Teaching With Documents, Volume 2

Contents:

Cache Note from Peary’s North Greenland Expedition of 1892

In the late 19th century, few terrestrial frontiers remained unexplored by humanity. Nevertheless, a young, adventurous engineer in the U.S. Navy, Robert E. Peary, resolved in 1886 to carve his niche in history by exploring the Arctic regions in search of the North Pole. Over the next 25 years, Peary and his teams made numerous expeditions in the Arctic, building with each foray the knowledge and experience that would bring him successfully (but not without controversy) to his goal. He learned how to wait out a blizzard, to avoid exhaustion, to keep from being frostbitten, and to cross perilous leads (breaks in the ice cover). With painstaking patience, Peary accumulated the information, built the endurance, and secured the financial support that would help him reach his goal.

On April 6, 1909, Peary finally reached the North Pole. His revelry, however, was cut short. Upon his return to the United States, Peary discovered that another explorer, Dr. Frederick Cook, claimed to have reached the pole a month before him. Both claims were investigated, and Cook’s was eventually discredited. Peary produced documents-compass and temperature readings, field notes, journals, and photographs-to support and validate his claim.

Peary kept meticulous records of all his Arctic experiences. In them he recorded the valuable lessons he learned from the indigenous people and animals of the Arctic. He documented the successes and analyzed the failures of each of his expeditions. His exposure to exploration in the North led Peary to dress in fur, like the Eskimo. When he realized that it would prove impossible to reach the pole by sea, he learned to drive a dog sled. Rather than expend the precious energy of the dogs by having them lug tents that became ice-covered and were prone to ripping, Peary learned to construct igloos for shelter. For food, he improved upon pemmican, a paste of grease and meat that was highly caloric, making it more dense and thus easier to carry.

There was another reason for Peary to keep field notes and journals. When officially given leave from his naval duties to become a full-time explorer, Peary needed substantial funding. Between expeditions, the savvy entrepreneur and businessman would travel the world seeking sponsorship for his Arctic projects. By lecturing and writing articles for magazines such as National Geographic, Peary found a curious and enthusiastic public willing to support his ambitions. The information in his records provided him with interesting tales to tell during his numerous lectures.

Communication was problematic in the Arctic. The base camp established by each expedition was accessible by sea only during the brief summer months. Throughout the long winters, there were no occasions to convey information or findings to the waiting public. To compensate for this dilemma, explorers left caches on the ice with greetings, geographic information, liquor, or food for those who might follow. The cache notes also served to verify competing claims to "firsts" and discoveries. Explorers built cairns of ice and rock that were highly visible so that the caches could be located in the vast expanse of ice and snow. The featured documentdrawn from the National Archives Gift Collection, Records of Polar Regions, Record Group 401, is one such cache note. It details one of Peary’s early triumphs—verification of Greenland’s insularity.

THE EXPEDITION OF 1891-92

In May of 1892, Peary and three others (including his ultimate betrayer Dr. Cook) left their base camp at Redcliff House near Whale Sound in Greenland. After three weeks, Cook and another man turned back, leaving only Peary, Einuid Astrup, and three dog sleds to cross the glacial expanse of North Greenland. The men traveled by night to avoid the blinding glare of the sun. They smeared their faces with Vaseline as protection against an incessant, raw wind. When dogs weakened or went lame, Peary fed them to the rest of the pack to conserve precious food. On good days, the party traveled close to 20 miles, but more often they struggled to gain half that distance. On several occasions, blizzards stopped their travel completely.

At the beginning of July, weary and with a dangerously short supply of food rations remaining, Peary and Astrup caught sight of two musk oxen. Immediately, they tethered their dogs and went in for the kill. They later captured a calf and two more musk oxen. Because they were unable to carry this much meat, the men and dogs spent two days feasting and recuperating from their two-month trek. Unbeknownst to the pair, they were only a short distance from the sea.

With renewed strength and vitality, Peary marched to the end of the land strip on which they were traveling. He found himself atop a 3,800-foot cliff, gazing down into the Arctic Ocean. Peary had crossed Greenland. He called this point "Navy Cliff." Before setting off on the equally perilous return, Peary took the time to build a cairn and scribble in pencil the featured cache note. His journey home was without incident; he had covered more than 500 miles in one month. He emerged from what he called in his journals "the long white march" on August 4, 1892.

