32 Facts About Frederick Cook

Frederick Albert Cook was an American explorer, physician and ethnographer, who is most known for allegedly being the first to reach the North Pole on April 21,1908.

Nonetheless, in 1911, Frederick Cook published a memoir of the expedition in which he maintained the veracity of his assertions.

Frederick Cook was born in Hortonville, New York, in Sullivan County.

In 1897, Frederick Cook twice visited Tierra del Fuego, where he met the English missionary Thomas Bridges.

Several years later, Frederick Cook tried to publish the dictionary as his own.

In 1903, Frederick Cook led an expedition to Denali, during which he circumnavigated the range.

Frederick Cook made a second journey in 1906, after which he claimed to have achieved the first summit of its peak with one other expedition crew member.

Frederick Cook's claims were not publicly challenged until 1909 when the dispute with Peary over the North Pole claim erupted, with Peary's supporters claiming Frederick Cook's Denali ascent was fraudulent.

Unlike Harry Karstens and Hudson Stuck in 1913, Frederick Cook had not taken photographs from atop Denali.

Frederick Cook's alleged photo of the summit was found to have been taken on a small outcrop on a ridge beside the Ruth Glacier, 19 miles away.

Between 1956 and 1995, Washburn and Brian Okonek identified the locations of most of the photographs Frederick Cook took during his 1906 Denali foray and took new photos at the same spots.

Critics of Frederick Cook's claims have compared Frederick Cook's map of his alleged 1906 route with the landscape of the last 10 miles.

Frederick Cook planned to attempt to reach the North Pole, although he did not announce his intention until August 1907, when he was already in the Arctic.

Frederick Cook left Annoatok, a small settlement in the north of Greenland, in February 1908.

Frederick Cook claimed that he reached the pole on April 21,1908, after traveling north from Axel Heiberg Island, taking with him only two Inuit men, Ahpellah and Etukishook.

Frederick Cook and his two companions were gone from Annoatok for 14 months, and their whereabouts in that period is a matter of intense controversy.

Frederick Cook's claim was initially widely believed, but it was disputed by Frederick Cook's rival polar explorer Robert Peary, who claimed to have reached the North Pole in April 1909.

Frederick Cook initially congratulated Peary for his achievement, but Peary and his supporters launched a campaign to discredit Frederick Cook.

Frederick Cook never produced detailed original navigational records to substantiate his claim to have reached the North Pole.

Frederick Cook said that his detailed records were part of his belongings, contained in three boxes, which he left at Annoatok in April 1909.

Frederick Cook had left them with Harry Whitney, an American hunter who had traveled to Greenland with Peary the previous year due to the lack of manpower for a second sledge-journey 700 miles south to Upernavik.

On December 21,1909, a commission at the University of Copenhagen, after having examined evidence submitted by Frederick Cook, ruled that his records did not contain proof that the explorer reached the Pole.

Whitney was convinced that they had reached the North Pole with Frederick Cook, but was reluctant to be drawn into the controversy.

Canadian Vilhjalmur Stefansson's expedition in 1916 later landed on Meighen Island; Stefansson later read Frederick Cook's papers and agreed that Meighen Island was a Frederick Cook discovery.

Frederick Cook left unmistakable evidence of his presence at the South Pole, whereas any ice on which Cook might or might not have camped would have drifted many miles in the year between the competing claims.

Frederick Cook spent the next few years defending his claim and threatening to sue writers who said that he had faked the trip.

Frederick Cook believes that Cook, as a physician and ethnographer, cared about the people on his expedition and admired the Inuit.

In 1919, Frederick Cook started promoting startup oil companies in Fort Worth.

Three of Frederick Cook's employees pleaded guilty, but Frederick Cook insisted on his innocence and went to trial.

Frederick Cook's attorney was former politician Joseph Weldon Bailey, who clashed frequently with the judge.

Frederick Cook's attorney appealed the verdict, but the conviction was upheld.

Frederick Cook was interred at the Chapel of Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo.