Crocker Land Expedition

The Crocker Land Expedition was an ill-fated 1913 expedition to investigate Crocker Land, an huge island supposedly sighted by the explorer Robert Peary from the top of Cape Thomas Hubbard in 1906. The island was later shown to have been a mirage.

Organization and Purpose

Minik Wallace as a child

The expedition was organized by Donald Baxter MacMillan and sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, the American Geographical Society, and the University of Illinois' Museum of Natural History.

MacMillan's geologist, ornithologist and botanist was W. Elmer Ekblaw of the University of Illinois. Navy Ensign Fitzhugh Green served as engineer and physicist. Maurice C. Tanquary of the University of Illinois was the zoologist and Dr. Harrison J. Hunt the surgeon.

Minik Wallace, the Inuit famously brought to the United States as a child by Robert Peary in 1897, was the guide and translator for the expedition.

As well as confirming and mapping the position of Crocker Land, the declared purposed of the expedition was to investigate "geology, geography, glaciology, meterology, terrestrial magnetism, electrical phenomena, seismology, zoology (both vertabrate and invertabrate), botany, oceanography, ethnology, and archaeology".

In newspapers of the time, MacMillan described Crocker Land as "the world’s last geographical problem".

"In June 1906, Commander Peary, from the summit of Cape Thomas Hubbard, at about latitude 83 degrees N, longitude 100 degrees W., reported seeing land glimmering in the northwest, approximately 130 miles away across the Polar Sea. He did not go there, but he gave it a name in honor of the late George Crocker of the Peary Arctic Club. That is Crocker Land. Its boundaries and extent can only be guessed at, but I am certain that strange animals will be found there, and I hope to discover a new race of men."

MacMillan,

The Expedition

The expedition left Brooklyn Navy Yard aboard the steamer Diana on 2 July 1913.. Two weeks later, at midnight on 16 July, the Diana struck struck rocks, trying to avoid an iceberg. MacMillan blamed this on the captain, who was drunk at the time. The expedition transferred to another ship, the Erik, and eventually arrived at Etah in northwest Greenland on the second week of August.

The next three weeks were spent constructing a large eight-room shed, with electricity generation capabilities,that was to serve as the local headquarters of the expedition. An attempt was also made to set up a radio room, but it was not successful and the expedition was never able to establish reliable radio-communications with the outside world.

Having made a number of preliminary trips to place supply caches along parts of the route, MacMillan, Green, Ekblaw and seven Inuit eventually set off on the 1,200-mile journey to "Crocker Land" on 11 March 1914. The temperature was 32 degrees below freezing and weather-conditions were very poor.

Eventually the party reached the 4,700 ft high Beitstadt Glacier, which they took three days to climb. The temperature dropped dramatically and Ekblaw suffered severe frostbite. He was evacuated back to Etah by some of the Inuit.

One-by-one, the other members of the party gave up and turned back. By 11 April, at the edge of the Arctic Ocean only MacMillan, Green and two Inuit, Piugaattoq and Ittukusuk, remained. The four dog-sleds set off across the treaturous sea-ice, avoiding thin patches and expanses of open water, and eventually on 21 April saw what appeared to be a huge island on the north-western horizon. As MacMillan later said, "Hills, valleys, snow-capped peaks extending through at least one hundred and twenty degrees of the horizon.”

Piugaattoq, an Inuit hunter with 20 years of experience of the area, explained that it was just an illusion. However MacMillan insisted they press on, despite the fact that it was late in the season and the sea-ice was breaking up. For five days they went on, following the mirage, until on 27 April, having covered some 125 miles of dangerous sea-ice, MacMillan was forced to admit that Piugaattoq was right. Crocker Land was in fact a mirage, probably a rare form called a Fata Morgana.

The party turned around and was able to reach solid land with no time to spare, for the sea-ice broke up the next day.

The Killing of Piugaattoq

After regaining land, MacMillan sent Piugaattoq and Green to explore a route to the west. The weather turned against them and they were forced to take shelter in a snow cave. One of the dog teams died in the snow, and during a squabble over the remaining team, Green took a rifle from the sled and shot Piugaattoq, killing him.

On 4 May Green rejoined MacMillan and told him what had happened. Upon their return to Etah, MacMillan informed the other European members of the expedition, but asked them to keep quiet, telling the Inuit that Piugaattoq had died in a blizzard. Ekblaw said later that this was “one of the darkest and most deplorable tragedies in the annals of Arctic exploration.”

Green was never prosecuted for the murder, although the Inuit suspected there was more to the story that had been told and that Green had had a relationship with Piugaattoq's wife Aleqasina, a striking beauty. She had previously been Peary's mistress and bore two children to him.

The Return Home

The expedition attempted to return, but the weather turned against them and they were stranded in the region for the next four years, until rescued in 1917 by the ship Neptune, commanded by Captain Robert Bartlett.

Aftermath

Although the expedition failed to map the non-existant Crocker Land, much important research was done. A considerable number of photographs and artifacts were returned, documenting the indigenous peoples and natural habitat of the region.

External Links

• Rare film clip of the expedition