Speaker 1: The Quest for the North Pole is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. The late winter sun
Speaker 1: shines weekly on the six man party, who are bundled
Speaker 1: in furs against the endless white sea ice. Nothing breaks
Speaker 1: the horizon in any direction, and they are hundreds of
Speaker 1: miles from their supply ship. For weeks, they've struggled against
Speaker 1: extreme cold and exhaustion to reach this place. Veteran explorer
Speaker 1: Robert E. Peery sets up a sexton and a pan
Speaker 1: of mercury to observe their position. They have reached the
Speaker 1: top of the world, the North Pole. Pierry's longtime assistant,
Speaker 1: Matthew Henson, and four in New Week guides scraped together
Speaker 1: a large amount of snow and then stand in front
Speaker 1: of it, holding the expedition's flags. Perry takes out his
Speaker 1: Codak camera and snaps the image, a rare moment in
Speaker 1: which he isn't the center of attention. The Pole at last,
Speaker 1: Perry writes in his journal, the prize of three centuries
Speaker 1: my dream and ambition for twenty years mine, and here
Speaker 1: he underlines the word mine. At last. This group would
Speaker 1: be called the first men on Earth to reach the
Speaker 1: North Pole. Peery would be lionized throughout the world as
Speaker 1: the man who succeeded where all others, and there were
Speaker 1: a lot of others had failed. What made Henson and
Speaker 1: the rest of the crew follow Peery to the North Pole?
Speaker 1: What made Peery and generations of explorers before him want
Speaker 1: to unlock the mysteries of the Arctic And what did
Speaker 1: they get in return? That's what we're going to find
Speaker 1: out from Mental Floss and I Heart Radio. This is
Speaker 1: the Quest for the North Pole. I'm your host, Cat Long,
Speaker 1: Science editor at Mental Floss, and this is episode one.
Speaker 1: Why go to the North Pole? Before we dive in,
Speaker 1: I want to tell you a bit about why I'm
Speaker 1: so fascinated with the story of the North Pole and
Speaker 1: Arctic exploration in general. When I was little, my grandmother
Speaker 1: mentioned in a very casual way that we were related
Speaker 1: to an Arctic explorer named William Scoresby Jr. I didn't
Speaker 1: think much about it until years later, but eventually I
Speaker 1: got curious about who this person was and what he did.
Speaker 1: In researching his life, I was introduced to the perils
Speaker 1: and excitement of polar history, and I felt a strange
Speaker 1: affinity for these feats of bravery and sometimes foolishness. We'll
Speaker 1: hear more about him in this podcast. By the way,
Speaker 1: around this time I read a fantastic book by the
Speaker 1: British author Fergus Fleming called Barrows Boys. It's a lively
Speaker 1: history of the many British expeditions to different corners of
Speaker 1: the world in the nineteenth century, but primarily to the tick.
Speaker 1: It's filled with accounts of courage as well as hardship
Speaker 1: and suffering. In one expedition, the men got so hungry
Speaker 1: that they ate their leather boots. When I finished it,
Speaker 1: I wanted to plumb the mystery of human kind's attraction
Speaker 1: to the unknown and uncharted. I had an incurable case
Speaker 1: of Arctic fever. Many explorers have probably felt the same way.
Speaker 1: A reporter once asked the mountaineer George Mallory why he
Speaker 1: wanted to climb to the summit of Mount Everest, a
Speaker 1: feat that had never been achieved. He answered, because it's there.
