American Experience (1988) s20e10 Episode Script

1
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NARRATOR:
In the summer of 1897,
the explorer Robert Peary
arrived
in the northern reaches
of Greenland
on his third expedition
to the Arctic.
A lieutenant in the U.S. Navy,
Peary had spent
the last ten years surveying
and charting Greenland's ice cap
in search
of the most direct route
to his ultimate destination:
the North Pole.
Peary had long been drawn
to the uncharted territories
of the Arctic.
As a sickly young boy,
he had been captivated
by stories of polar exploration.
Later, after becoming
a naval engineer,
he borrowed $500 from his mother
and bought passage
on a ship to Greenland.
While there,
he found his destiny.
He would become the discoverer
of the North Pole.
"No man could obtain
a more royal monument,"
Peary declared,
"than to have his name
written forever
"across the mysterious rocks
and ice
which form the North Pole."
BRUCE HENDERSON:
Peary was part of an age
of exploration.
And I've always looked on him
as being one of the last
of the old-time explorers.
And by that, I mean
the late 19th century explorers
who just didn't much care
about the people
or the wildlife.
They just wanted to get
where they wanted to get
In Peary's case, the North Pole.
He was somebody who was
so determined to achieve fame
Which, of course,
being the discoverer
of the North Pole
would get him
That he was ruled by that.
NARRATOR:
Now, Peary was back in Greenland
with an audacious scheme
to excavate
an enormous meteorite
and take it back to sell
in the United States.
He planned to use the profits
to finance his first
full-scale assault on the Pole.
As always, Peary turned
to the local Inuit
for assistance.
Over the years,
the men had driven
his dog sleds,
and the women had sewn
his clothes.
They had also helped finance
his expeditions.
In exchange for biscuits
and coffee,
the Eskimos gave Peary fur
and ivory, which he sold
at a huge profit back home.
HENDERSON:
Peary's relationship
with the Eskimos
was certainly symbiotic.
They got something
out of it, too.
They got guns,
they got sewing needles,
pots, pans,
some things that they wouldn't
have gotten otherwise
if they hadn't traded with Peary
or some other white explorer
that came in the area.
What Peary got was,
in my estimation, a lot more.
Peary would not have survived
in the polar regions
without the natives,
without their knowledge,
without their experience.
NARRATOR:
On this trip,
Peary was also intent
on fulfilling an unusual request
from the Museum
of Natural History in New York.
The museum's curator,
Franz Boas,
wanted him to bring an Eskimo
back for study in New York.
(man calling to dogs)
IRA JACKNIS:
In the late 19th century,
there was a tradition
of anthropologists working
with visiting primitives,
ethnic people, to bring them
from their foreign countries
to the metropolis.
And I think
what was in Boas's mind is,
he was thinking,
"Well, here is this explorer
"going to this very distant area
"with people
who are virtually uncontacted.
"And if we can bring
a native person
"to New York to help us
document our collections,
"this would be
a wonderful opportunity
to get a lot of information
very quickly."
And then he would go back
the next year.
NARRATOR:
That August,
the western coast of Greenland
was largely free of drift ice,
and Peary was able to navigate
through to Cape York,
the southernmost settlement
of the Polar Eskimos.
That year, two families
were living in the region,
including Qisuk and his
seven-year-old son, Minik.
MINIK (dramatized):
"I lived in a little igloo
with my father.
"My mother was dead,
"and I had no brothers
and sisters,
"so I loved my father very much.
"Everyone liked my father.
"'Keeshoo, ' they used to say,
'is the best hunter
"of all our people.'
"My father and the rest
of the men saw the big ship
"when it was far out
in the water,
"and they went out
in the kayaks to meet it.
"I stayed ashore and watched.
(boat horn tooting)
"Soon Lieutenant Peary
and the others
"would come ashore.
"We knew what white men do,
"so our men hid
all the furs and ivory
to keep them
from being stolen."
NARRATOR:
When Peary came ashore,
he asked Qisuk and Minik
for their help.
A few years earlier,
Peary had convinced an Eskimo
to show him his people's
only source of iron
Three giant meteorites
buried in the ice.
Peary then laid claim
to the meteorites,
even scratching his initials
on the surface of one.
Qisuk and several others labored
for nine days until finally
they heaved the 40-ton meteorite
on board Peary's ship.
The explorer paid them
with guns, knives and biscuits.
Then he made
a startling proposition.
MINIK (dramatized):
"Lieutenant Peary asked
if some of us wouldn't like
"to go back with him,
where there were great buildings
"and railway trains and lights
and many people,
"and where the sun shone
every day in winter,
"and where people didn't have
to wear heavy furs to keep warm.
"He coaxed my father
and the brave man Nuktaq,
"who were the strongest
and wisest heads of our tribe,
"to go with him to America.
"Our people were afraid
to let them go,
"but Peary promised them
"that they should have Nuktaq
and my father back
"within a year,
and that with them
"would come a great stock
of guns and ammunition,
"and wood and metal and presents
for the women and children.
"So my father believed
"that for so much good
and comfort for his people,
"they should let him
and Nuktaq make the trip.
"Nuktaq could not part
from Atangana, his wife,
"and his little girl Aviaq,
so he took them with him.
"My mother was dead,
"and my father would not go
without me,
"so we said a last farewell
to home
and went on Peary's ship."
NARRATOR:
And so, six Eskimos set off
on the long journey to America.
Also onboard were skeletons
Peary had secretly stolen
from Eskimo graves.
