Frederick Cook
Frederick Albert Cook (born June 10, 1865 in Hortonville , New York , † August 5, 1940 in New Rochelle , New York ) was an American explorer , polar explorer and doctor .
Life
Frederick Cook was born in Hortonville, New York, in 1865. His parents were Theodore A. Koch and Magdalena Koch, née Long, who immigrated to the USA from Germany . Cook studied at Columbia University and later at New York University , where he received his doctorate in medicine in 1890. At the age of 37 he married Marie Fidele Hunt, with whom he had a daughter named Helen. The marriage ended in divorce in 1923.
First expeditions
Cook accompanied Robert Peary from 1891 to 1892 as a doctor on an expedition to northeast Greenland . He also took on the role of ethnologist . Disagreements about the publication of Cook's scientific results, which Peary reserved as expedition leader himself, led to Cook not participating in Peary's next expedition in 1893. Instead, he drove with the son of theology professor James Mason Hoppin (1820-1906) for therapeutic purposes on the Zeta to Upernavik . For a later lecture tour he took more than 1000 photographs and agreed with an Inuit family in Rigolet on the Labrador Peninsula to take their children Milsok and Katakata with them to the USA for a year.
In 1894 Cook organized a pleasure trip to Greenland on the steamer Miranda . In the vicinity of Maniitsoq , the ship ran into an underwater reef and could only be repaired poorly. Cook sailed in a small boat to Sisimiut, 150 km away, and secured the support of the schooner Rigel , who was supposed to accompany the ailing Miranda across the Davis Strait . When the Miranda sank in a storm, crew and passengers were saved. Following the trip, some of the passengers founded the Arctic Club, which later became the Explorers Club .
From 1897 to 1899 Cook was ship's doctor on the Belgica expedition to Antarctica under the direction of Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery . The later South Pole conqueror Roald Amundsen also took part in this expedition as the first helmsman . Through Cook, Amundsen received the first basic theoretical and practical knowledge about polar research. A close friendship developed between them. Cook also worked out methods of preventing and treating scurvy on this expedition . The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee named the Cook Summit after him in 1986 in memory of Cook's achievements on this research trip, the highest mountain in the Solvay Mountains on the Brabant Island off the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.
The Denali case
In 1903 he led his own expedition to Denali and claimed to have been the first to climb it in 1906. In a picture that was supposed to show him and his team on the summit, however, it could be seen that they were on the summit of a less high mountain a few kilometers away and a group of the Mazama Club , who wanted to follow his tour in 1910, discovered that his maps were about ten miles off track. Today the summit that was climbed back then is called Fake Peak because of its climbing history .
In 1907 Cook returned to the Arctic with the claim that he wanted to conduct a hunt there. Instead, however, he decided in 1908 to begin a tour to the North Pole, accompanied only by two Inuit called Âpilaĸ (in Cook's records Ahwelah ) and Ítukusuk ( Etukishook ). It started northwards from Axel-Heiberg-Insel and later claimed to have reached the pole on April 21, 1908. Then his group traveled south to Devon Island to winter there. After the winter they traveled north again via the Nares Strait to Anoritooq in Greenland, which they reached in spring 1909.
Noteworthy is Cook's claim that he saw land at about 85 degrees north on his march to the Pole. He described the area with upstream cliffs and glacier walls and with mountains in the background, the height of which he estimated at around 350 meters. He also mentioned a 50 km long coastline that was lost on both sides in a steel-blue haze. It was not possible for him to get there and to enter it. In his records he called it Bradley Land .
Doubts about reaching the North Pole
Cook's description of this journey around the Arctic is hardly doubted today, but it is certain that he never approached the North Pole. Cook could never prove to have actually been there, and the stories of his companions were very contradictory. Had the group actually dared to hike to the pole, they would have likely died of starvation given the equipment that has been handed down. Especially the supporters of Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the pole himself a year later in April 1909, argued against Cook's claim. However, Cook also had supporters who believed his statements. His friend Roald Amundsen was one of them . By public opinion for Cook and against Peary, he tried to strengthen Cook's reputation. Amundsen only distanced himself from his friend on the recommendation of his advisors, who feared that his fame would be impaired. However, his admiration for Cook remained unbroken. At this point, Cook's Denali scam was cleared up, completely shattering his reputation .
As early as 1910, Cook was accused of fraud after examining his notes, and the University of Copenhagen revoked his status as the discoverer of the North Pole.
In 1920 Cook was accused of embezzling petroleum stocks and was jailed for five years.