Speaker 1: We can apply the same thinking to the quest to
Speaker 1: reach the North Pole. It has attracted adventurers, explorers, and
Speaker 1: scientists for centuries. On their quest to reach it, men
Speaker 1: have faced an unbelievably harsh and dangerous climate. People have
Speaker 1: lost fingers and toes to frostbite, or even cut off
Speaker 1: their own body parts to survive. But while the tales
Speaker 1: of North Pole adventure are filled with heroic sacrifice and achievement,
Speaker 1: the ills of society still trickled in. Nationalism was a
Speaker 1: driving force in the race to claim the Pole. Racist
Speaker 1: attitudes and exploitation were common. White men took all the glory,
Speaker 1: while the black and indigenous people, without whom many expeditions
Speaker 1: would have failed, received little if any credit. But we're
Speaker 1: getting ahead of ourselves. Before we get there, we need
Speaker 1: to try to understand what made these guys go north
Speaker 1: in the first place, and also what the North Pole
Speaker 1: even is. Today we know that the North Pole is
Speaker 1: actually a point in a vast ocean. It's almost permanently
Speaker 1: covered in sea ice. But until the early twentieth century,
Speaker 1: no one had gotten really close to that point on
Speaker 1: the globe. It remained one of the last blank spots
Speaker 1: on the map of the Earth. The North Pole has
Speaker 1: served as a literal loadstar for European geographers, astronomers, mathematicians,
Speaker 1: and sailors. Because extensive polar ice blocked ships from reaching it,
Speaker 1: no explorers really knew what existed there. But in the
Speaker 1: mid sixteenth century it became critical to find out European
Speaker 1: nations needed new trade routes to Asia. Spain and Portugal,
Speaker 1: already controlled well established southern trade routes circling the globe
Speaker 1: from Africa to the America's England and the Netherlands, launched
Speaker 1: voyages to find northern routes, which would avoid conflict with
Speaker 1: Spain and Portugal, but they would be an uncharted territory.
Speaker 1: To find those mythical passages, European navigators used a number
Speaker 1: of tools. One was a compass. These instruments have a
Speaker 1: magnetized needle pivoting in a liquid and pointing to directions
Speaker 1: marked on the case. The needle always pointed north, but
Speaker 1: which north. The farther they sailed, navigators realized that their
Speaker 1: compasses were influenced by a magnetic force that didn't correspond
Speaker 1: with the directions on their charts. Accurate navigation depended on
Speaker 1: calculating the difference between what the compass pointed to and
Speaker 1: where they were actually sailing. That's because there are two
Speaker 1: North poles and they're in different places. Magnetic north is
Speaker 1: a spot that compass needles point to in response to
Speaker 1: Earth's magnetic field. Its location is always shifting. During Perry's expeditions,
Speaker 1: it was an Arctic Canada, but it's been moving towards
Speaker 1: Siberia in recent years. True North is a geographical spot
Speaker 1: located at ninety degrees north latitude. It's the pinnacle of
Speaker 1: the grid of latitude and longitude devised by Greek geographers
Speaker 1: as early as the third century BC that allows people
Speaker 1: to pinpoint their position on Earth. True North is what
Speaker 1: we think of as the North Pole. If you were
Speaker 1: to stand at this point, you would face south in
Speaker 1: every direction. So imagine yourself as a sixteenth century European
Speaker 1: looking at a map. Between Europe and the North Pole
Speaker 1: lay a vast, uncharted belt of ocean punctuated with volcanic
Speaker 1: islands and impassable ice. To the west late unexplored Greenland
Speaker 1: and North America, and to the east stretched the frozen
Speaker 1: seas North Siberia. One possible route through this unmapped expanse
Speaker 1: was the hoped for Northwest Passage, believed to go westward
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic and over the top of North America
Speaker 1: to the Pacific Ocean. The other, the Northeast Passage, allegedly
Speaker 1: extended the length of the Siberian Seas to Japan. No
Speaker 1: one knew if these roots truly existed or what mortal
Speaker 1: dangers explorers would face. An English adventurer named Martin Frobisher
Speaker 1: was determined to find the Northwest Passage. Born in Yorkshire,
Speaker 1: around Frobisher had sailed around the Eastern Atlantic as a
Speaker 1: privateer before setting his heart on the passage. He convinced
Speaker 1: a group of English traders to sponsor his voyage. He
Speaker 1: promised the riches of Cathay as a return on their investments.
Speaker 1: Frobisher first obtained a fleet of tiny ships. The two
Speaker 1: larger vessels, the Gabriel and the Michael, weighed only thirty
Speaker 1: tons each, about a quarter of the size of the
Speaker 1: Golden Hind the ship Sir Francis Drake sailed around the world.
Speaker 1: The third ship was smaller than a dinghy. Frobisher departed
Speaker 1: in fifteen seventy six and Queen Elizabeth waved farewell. He
Speaker 1: rounded the southern tip of Greenland, and then a huge
Speaker 1: storm separated the ships. The smallest was never seen again,
Speaker 1: but Michael turned back to England. Frobisher sailed onward to
Speaker 1: the north, eventually coming to an enormous bay at the
Speaker 1: southern end of what is now called Baffin Island. He
Speaker 1: mistook the bay for a strait to Asia. Inuite men
Speaker 1: and kayaks approached the ship, and their appearance convinced him
Speaker 1: incorrectly that he had indeed sailed through the Northwest Passage
Speaker 1: and reached some part of Asia. The first part of
Speaker 1: his mission quote unquote achieved. Frobisher got down to the
Speaker 1: second part, locating ridges, but after a few weeks of
Speaker 1: exploring the area, cold weather forced the Englishman to leave.
Speaker 1: Frobisher made sure to gather some souvenirs, one of which
Speaker 1: was a rock as great as a halfpenny loaf. A
Speaker 1: government official route back in England. Three appraisers said the
Speaker 1: stone was worthless, but a fourth set it contained gold
Speaker 1: that was enough to launch Frobisher's second voyage to North America,
Speaker 1: and what happened next would have huge consequences for the
Speaker 1: future of British exploration in the area. After landing at
Speaker 1: a place Frobisher called Countess of Warwick's Island, the crew
Speaker 1: began filling the ship's holds with as much of the
Speaker 1: glittering rock as they could find. Unfortunately, they also clashed
Speaker 1: with the Inuit killing several and taking some this hostages
Speaker 1: back to England. We'll talk about what led to this
Speaker 1: event in a future episode. Frobisher escaped to England with
Speaker 1: two hundred tons of ore, thinking that it would prove
Speaker 1: the Northwest Passage was everything they'd hoped for. You might
Speaker 1: think that those deadly battles would have kept Frobisher away,
Speaker 1: but you would be wrong. In fact, he had even
Speaker 1: bigger plans. In eight he set off from England with
Speaker 1: the Queen's blessing and a fleet of fifteen ships laden
Speaker 1: with supplies to establish a colony, England's first in North America,
Speaker 1: to guard and extract the gold. The crew had high hopes,
Speaker 1: but nothing went as planned. As they neared their destination,
Speaker 1: a huge storm sank the ship containing their housing materials.
Speaker 1: It was snowing in summer, so they knew it would
Speaker 1: be impossible to build a colony that year. Instead, the
Speaker 1: crew filled their cargo holds with more than a thousand
Speaker 1: tons of ore and departed just a few days later.
Speaker 1: But the worst news was yet to come. The ore
Speaker 1: didn't contain any gold. It was iron pye write, appropriately
Speaker 1: known as Fool's gold. The so called Northwest Passage was
Speaker 1: a bust, Queen Elizabeth and the English merchants lost their investments.
Speaker 1: The company founded to organize the colony went bankrupt. Brobisher's
Speaker 1: reputation was ruined, and it seemed like a northwest passage
Speaker 1: would remain elusive. England was out of the game for now,
Speaker 1: but another country was up for the challenge. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. M explorers from the Netherlands were determined to
Speaker 1: find a northeast passage. Following Frobisher's defeat, several Dutch expeditions
Speaker 1: had fanned out to the east, searching along the ragged
Speaker 1: coast of Siberia for an opening for Dutch merchants and
Speaker 1: traders seeking to expand commerce with Asia. It was their
Speaker 1: best option. The Dutch were fighting a war of independence
Speaker 1: with Spain for almost a century and eighty years work
Speaker 1: and so it was going on this whole time, and
Speaker 1: Spain had such a fleet. The last thing they wanted
Speaker 1: to do was to be running into the Spanish fleet.
Speaker 1: That's Andrea Pitzer, journalist and author of the new book
Speaker 1: Ice Bound Hip Wrecked at the Edge of the World,
Speaker 1: which recounts the three polar voyages of Dutch explorer William
Speaker 1: Barrens If Spain had these southern roots that they were using,
Speaker 1: then it made a lot of sense for the new
Speaker 1: Dutch nation, which was trying to get away from Spain
Speaker 1: and established his own empire and its own independence. It
Speaker 1: made sense for them to go north, and so they
Speaker 1: were very vested at first in this northern passage, as
Speaker 1: were England for some of the same reasons. There was
Speaker 1: one problem, you know, very little was known in Europe
Speaker 1: at this time about the hierarchic above the continental landmasks.
Speaker 1: People had gotten to southern Nova Zembla before people had
Speaker 1: gotten around to Archangel and had started trade with Russia.
Speaker 1: But when he got up to the Hierarchic, there was
Speaker 1: just so much that was still unknown. Nova Zembla, now
Speaker 1: often known by its Russian name Novaya Zemblia, is a long,
Speaker 1: skinny archipelago off the coast of northern Russia, and it
Speaker 1: was William barrenss first destination on his search for a
Speaker 1: northeast passage on the fir to his three voyages in
Speaker 1: Barns and his crew sailed his ship Mercury as far
Speaker 1: as Nova Zembla's western shore. The island lies north to south,
Speaker 1: creating a barrier for sailors going east. Barren sailed north
Speaker 1: along the coast and reached its uppermost point. Then he
Speaker 1: encountered a seed shop with ice. As historian Jeanettemursky writes
Speaker 1: in her book To the Arctic, he maneuvered his ship
Speaker 1: from patch to patch of open water, advancing, retreating, dodging, advancing,
Speaker 1: zig zagging over fire miles, looking for a way through.
Speaker 1: After struggling for twenty five days, Barrens was forced to
Speaker 1: return home, but not before he and his men attempted
Speaker 1: to kill a herd of two thousand pound walruses with
Speaker 1: their hatchets. They got a couple of ivory tusks. One
Speaker 1: of the things Barents discovered was Nova Zembla was not
Speaker 1: connected to any polar continent. For a long time, it
Speaker 1: was thought there was a group of islands or a
Speaker 1: continent at the top of the globe, and so when
Speaker 1: he was able to sail around these islands to the north,
Speaker 1: it was clear that it wasn't connected to a polar continent.
Speaker 1: That discovery prompted another voyage the following year, but Barons
Speaker 1: found his route barred by ice. In fifte six, Barons
Speaker 1: convinced a group of Amsterdam merchants to back another voyage.
Speaker 1: They outfitted two ships captained by Jacob von Heemskirk and
Speaker 1: Jon Cornelis Rip, with Barrens serving as Van Heemskirk's pilot
Speaker 1: and navigator. This time, instead of sailing east along the
Speaker 1: coast of Scandinavia, they took what they hoped was a
Speaker 1: shortcut and sailed due north. A month after their departure,
Speaker 1: they reached a small island where they killed a polar bear,
Speaker 1: naming it Bear Island. They realized they had discovered a
Speaker 1: large archipelago of polar islands just six hundred miles from
Speaker 1: the North Pole. The waters teemed with whales walrus. The
Speaker 1: men collected thousands of birds eggs on the beaches and cliffs.
Speaker 1: They charted the coast and named the island Spitzbergen, meaning
Speaker 1: jagged Mountains. Today's pittsburg In refers to the largest island,
Speaker 1: and the entire archipelago is named Small Bard. The two
Speaker 1: ships couldn't agree on what to do next. Rip eventually
Speaker 1: sailed home, while Barrens and Van Heemskirk sailed east to
Speaker 1: Nova Zembla, hoping that the fortune of their journey thus
Speaker 1: far would continue, it did not. While they were able
Speaker 1: to dodge massive icebergs and round the northern point of
Speaker 1: the island, the constantly moving sea ice soon closed in
Speaker 1: and threatened to crush the ship. Only Barrens's skills saved
Speaker 1: them from disaster. As the temperatures dropped and signaled the
Speaker 1: coming of winter, they anchored in a small bay on
Speaker 1: the northeast coast. The men suddenly understood that they had
Speaker 1: no choice, but, as crew member Garrett de Verer later
Speaker 1: wrote in Great Cold, poverty, misery, and grief, to stay
Speaker 1: all that winter. The men built a crude shelter out
Speaker 1: of driftwood without the help of their carpenter, who had
Speaker 1: inconveniently died during its construction. They had to lug the
Speaker 1: over frozen terrain eight miles to the side of the hut,
Speaker 1: all while being followed by hungry polar bears. They burned
Speaker 1: more driftwood to stay warm, but even inside the shelter,
Speaker 1: one side of a freshly washed shirt would dry while
Speaker 1: the other side remained frozen. An inch of ice coated
Speaker 1: the walls. Inside the hut. Darkness rained twenty four hours
Speaker 1: a day, which was fine because it was so cold.
Speaker 1: That their clock froze. They had to tell time by
Speaker 1: a twelve hours sandglass. The climate there basically turns to
Speaker 1: arctic desert. You know, it's really another world. And I
Speaker 1: think of how amazing it must have been for them
Speaker 1: to kind of come across the setting and then live
Speaker 1: in it. When the men managed to shoot a polar bear,
Speaker 1: they used the bears fat as fuel and lived on
Speaker 1: the meat. Weeks pass and then months. But wait, it
Speaker 1: gets worse. They eat polar bear liver and they almost die.
Speaker 1: Not the vitamin A. Here's the thing about polar bear liver.
Speaker 1: It contains a near lethal amount of vitamin A. Their
Speaker 1: skin peels off. They got hyper vitaminosis. The men grew
Speaker 1: weaker and came down with scurvy and often deadly vitamin
Speaker 1: C deficiency. But in February the sun returned, and in
Speaker 1: May they seized the opportunity to escape. Their ship was
Speaker 1: beyond repair. That left two small rowboats, and the men
Speaker 1: made them seeworthy as best they could. In June seven,
Speaker 1: more than a year from when they set out from Europe,
Speaker 1: barrens and the crew began their way down the icy
Speaker 1: coast for home. They hadn't gotten far when a gale
Speaker 1: threatened to capsize their boat, and they had to seek
Speaker 1: refuge on an ice flow. There After, sustaining the hopes
Speaker 1: of the crew for as long as he could, William
Speaker 1: Barrens died, but his men pressed on for more than
Speaker 1: sixteen hundred miles. Finally, the Arctic castaways were rescued by
Speaker 1: a ship sailed by Jon rip from whom they had
Speaker 1: parted at Spitsbergen. The value of Barrens's discovery of spitzburg
Speaker 1: and his exploration and mapping of Nova Zembla was immediately
Speaker 1: apparent to European geographers and the public. He is the
Speaker 1: first in recorded history that actually rounded it and saw
Speaker 1: like what was that far north? And Small Bar is
Speaker 1: even farther north in the northern end of Nova Zembla.
Speaker 1: And so the fact that on that third voyage he
Speaker 1: both discovered Spitzbergen, got that far north about just above
Speaker 1: Small Bard, and then came over and went over Nova Zembla,
Speaker 1: that's pretty incredible. They were not actively scientists, but they
Speaker 1: were sort of these proto scientists. They didn't always understand
Speaker 1: their discoveries, but they made it possible for us to
Speaker 1: understand what they saw. Even when they weren't able to
Speaker 1: understand it at the time. Not long after survivors got
Speaker 1: back to the Netherlands, Garrett devere published his journal of
Speaker 1: Barnes's three voyages and the hardships at the men faced
Speaker 1: before they were rescued. The drama of the final voyage
Speaker 1: captivated readers within two years of the survive having sailors
Speaker 1: getting back. There were additions in Dutch and in German
Speaker 1: and Latin, in French right away, in Italian and then
Speaker 1: a few years later in English, and their adventures were
Speaker 1: so legendary that William Shakespeare actually mentioned their ordeal in
Speaker 1: passing in Twelfth Night, and you know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: incredible to have this international bestseller in this pretty early
Speaker 1: era of printing at that point. And then in addition,
Speaker 1: there were journals from Huigan von Wyncholten, who was on
Speaker 1: Barren's first two voyages, another Dutchman, and uh, those really
Speaker 1: changed some of the terrain and cartographical understandings of the
Speaker 1: territory that they saw as well. So you know, it's
Speaker 1: an amazing adventure story and it changed people's awareness of
Speaker 1: like the existence of the Arctic and what was going
Speaker 1: on there. But they did also make these scientific discoveries.
Speaker 1: They didn't just map the geography of the High Arctic
Speaker 1: above Europe from Spitzberg and across the Nova Zembla. They
Speaker 1: also made discoveries in ornithology and optics. They really change
Speaker 1: the popular understanding of the Arctic. They also introduced the
Speaker 1: popular character of an explorer. In the published account, Barren's
Speaker 1: displayed remarkable endurance in the face of hardship. His courage
Speaker 1: when threatened by storms and ice, lifted the men's spirits
Speaker 1: despite near impossible odds. Barrens helped save the men's lives
Speaker 1: and even sacrificed his own. These characteristics defined explorers from
Speaker 1: then on. Barren's suffering was so extraordinary, and the Arctic
Speaker 1: setting was so unique, particularly as we were saying, in
Speaker 1: terms of having this long account from the trip from
Speaker 1: the point of view of the people who actually survived it,
Speaker 1: and it kind of ended up redefining in some ways
Speaker 1: the nature of what the explorer was. After Barrens, a
Speaker 1: few more explorers added important details to Europe's growing knowledge
Speaker 1: of the Arctic. English navigator Henry Hudson explored the possible
Speaker 1: northeast and northwest passages for his first two voyages, Hudson
Speaker 1: sailed east, reaching Spitsbergen in seven and reporting on the
Speaker 1: abundance of whales and seals. On the second voyage, in Sight,
Speaker 1: he was blocked by ice in the land mass of
Speaker 1: Nova Zembla, just as Barns had been. The following year,
Speaker 1: working for the Dutch East India Company, Hudson investigated a
Speaker 1: possible northwest passage he'd heard about, the New York River
Speaker 1: that now bears his name. He explored it for a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty miles before realizing it went nowhere near Asia.
Speaker 1: On his final expedition, again under the English flag, he
Speaker 1: sailed into Canada's Hudson Bay, named after himself. Hudson mistook
Speaker 1: the giant inland bay for an ocean and sailed to
Speaker 1: its southern extremity before realizing it was a dead end. Eventually,
Speaker 1: the crew turned restless and homesick. They mutinied, forcing Hudson,
Speaker 1: his teenage son, and several sick crew members into a
Speaker 1: small boat. The boat was set adrift and never seen again.
Speaker 1: A few years later, English mariner William Baffin, the eponym
Speaker 1: of the island search for the Northwest passage by sailing
Speaker 1: up the western coast of Greenland, farther than any European
Speaker 1: had at that time. He realized the waters west of
Speaker 1: Greenland were basically a large bay. He sailed down the
Speaker 1: eastern coast of Arctic Canada and observed the entrances to
Speaker 1: three large waterways that appeared to go west from Baffin Bay.
Speaker 1: One of them was a true northwest passage, but Barons
Speaker 1: didn't know that because he saw the passages completely blocked
Speaker 1: by ice. He returned home and told his sponsors that
Speaker 1: the roots he found were unnavigable. Explorers less interest in
Speaker 1: the region after that, and no navigators sailed that far
Speaker 1: north in Baffin Bay for another two hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: six years. We'll be right back over the seventeenth and
Speaker 1: eighteenth centuries, explorers continued to fill in the blank spaces
Speaker 1: on the Arctic map. They were learning the rules of
Speaker 1: surviving in the Arctic and what dangers lay in the
Speaker 1: unforgiving region. They had mapped portions of the coastline of Spitzbergen, Greenland, Canada,
Speaker 1: and Russia. They discovered uninhabited islands and waterways. They'd met
Speaker 1: indigenous peoples and traded goods in exchange for geographical information,
Speaker 1: but beyond that, the Arctic was unknown territory. Was it
Speaker 1: land or water? Was it cold all the time? Did
Speaker 1: the ice melt? Or did an as yet undiscovered tongue
Speaker 1: of land linked Greenland to Siberia Across the top of
Speaker 1: the world. People were only too willing to fill in
Speaker 1: the blank space at the top of the map with
Speaker 1: their aspirations and dreams. It seemed that the less people
Speaker 1: knew about the conditions at the North Pole, the more
Speaker 1: fantastic the theories, and the more important it became to
Speaker 1: find out if they were true. Armchair geographers seized on
Speaker 1: the observations made by the early explorers and devised their
Speaker 1: own theories about what lay beyond the ice. One theory
