1 of 6 Who Really Discovered the North Pole? — Photo: NELLY GEORGE/ALAMY Who really discovered the North Pole? — Photo: NELLY GEORGE/ALAMY
In Montgomery County in the US state of Maryland, near the capital Washington DC there is a 47hectare park called Matthew Henson State Park Stream Valley Park.
It is a wooded forest oasis surrounded by urban sprawl.
As soon as you enter, the traffic noise disappears. The lawn and trees are all that visitors can see, whether they are walking, running, or riding a bike.
A nearly 7km long paved trail meanders gently through the forest until you reach a raised boardwalk over swampy terrain. Birds sing overhead and you can spot deer and wild turkeys.
You could walk this trail every day and never know who Matthew Henson was and who the park is named after—unless you stopped to read a plaque along the way that offers a brief chronology of his life:
- 1866: was born in Charles County, Maryland.
- 18791884: joins the crew of the ship Katie Hines as a cabin boy and sets off to explore the world.
- 1887: supports Robert E. Peary in research for the possible construction of a canal in Nicaragua.
Until a surprising detail appears in the middle of the timeline:
- 1909: comes with Peary to the North Pole where he hoists the American flag.
At the top of the plaque is a photo of Henson cloaked in furs and hooded. He has a bushy mustache and his forehead is slightly furrowed.
His appearance fits the polar explorer archetype in every way, with one exception: Henson was black.
“I never heard of Matthew Henson as a kid in high school,” says JR Harris, who is also an African American citizen and serves on the board of directors of the Explorers Club of New York, which has inspired some of the world’s greatest adventurers. World.
“A lot of people think Matthew Henson was someone I looked up to in the past, but that’s not true,” he says.
“I just found out that the North Pole was discovered by Robert Peary.”
2 of 6 Henson was born into a family of sharecroppers and traveled the world as a cabin boy until he left for the North Pole Photo: EVERETT COLLECTION INC/ALAMY Henson was born into a family of sharecroppers and traveled the world as a cabin boy Boy until he set out for the North Pole Photo: EVERETT COLLECTION INC/ALAMY
Henson’s life reads like a Victorian adventure novel.
Born into a family of sharecroppers, he held various jobs before joining the crew of a merchant ship and traveling to other continents.
His first mentor was Captain Childs, who trained the teenage Henson for life at sea and taught him to read. When Childs died in 1883, Henson again struggled to earn a living until he met Robert Peary in 1887.
Their paths first crossed at a haberdashery in Washington DC where Henson worked. Commander Peary, a US Navy engineer, was impressed by the young store clerk and invited Henson to be his assistant on a research mission to Nicaragua that same year.
The pivotal period of Henson’s career began in 1891, when he accompanied Peary to the Arctic Circle in search of the North Pole, and lasted 18 years.
The quest to physically reach the northernmost point on earth has attracted explorers for centuries, and many of them harbor fantasies of standing on the top of the planet. But the harsh polar climate and shipwrecking pack ice deterred human visitors—even Arctic peoples.
Peary established himself as the main leader of these expeditions, raising funds and building teams. And Henson accompanied Peary on all but one of his travels and spent years of his life in the field.
In Greenland, Henson became close with the Inughuit, the people who live further north in the Americas and who are part of the Inuit people. He learned to build igloos and sleighs and became fluent in his language, Inuktun.
Henson hunted polar animals with a shotgun—a technique that could save lives when supplies ran low. And most impressively, he learned how to drive a dogsled.
“He drives pack and sled better than any other man in the world save some of the best hunters.” [inuits]’ Peary wrote of Henson.
“I couldn’t compete without him.”
On seven attempts between 1891 and 1909, Henson was Peary’s closest collaborator.
3 of 6 Robert Peary invited Henson to accompany him on his trip to the Arctic Circle Photo: NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY Robert Peary invited Henson to accompany him on his trip to the Arctic Circle Photo: NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY
The Arctic was unforgiving. The two froze to death or nearly starved to death several times.
Peary lost several toes to frostbite (freezing of body tissues). And once, Henson fell into a crack in the ice and would have drowned if his Inuit friend Ootah hadn’t pulled him out of the freezing water. They faced catastrophic storms and endless technical problems.
Up until the last expedition in 1909, the two kept improving the workflow. About 130 miles (215 km) from the Pole, and with supplies short, Peary ordered the entire party of 50, with the exception of Henson and four Inuit, to return to the ship.
A Smithsonian Institution article states that a few days later, on April 6, 1909, after an arduous journey across the tundra, Henson told Peary that he “felt” they were at the Pole.