Reception in the press
The German public was very interested in the race to conquer the North Pole. It was a recurring topic in the newspapers at the beginning of the 20th century. At the end of 1909 the excitement subsided, so that the Christian magazine Deutscher Hausschatz , for example , drew the following interim balance in early 1910, in which Cook was the favorite:
“Peary advanced to a distance of 200 miles from the Pole, no wonder that when the discovery of the Pole was made public, it was he, but not Cook, who were believed to be the real discoverer. On February 19, 1908 [Dr. Cooks] Departure with 10 Eskimos and eleven sleds pulled by 107 dogs. From 85 ° all trace of organic life was gone. So came the eternally memorable day and reaching the North Pole. The explorer describes the big moment with these words: 'I was disappointed. […] When I was at the pole, I saw ice, the eternal and sad ice with its cruel glitter, […] and in the minute of my greatest pride that the goal had been reached I was terrified of the horror of the return. ' […] On September 1st he announced his discovery of the cultural world from Lerwick (Shetland Islands), and five days later the same message arrived from Peary in St. Johns (Newfoundland). It is certainly to be regretted that a violent argument, filled with personal reproaches, was linked to this joyful double customer. But the great deed that the problem of the North Pole has finally been resolved remains as the shining glory of the 20th century. "
Karl Kraus, on the other hand, processed the public disputes and reports from the press in the satire The Discovery of the North Pole :
“For it is written that the world is getting bigger every day. Is she so satisfied inside that she can look forward to conquest? Or is it not the enemy within, stupidity, that leads them down this path? The press, the goiter of the world, swells with the desire to conquer, bursting with achievements that every day brings. One week has room for the boldest climax of human expansion: from the conquest of Lower Austria by the Czechs to the conquest of the air to the conquest of the North Pole. Combinations are not ruled out, and if Mr Cook hadn't had the floor, the North Pole would certainly have been captured by the zeppelin through the barely conquered air. The general willingness to open its mouths finds unprecedented accommodation in the event, and with the dimension of admiration, the dimension of facts grows, until the spectators and fate run out of breath in the race. And a raising of all values and meanings begins, of which those could not imagine who were once worth and significant. The greatest man of the century is the title of an hour, the next gives it to another. It has been achieved !, hardly the motto of a mustache pointing ad astra, is again the greeting that is offered to bolder, if no less contested inventions. Progress, with its head down and legs up, tumbles in the ether and assures all creeping spirits that it rules nature. He harasses her and says he has conquered her. He invented morality and machines in order to drive nature out of nature and man, and he feels secure in a structure of the world that is held together by hysteria and comfort. Progress celebrates Pyrrhic victories over nature. [...] Nature does not read an editorial and therefore does not yet know that right now we are busy "transforming the world of elementary powers into a rational kingdom". If she could hear that the news that the North Pole had been reached has "increased the feeling of superiority over nature" in all the errand boys on earth, she would laugh at her stomach, and cities and states and department stores would then get a little disordered.
The discovery of the North Pole was inevitable. It is a glow that all eyes see, and above all others those who are blind. It is a sound heard by all ears and, above all, by those who are deaf. It is an idea that all brains can grasp, and above all others those that can no longer grasp. The North Pole had to be discovered once. [...] Poems were read to the walruses until they finally accompanied the discovery of the North Pole with an understanding nod of the head. For it was stupidity that had reached the North Pole, and its banner fluttered victoriously as a sign that the world was hers. But the ice fields of the spirit began to grow and moved on and on and stretched until they covered the whole earth. We died who we thought. "
Inglorious end
As a seventy-year-old Frederick Cook demanded an independent investigation that could have absolved him of the charge of fraud. The American Geographical Society refused. In 1937 Cook sued the editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica for claiming that Peary, and not he, was the first to set foot on the North Pole. Cook died on August 5, 1940 in New Rochelle , New York . The Times in London dedicated “Dr. FA Cook ”published a detailed obituary entitled“ The North Pole Hoax ”on August 6th. She calls his version of the discovery of the North Pole "romantic" and pays tribute to the later knighted journalist Sir Philip Gibbs as the person who exposed the hoax. Gibbs had been skeptical from the start about what Cook would have told the astonished world press about his “glittering ice cream” at the Pole. Cook himself, the Times writes, never denied that Peary had reached the North Pole - only after him. The newspaper also mentions his conviction in 1920 to 14 years in prison and President Hoover's pardon after five years. Cook's claim that he was the first to climb Mount McKinley does not seem to have been conclusively refuted in 1940, for the Times only doubts it and concludes with the words: “In 1907 he went back to the Arctic and two years later came with the Claim that moved the world. "
literature
- Fred A. Cook: My conquest of the North Pole , translated by Erwin Volckmann. Alfred Janssen Verlag, Hamburg and Berlin 1912.
- Pierre Berton: The Arctic Grail. Lyons Press, New York 2000. ISBN 1-58574-116-7 .
- Robert M. Bryce: Cook & Peary - the polar controversy, resolved. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg PA 1997, ISBN 0-8117-0317-7 .
- Robert M. Bryce: The Fake Peak revisited. (PDF; 2.9 MB) In: DIO. Baltimore 7 (3), 1997, pp. 41-76, ISSN 1041-5440 .
- Johannes Zeilinger: On brittle ice. Frederick A. Cook and the conquest of the North Pole. Matthes & Seitz, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-88221-746-9 .
Web links
- Frederick A. Cook Society
- Robert M Bryce: Frederick A. Cook: from Hero to Humbug
- Literature by and about Frederick Cook in the catalog of the German National Library
- Newspaper article about Frederick Cook in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Robert M. Bryce: 1893-1894: Cook strikes out his own on the website Frederick A. Cook: from Hero to Humbug , accessed on July 7, 2013 (English)
- ^ German house treasure in words and pictures, Volume 36, Issue 2, 1910, obituary on p. 77, DNB signature DZb 35
- ^ Karl Kraus: The discovery of the North Pole (September 1909) Internet
- ^ The Times , August 6, 1940, issue, p. 7
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cook, Frederick |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cook, Frederick Albert (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American explorer, polar explorer and doctor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 10, 1865 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hortonville , New York (State) |
| DATE OF DEATH | 5th August 1940 |
| Place of death | New Rochelle , New York (State) |