Speaker 1: was called the open Polar Sea. The idea was that
Speaker 1: the North Pole lay in the center of a warm
Speaker 1: polar sea surrounded by a ring of thick ice. It
Speaker 1: seems ludicrous now, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
Speaker 1: it dovetailed with the information explorers had published. Some suggested
Speaker 1: that the warm water currents that appeared to influence the
Speaker 1: growth of vegetation in the polar regions might stem from
Speaker 1: a large, warm sea at the north Pole, and it
Speaker 1: was wrong to presume that extremely cold temperatures duly recorded
Speaker 1: by explorers got progressively colder in higher latitudes. The open
Speaker 1: Polar Sea theory emerged mainly from wishful thinking. Barns, Hudson
Speaker 1: and others failed to navigate the northwest or northeast passages,
Speaker 1: so many navigators hope that a passage due north over
Speaker 1: the North Pole would prove easier. Here is Andrea Pitzer. First,
Speaker 1: we have to remember that they're imagining a land that
Speaker 1: they don't know at all, and they're trying to picture
Speaker 1: what's possible there. But also there is a kind of
Speaker 1: an internal logic that is certainly in play fairly early on,
Speaker 1: and by Baron's time, is very much in play in
Speaker 1: which they know that that you've got this part of
Speaker 1: the earth that's tilted closer to the sun, that's exposed
Speaker 1: to the sun for longer during these long, long days
Speaker 1: um in which the sun would not set in the summer,
Speaker 1: because that's what the Arctic circle is is once you're
Speaker 1: above the circle, that there's a point at which you're
Speaker 1: going to have days where the sun is not setting.
Speaker 1: And of course the further north you go, you have
Speaker 1: you know a lot of days, you have whole months
Speaker 1: in which the sun is not setting, and so the
Speaker 1: idea was, if that's exposed to the sun all the time,
Speaker 1: then it's going to be warm. And so for a
Speaker 1: long time there was this idea that either ice just
Speaker 1: formed around the continents and if you could just sort
Speaker 1: of get away from the continents then you would get
Speaker 1: to the open polar sea. And other people thought if
Speaker 1: you had as you got close to our to Trickle,
Speaker 1: there was like a ring of ice and if you
Speaker 1: could just break through that ring of ice, then you'd
Speaker 1: be golden. In England, the theory gained support thanks to
Speaker 1: a lawyer and government official named Danes Barrington. He studied
Speaker 1: the accounts of past polar explorers and interviewed whalers who
Speaker 1: worked in the Arctic. He concluded that an open polar see,
Speaker 1: if not a certainty, was worth investigating. He presented his
Speaker 1: ideas in seventeen seventy to the Royal Society, England's leading
Speaker 1: scientific organization. Barrington's proposal made its way to the British Admiralty,
Speaker 1: the government agency that runs the Royal Navy. Barrington had
Speaker 1: no firsthand knowledge about the Arctic, but he was very persuasive.
Speaker 1: He convinced the admiralty to send an expedition to the
Speaker 1: North Pole in seventeen seventy three, the first true voyage
Speaker 1: to the Pole ever attempted. A decorated naval officer named
Speaker 1: Constantine Phipps was put in charge. He captained a ship
Speaker 1: called the Racehorse, and his second in command, the awesomely
Speaker 1: named skeffing to Lutwidge, helmed the ship Carcass. They left
Speaker 1: London in June seventeen seventy three and sailed north to Spitsbergen,
Speaker 1: aiming for the Pole. In the one and seventy five
Speaker 1: years since Barents had discovered the islands, whaling fleets had
Speaker 1: set up operations on Spalbard's shores, but it was still
Speaker 1: a dangerous outpost. Phipps got to the northern coast of
Speaker 1: Spitzbergen but ran into ice. He was forced to turn
Speaker 1: around without gaining much insight on the existence of an
Speaker 1: open polar sea. But on the other hand, the voyage
Speaker 1: didn't disprove the open Polar sea, and later expeditions could
Speaker 1: theoretically gain more clues. Phipps's main contribution to polar knowledge
Speaker 1: was the chart of his route due north for the
Speaker 1: Pole that future voyages would follow. He also set a
Speaker 1: record for the farthest northern point reached by Europeans, the
Speaker 1: claim to fame that would stand for thirty three years,
Speaker 1: but further voyages to the poll were put on hold.