Henson said Peary rummaged in his coat, pulled out a folded American flag his wife had sewn, and attached it to a pole he had installed on an igloo.
The next day, Henson says, Peary determined his location with a sextant, placed a note and the American flag in an empty can, and buried them in the ice. The men then returned to the ship and headed home.
“Another conquest of the world has been accomplished and ended,” Henson wrote in his 1912 memoir, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole.
“And as in the past, from the beginning of history, whenever the work of the world was done by a white man, it was accompanied by a black man,” Henson added.
4 of 6 Hearing from Henson that he had the “feel” they had reached the North Pole, Peary used a sextant to locate their location Photo: ALPHA STOCK/ALAMY Hearing from Henson that he had the “feeling” When they arrived at the North Pole, Peary determined its location with a sextant Photo: ALPHA STOCK/ALAMY
But his moment of fame was shortlived. Henson returned to the United States at the height of hostilities caused by the country’s racist Jim Crow laws. And in the next century historians would be skeptical of him.
Peary wrote an ebullient preface to Henson’s book, arguing that “Race, color, upbringing, or environment are nothing against a determined heart when it is backed and supported by intelligence.”
Still, Peary happily took most of the credit for reaching the Pole while Henson’s name faded from public opinion.
Historians dispute whether Peary’s assessment was correct and whether he was really the first explorer to get there. But most agree he wouldn’t have ventured this far north without Henson, who fully embraced the Inuit way of life and learned millenniaold survival skills.
Henson even adapted Inuit paraphernalia such as fur clothing and dog sleds.
“The human [inuit] “I really liked him,” says Harris, who has done several solo wilderness hikes around the world.
Like Henson, Harris nurtured a relationship with aboriginal peoples in remote locations and acknowledged this early attempt at cultural anthropology.
“Peary was a reserved guy and appreciated that someone on his team could deal with the Inuit and develop good relationships,” says Harris.
However, it was not until 1937 that Henson was accepted as a member of the Explorers’ Club. He even received honors from the American Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, but only towards the end of his life.
Henson was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, where a memorial was erected in his honor but not until 1988, 33 years after his death.
Today, several places are named after him: Matthew Henson State Park, several public schools in Maryland, and the USNS Henson, a 3,000ton research ship that conducts oceanographic studies.
For decades, Henson’s defenders have cherished the memory of his accomplishment and have sought to uncover the full extent of his legacy.
Its most ardent advocate was S. Allen Counter, a neurologist from Boston, USA and a member of the Explorers’ Club.
5 of 6 Matthew Henson adopted Greenlandic Inuit culture during Arctic expeditions Photo: EVERETT COLLECTION INC/ALAMY Matthew Henson adopted Greenlandic Inuit culture during Arctic expeditions Photo: EVERETT COLLECTION INC/ALAMY
In addition to applying for the memorial to be built at Arlington National Cemetery, Counter also discovered unknown branches of the Henson family tree in Greenland. Some of their Inuit descendants are still alive today. Counter documented the lineage in the book North Pole Legacy.
“My father identified with the story for obvious reasons,” says Philippa Counter, Allen’s daughter.
“They were both explorers. Henson was that unsung hero who went unrecognized because he traveled to the North Pole. He thought, ‘This is a story I really need to tell.’
Counter died in 2017, but others have taken over his role. The Explorers Club formed a Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Committee with JR Harris as Chair.
And in 2022, the club welcomed four new posthumous members: Seegloo, Egingwah, Ooqueah, and Ootah, the Inuit men who accompanied Henson and Peary on their final expedition to the North Pole.
“In my opinion, they’re all codiscoverers of the North Pole, all six,” says Harris.
“These four men are finally getting the recognition they deserve.”
6 of 6 Henson didn’t gain recognition until late in life Photo: EVERETT COLLECTION INC/ALAMY Henson didn’t gain recognition until late in life Photo: EVERETT COLLECTION INC/ALAMY
The PearyMacMillan Arctic Museum is changing location in Brunswick, Maine. The museum is part of Bowdoin College, where Peary and another Arctic explorer, Donald Baxter MacMillan, studied.
Since opening in 1967, the museum has displayed Henson artifacts, including archive photographs, a sleigh he built himself, and a rare 1950s television interview.
Visitors were always greeted with painted portraits of Peary and MacMillan placed side by side at the entrance to the museum. But when the new space opens in May 2023, there will be one important addition: an enlarged photo of Matthew Henson wearing his signature furs alongside.