit for this particular work. However, _Boreal Ties_ is not entirely satisfying for those with an armchair interest in the far north. While the photographs are interesting the diary itself is not particularly gripping, and the book is ultimately unsatisfying.
Concerned with the arctic explorer Robert Peary, and his mission to reach the pole, this work outlines the effort made to reach him in 1901 to provide him relief and, if necessary, rescue. Another expedition, on the SS Diana, found Peary in 1898 and reported him well apart from the loss of seven toes to frostbite. Hobbled but determined Peary refused to leave the north and his goal of reaching the arctic pole. Peary’s wife Josephine and daughter Marie left in July 1900 with another expedition to bring Peary supplies. However, when this expedition failed to return the Peary Arctic Club organized one further mission.
This work documents that undertaking. Re-printing the diaries of Clarence Wyckoff, a millionaire who inherited his father’s business and fortune, and Louis Bement, a well to do salesman, it relates the successful attempt by the crew and passengers of the SS _Erik_ to reach Peary who was already on the northwestern corner of Greenland. All of these expeditions were the work of the Peary Arctic Club which was created by Peary to fund northern exploration and, more specifically, get him to the North Pole. Each member paid $1000 to join the club which was no small sum in the 1890s. To take part in this final expedition Wyckoff, Bement and three others, amongst whom was Alfred Church the inventor of the process to condense milk and founder of the Borden Milk Company, paid an additional $500.
After a difficult voyage during which much of the food on board was infested with maggots and it became apparent that both the _Erik_ and its crew were less than seaworthy, Peary was found on the Greenland coast, just east of Ellesmere Island. However, Peary was [next page]