April 27, 2005 One of the greatest mysteries of polar exploration—whether American Robert Peary was really the first person to reach the North Pole—has been solved.
A British team traveling by dogsled has proved that Peary's 1909 expedition could have made the trip across the polar ice in 37 days, a claim that has been disputed ever since Peary returned to the U.S. and claimed the title of first man to reach the North Pole. (Fellow American Frederick Cook also said he had reached the Pole one year earlier, an assertion eventually refuted by a 1911 Congressional inquiry.)
On April 26, the Ultimate North team, led by 29-year-old British explorer Tom Avery, retraced Peary's approximate course and reached the pole in 36 days, 22 hours. The fastest previous attempt took 43 days.
"We are just so unbelievably excited to be here and even though it's been the longest and possibly the hardest 37 days of our lives the journey has left us literally feeling on top of the world," Avery wrote in a statement from the Pole, released via the team's expedition headquarters.
The route, crossing alternately smooth, gnarled, and broken ice, stretched 413 nautical miles from Canada's Ellesmere Island to the geographic pole at 90 degrees latitude.
Avery's expedition, using replica wooden dogsleds but modern navigational gear, reached the pole seven miles ahead of Peary's 1909 pace. The final push was nearly delayed after one of the dog teams fell through the thin ice while trying to navigate around a large section of open water.
Peary's 1909 expedition included a blistering final sprint to the pole, covering 133 miles in four days—up to three times as fast as their previous average pace.
However, journal records describe slow going over rough terrain, and some questioned whether Peary's calculations of his final position were accurate. His only witnesses were his assistant and four Inuit sled-dog drivers.
In 1989, a National Geographic study of photographs from the expedition concluded Peary made it within a few miles of the Pole, based on the length of shadows in the photographs.
"We have always believed that Peary was one of the greatest explorers of all time and hopefully our re-creation of his journey will silence anyone who doubted this and put the controversy to rest once and for all," Avery wrote in his statement.
The Ultimate North expedition was sponsored by Barclays Capital, the investment-banking arm of UK-based Barclays Bank.