Speaker 1: The British government now had bigger things to worry about,
Speaker 1: like the revolution brewing and it's American colonies. Interest in
Speaker 1: a possible open polar sea remained high, though, influencing exploration
Speaker 1: well into the nineteenth century. Perhaps the bizarre theory persisted
Speaker 1: for so long because no one could definitively disprove it.
Speaker 1: One thing was certain after centuries of exploration, reaching the
Speaker 1: North Pole would not be easy, but that wouldn't stop
Speaker 1: people from trying. They always seemed to underestimate how far
Speaker 1: they really needed to go. But they knew even then
Speaker 1: that rather than sailing across the middle latitudes, they would
Speaker 1: be quicker if they could go over the top of
Speaker 1: the planet. So there was always this hope that that
Speaker 1: would happen. Another popular theory from the era seems even
Speaker 1: less likely. An American former army officer named John Cleave Simms, Jr.
Speaker 1: Proposed in April eighteen that the Earth was made up
Speaker 1: of five concentric spheres. He suggested Earth's interior was hollow,
Speaker 1: with entry points at the north and south poles, no
Speaker 1: doubt inspired by the open polar c theory, Sims argued
Speaker 1: that refraction of the Sun's rays entering Earth at the
Speaker 1: polls would create never ending daylight and a warm environment.
Speaker 1: The concept became known as Sims holes. Sims proposed a
Speaker 1: polar expedition to confirm his hollow Earth theory. He wrote,
Speaker 1: I asked one hundred brave companions, well equipped to start
Speaker 1: from Siberia in the fall season, with reindeer and slays
Speaker 1: on the ice of the frozen sea. I engage we
Speaker 1: find warm and rich land stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals.
Speaker 1: If not men on reaching one degree northward of latitude
Speaker 1: eight two, we will return in the succeeding spring. Sims
Speaker 1: sent hundreds of copies to leaders in numerous countries. Let's
Speaker 1: keep in mind that no one in Sims's time had
Speaker 1: yet reached eighty two degrees north, which passes through the
Speaker 1: northern extremity of Greenland, much less one degree totaling sixty
Speaker 1: nautical miles north of it. Sims's Son later wrote, so
Speaker 1: fixed in his mind was the belief of the truth
Speaker 1: of his theory that for ten years, although laboring under
Speaker 1: great pecuniary embarrassments and buffeted by the ridicule and sarcasm
Speaker 1: of an opposing world, he persevered in his endeavors to
Speaker 1: interest others in it so as to enable him to
Speaker 1: test its truth by a polar expedition, But without success. Undaunted,
Speaker 1: Sims lectured across America, gaining a few followers but many
Speaker 1: more detractors. After he died in nine his theory of
Speaker 1: holes at the poles melded into what was left of
Speaker 1: the argument supporting the existence of an open polar sea.
Speaker 1: Yet the mystery of the North Pole remained enticing generation
Speaker 1: after generation of explorers. Their appetites had been wetted by
Speaker 1: the tantalizingly incomplete conclusions of Frobisher, Barrens, Hudson, and Baffin,
Speaker 1: they were determined to uncover its secrets for themselves and
Speaker 1: for their national honor, reaching ever further into the Arctic,
Speaker 1: no matter the cost, presented an irresistible test of courage
Speaker 1: and endurance. As we'll see in future episodes, plenty of
Speaker 1: adventurers answered that Challenge. The Quest for the North Pole
Speaker 1: is hosted by Me cat Long. This episode was researched
Speaker 1: and written by Me, with fat checking by Austin Thompson.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Aaron McCarthy and Tyler Klang. The
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Dylan Fagin. The show is edited by
Speaker 1: Dylan Fagan. For transcripts, a glossary, and to learn more
Speaker 1: about this episode, visit Mental flaws dot com slash podcast.
Speaker 1: The Quest for the North Pole is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Mental floss. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, check out the I heart Radio app,
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