The North Pole

Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. was born on May 6, 1856 in Cresson, Pennsylvania. The early death of his father when Peary was 3 dictated that he and his mother moved to Portland, Maine. His senior education took place at Bowdon College and he graduated in 1877 with a Civil Engineering degree. For Peary his overriding ambition became the North Pole. It was a dream that had also obsessed many others. His first exploration attempt was Greenland in 1886. He managed just 100 miles before turning back. In 1891 he broke his leg but the recuperation enabled him to more clearly define how to achieve his ambition. Inuit survival techniques were now researched and this gave him valuable insight. By 1892 he had established that Greenland was an island. In his 1898–1902 expedition, he claimed an 1899 visual discovery of "Jesup Land" west of Ellesmere. Peary also achieved a "farthest north" for the western hemisphere in 1902 north of Canada's Ellesmere Island. Peary's next expedition was...