The cache note was not retrieved for another 20 years. During a North Greenland expedition of 1912, the Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen retrieved the note from Peary’s intact cairn. He remarked that the brandy bottle in which the note was encased still smelled of liquor. The note was forwarded to Washington, DC, as per the instructions, and eventually found its way back to Robert E. Peary.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

The featured document lends itself to cross-disciplinary teaching. Choose or adapt from the following suggestions as many of the activities as time allows. You may want to team with a colleague to design a shared lesson and follow-up.

Document Analysis

1. Copy the two sides of the featured document onto one page, and distribute it to students. Begin analyzing the handwritten side of the document by asking students to identify the date, physical characteristics, and interesting information given in the document. Ask students what information they have about Peary from the document and from personal knowledge. Instruct a student to locate Greenland on a world map.

2. Demonstrate how to fold the document along the apparent creases. From what is legible on the outside of the note, the students should hypothesize about the possible purpose and life cycle of this document. Ask them to consider why the document was written and whether or not they believe it to be part of Peary’s journal. Ask them to identify the six languages printed on the back of the stationery. Use a polar projection (azimuthal) map to determine with the class if any of the languages seem out of place for Arctic exploration.

3. Share with students the background information about Peary and the expedition of 1892. Discuss with them why the note was written in pencil. Ask them what other travel precautions Peary may have made for Arctic travel.


Click the image to view a larger version


Click the image to view a larger version

Geography

4. Locate Pearyland on a polar projection (azimuthal) map. Many geographic place names reflect the names and cultures of those who explored them. Divide your class into heterogeneous teams equipped with atlases. Assign each team a different geographical region to search carefully and compile a list of place names that indicate something about who "discovered" them. After five minutes, ask students to read their lists aloud.

5. Assign students to research conditions at the North Pole and write a paragraph that identifies the types of flora and fauna of the region, contrasts the Arctic with the Antarctic, and explains why is it possible to mark the South Pole but not the North Pole.

Writing

6. Ask students to imagine what Peary’s fund-raising lectures must have been like. Brainstorm with them some of the elements of persuasion. Then ask students to write and deliver a short persuasive speech or write a fund-raising letter seeking support for an expedition. Students may choose to assume Peary’s persona, that of a contemporary explorer, or of a futuristic space traveler.

7. Write the following form for creating a Biopoem on the chalkboard or an overhead projector. Group the students in threes, and ask them to write a poem about Robert E. Peary. Tell them they may use more or less detail than is prompted in the outline. Ask several students to read their poems to the class, and select other poems to post on a class bulletin board.

Line 1 First name
Line 2 Title
Line 3 Four words to describe that person
Line 4 Lover of (three things or ideas)
Line 5 Who believed in (one or more ideas)
Line 6 Who wanted (three things)
Line 7 Who learned (three things)
Line 8 Who gave (three things)
Line 9 Who said (a quote)
Line 10 Last name

Science

8. Explore with students the properties of a compass. Ask them what happens to compass readings at the North Pole and what other means of measurement Peary might have used to verify his position at the North Pole.

9. Tell your students that Peary developed high calorie, compact pemmican to feed himself and his dogs during polar expeditions. Ask them why they think caloric intake is so important in the Arctic. Ask several students to find out what commercial food products are available to explorers and extreme adventure enthusiasts today. Students could bring packages or labeling from several products to class to analyze the nutrition labels. With your students, identify which products would be best for Arctic travel, for jungle exploration, or for desert journeys.

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Chicago: "Cache Note from Peary’s North Greenland Expedition of 1892," Teaching With Documents, Volume 2 in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. Wynell B. Schamel (Washington, D.C.: National Archives Trust Fund Board for the National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, 1998), 81–85. Original Sources, accessed March 28, 2024, http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=QFP4E4H8XPHQJ4F.

MLA: . "Cache Note from Peary’s North Greenland Expedition of 1892." Teaching With Documents, Volume 2, in Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, edited by Wynell B. Schamel, Vol. 2, Washington, D.C., National Archives Trust Fund Board for the National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, 1998, pp. 81–85. Original Sources. 28 Mar. 2024. http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=QFP4E4H8XPHQJ4F.

Harvard: , 'Cache Note from Peary’s North Greenland Expedition of 1892' in Teaching With Documents, Volume 2. cited in 1998, Teaching With Documents: Using Primary Sources from the National Archives, ed. , National Archives Trust Fund Board for the National Archives and Records Administration and National Council for the Social Studies, Washington, D.C., pp.81–85. Original Sources, retrieved 28 March 2024, from http://originalsources.com/Document.aspx?DocID=QFP4E4H8XPHQJ4F.