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 physician.
Life
Frederick Cook was born 1865 in Hortonville, New York. His parents were Theodore A. Koch and Magdalena Koch, nee Long, who had immigrated from Germany to the USA. Cook studied at Columbia University and later at the New York University, where he earned his Doctor of Medicine in 1890. At the age of 37, he married Marie Fidele Hunt, with whom he had a daughter named Helen. 1923, the marriage ended in divorce.
First Expeditions
Cook accompanied Robert Peary from 1891 to 1892 as a physician on an expedition to the North East Greenland. He simultaneously took on the role of anthropologists. Disagreement over the publication of Cook's scientific results, the reserved Peary as expedition leader himself, meant that Cook is no longer involved in Peary's next expedition in 1893. Instead, he went 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 made more than 1000 photographs and agreed with an Inuit family in Rigolet on the Labrador Peninsula, to take their children Milsok and Katakata for a year in the United States.
1894 Cook organized a pleasure trip to Greenland with the steamer Mirinda. Near Maniitsoq the ship struck an underwater reef and could only be provisionally repaired. Cook sailed a small boat into the 150- km from Sisimiut and secured there to support the schooner Rigel, who was to accompany the ailing Miranda across the Davis Strait. As the Miranda sank in a storm, the crew and passengers were rescued. Following the journey founded some of the passengers, the Arctic Club, which was to become the Explorers Club later.
From 1897 to 1899, Cook was a ship's doctor on the Belgica expedition to Antarctica led by Adrien de Gerlache de Gomery. On this expedition became the first helmsman who later became South Pole conqueror Roald Amundsen part. By Cook imparts Amundsen received the first basic theoretical and practical knowledge about the polar research. A close friendship developed between the two. Cook also worked out on this expedition, methods for prevention and treatment of scurvy.
The case of Mount McKinley
In 1903 he led an expedition to Mount McKinley own and claimed to have climbed this in 1906 as first. On a picture that should show him and his team at the summit, however, was to recognize that they have some miles were on the summit of a high mountain and less a group of Mazama Club, which wanted to follow his tour in 1910, noted that his cards differed about ten miles from the road. Today the then climbed the summit is, whether its Ersteigungsgeschichte Fake Peak.
1907 Cook returned to the Arctic back, claiming to want there to perform a hunt. Instead, however, he decided in 1908 to start a tour to the North Pole, accompanied only by two Inuit named Ahwelah and Etukishook. He started northward from Axel Heiberg Island and later claimed to have reached the Pole on April 21, 1908. After that, his group traveled to overwinter south to Devon Iceland. After the winter, they traveled again to the north of the Nares Strait by Annoatok in Greenland, which they reached in the spring of 1909.
Remarkably Cook's claim to have seen at about 85 degrees north in his march to the Pole country. He described the area upstream cliffs and glacier walls and with mountains in the background, the amount of which he estimated to be about 350 meters. He also called a 50- km-long coastline, which lost on both sides in a steel-blue haze. It was not possible for him added reach and to enter it. In his notes he called it Bradley land.
Doubt as to the attainment of the North Pole
Cook's account of this journey around the Arctic is rarely questioned today, but it seems certain that he never approached it the North Pole. Cook could never prove to have been actually there and the stories of his companions were also very contradictory. Had the group actually dared to walk to the pole, they would probably have died in the traditional equipment of hunger. Especially the followers of Robert Peary, who wanted to have reached the Pole itself a year later in April 1909, brought forward arguments against Cook's claim. However, Cook also had supporters who gave his explanations faith. Among them was his friend Roald Amundsen. Through public opinion for Cook and Peary against he tried to raise the profile of Cooks. It was only on the recommendation of Amundsen's advisers, who feared an impairment whose fame to Amundsen distanced from his friend. However, his admiration for Cook remained unbroken. At this time, Cook's fraud McKinley was elucidated, which his reputation was completely destroyed.
Already in 1910, Cook was accused after checking the records of fraud, and the University of Copenhagen recognized him as the discoverer of the North Pole the status again.
1920 Cook was the embezzlement of petroleum stocks and was accused for five years in jail.
Reception in the press
The German public was very interested in the race for the conquest of the North Pole. It was in the newspapers at the beginning of the 20th century, a recurring theme. End of 1909, laid the excitement, so about the Christian magazine German Hausschatz early 1910 drew the following interim results in which Cook was the favorite:
" Peary came up to a distance of 320 kilometers to the pole before, no wonder that generally, but not Cook, believed to be the real discoverer him the news of the discovery of the pole. On February 19, 1908 was [ Dr. Cook's ] departure with 10 Eskimos and eleven, of 107 dogs pulled sleds. 85 ° every trace of organic life was gone. Thus came the ever-memorable day and the attainment of the North Pole. The big moment describes the discoverer with these words: 'I was disappointed. [ ... ] When I was at the pole, I saw ice, the eternal ice and sad with his cruel glint, [ ... ] and in the minutes of the greatest pride that the goal was achieved, I felt terrified of the horror of the return. ' [ ... ] on September 1, he reported from Lerwick ( Shetland Islands) from his discovery of the world of culture, and five days afterwards met Peary from St. John's ( Newfoundland) the same message a. That to this was a violent, filled with personal accusations dispute at this joyful double customer is certainly lively regret. But the great fact that the problem of the North Pole is finally dissolved remains available as a brilliant title to fame of the 20th century. "
Karl Kraus, however, processed the publicly -run disputes and the reports of the press in the satire The discovery of the North Pole:
" For it is written that the world is getting bigger by the day. If it is so satisfied inside that they can go out on conquests? Or she does not give the enemy within, the stupidity on this path? The press, the crop in the world, swells by lust of conquest, bursting with achievements, each day brings. A week has room for the boldest climax human urge expansion: from the conquest of Lower Austria by the Czechs on the conquest of the air to the conquest of the North Pole. Combinations are not excluded, and if not Mr. Cook would have had the word, the North Pole would be safe from the Zeppelin was conquered by the hardly conquered air. The general willingness to Maulaufreißen finds a hitherto unknown concessions during the events, and with the dimension of admiration grows the dimension of the facts until the race starts the gawkers as the fate of the breath. And a Hinauflizitieren all values and meanings lifts from which those could not imagine that were worth and meaning once. The greatest man of the century is the title of an hour, the next already gives him another one. It is accomplished! , Hardly the motto of ad astra -looking mustache style, is again the greeting, the bolder, though no less disputed inventions is summoned. The progress that has his head down and legs up, kicking in the ether and assured all creeping spirits that he mastered nature. He molested her and says he has conquered it. He has invented morality and machine to drive nature and the human nature, and feels safe in a burrow in the world, the hysteria and comfort together. Progress celebrates Pyrrhic victories over nature. [ ... ] The nature does not read editorials and knows it is not that one is right now busy " to transform the world of the elemental forces in a realm of reason ." Could they hear that the message from reaching the North Pole " increased in all errand boys of the world the feeling of superiority over nature ", has she held her stomach with laughter, and cities and states and markets had then a little in disarray.
The discovery of the North Pole was inevitable. It is a sham, the eyes see all, and before all other those who are blind. It is a sound that hear all ears, and above all others those who are deaf. It is an idea that can hold all brains, and above all others those who can take nothing more. The North Pole had to be discovered once. [ ... ] It has been so long the walrus read poems until they accompanied the discovery of the North Pole with insightful nod. Because the foolishness of it, which had reached the North Pole, and triumphantly flew its banner as a sign that you belong to the world. The ice fields of the Spirit began to grow and moved farther and stretched until they covered the whole earth. We died, we thought. "
Inglorious end
Frederick Cook called yet when he was seventy an independent investigation that it could acquit the charge of deception. The American Geographical Society refused. 1937 Cook sued the editor of the Encyclopædia Britannica for their assertion that Peary and he had not entered the North Pole first. Cook died on August 5, 1940 in New Rochelle, New York. The Times in London dedicated to " Dr. FA Cook " on August 6, a detailed obituary under the title " The North Pole Hoax " ( The North Pole - Duck ). She calls his version of the discovery of the North Pole "romantic" and appreciates the later knighted beaten journalist Sir Philip Gibbs as the person who had the dizziness bust. Gibbs was skeptical from the beginning, which Cook had told before the astonished world press about his " glittering ice " at the pole. Cook himself, the Times writes, never denied that Peary had reached the North Pole - just after him. The newspaper also mentions his conviction in 1920 to 14 years in prison and a pardon by President Hoover after five years. Cook's claim that he had boarded the first of Mount McKinley in 1940 seems to have been not yet refuted fail, because the Times they only doubt and concludes with the words: " In 1907 he went back to the Arctic and came up with two years later claim back that moved the world. "