Like the meteorite,
he hoped to sell the bones
to the Museum
of Natural History.
NARRATOR:
On September 30, 1897,
Robert Peary's ship docked
at Ordnance Wharf,
directly adjacent
to the Brooklyn Bridge.
Peary had cabled ahead
with news of his exotic cargo.
Now a huge crowd eagerly
awaited his arrival.
20,000 people visited the ship
on the first two days
to see the giant meteorite
and the six Eskimos.
But no one was more impressed
than young Minik.
Never before had he seen
so many people.
At most, his Inuit community
comprised
only 234 people,
spread over many miles.
Now he found himself
in the heart
of a teeming metropolis.
(streetcar bell rings)
MINIK (dramatized):
"Oh, I can remember it
very well, that day
"when we first saw
the big houses,
"and saw so many people
and heard the bells of the cars.
"It was like a land that
we thought must be heaven.
"When they took us ashore,
"they brought five big barrels.
"They held the bones
of our people who had died.
"When we asked them why,
"they told us that they were
bringing them here
"to put in nice boxes,
where they would
be kept safe forever."
NARRATOR:
Peary had arranged
for the meteorite to be taken
to the American Museum
of Natural History.
But no one had made arrangements
for the Eskimos.
DAVID HURST THOMAS:
There was a lapse of two years
between the time that Boas made
his initial request
and Peary arrived in Brooklyn.
Boas had completely
forgotten about that
as a possibility and,
in fact, he was up to his ears
in sending out
anthropological expeditions
on the Jessup expedition,
to the North Pacific.
So he was stunned
when he found that Peary
had brought Eskimos back
to work with anthropological
recording here at the museum.
NARRATOR:
The museum placed the Eskimos
under the care
of its superintendent,
William Wallace.
Wallace scrambled to free up
space in the basement
to accommodate the four adults
and two children.
Word soon spread that Eskimos
were being kept at the museum
and crowds gathered outside,
hoping to catch a glimpse
of the exotic visitors.
Many were disappointed to learn
that the Inuit were not
on display
in an exhibit.
A New York Times reporter
accompanied Minik
on a tour of Central Park.
"The sight of a bicycle man
made him howl with glee,"
the reporter noted.
"And he was amazed at the size
of the 'big dogs, '
as he called the horses he saw
in the driveways."
The Eskimo men showed
an interest in the local women,
and even made proposals
of marriage to a few.
But within a few weeks,
the Eskimos came down with colds
that became progressively worse.
Franz Boas was worried.
"Although I am not
formally responsible,
the whole thing falls
on my shoulders,"
he confided to a friend.
"I feel a stone
around my heart."
Boas contacted Peary.
BOAS (dramatized):
"My Dear Lieutenant Peary,
"We feel very much disturbed
regarding the health
"of the Eskimo family
at the museum,
"and I beg to ask
if you will kindly call
"and give us your advice
as to what is best
"to be done for them.
"They seem to have severe
bronchial trouble,
"and we fear that it
may turn into pneumonia.
Sincerely, Franz Boas."
NARRATOR:
But Robert Peary did not reply.
He was en route to Europe
for a series of lectures
promoting his plans
for an expedition to the Pole.
HENDERSON:
I don't think he felt any
responsibility for the Eskimos
once he dropped them off
at the museum.
There's no evidence that he
visited them,
asked them to dinner,
talked to them,
cared about them.
He really gave them
so precious little.
NARRATOR:
Boas attempted to find
the Eskimos a way back home.
The closest that Boas
could arrange
was to get them
back to Labrador.
But Labrador
is a long way from Greenland
and he decided that
would be a mistake.
So they stayed here
and, of course,
they sickened
in the New York environment.
MINIK (dramatized):
"In the hospital,
"all my father ever did
was think about me.
"He never slept and kept watch
over me, day and night.
"He didn't sleep, he didn't eat,
"and when they brought him
something,
"he demanded that they feed me.
"And when I seemed
to have an appetite,
big tears would come
to his eyes."
NARRATOR:
Boas visited Minik
in the hospital
and was impressed
with his intelligence.
"The boy had begun to pick up
a few English words
as soon as he reached
this city," Boas noted.
After six weeks at Bellevue,
the Eskimos' health
had improved enough
for them to return
to the museum.
This time they were given
a more comfortable space
on the sixth floor,
where anthropologists
were eager to study them.
JACKNIS:
The essential
anthropological problem
at the time was
to try to account
for the history
of human cultures.
How did all these people
get to be the way they are?
And how were they related
or not related?
This was really
not known at the time.
If you measured their bodies,
you could compare
the measurements of one group
to the measurements
of the people
on different continents.
The visit of Minik
and his family really fits
into a much larger story
of American anthropology.
The overarching world views
that anthropologists
are working with
are very racist,
built on the notion that
the white people are
at the top of a ladder,
dark-skinned people
are at the bottom of the ladder.
Boas enters with a very
different perspective,
and he's really horrified
with all this.
And he doesn't buy
the initial assumptions.
NARRATOR:
Boas set out to collect data
from the Eskimos
that would challenge
conventional notions
of a racial hierarchy
among the world's peoples.
JACKNIS:
His most radical notion
is to say that people are
not arranged in a hierarchy
of more primitive
to more advanced,
and to better and worse,
but that all people
are essentially the same.
NARRATOR:
But Boas's studies were cut
short in January 1898
when the Eskimos
again became sick,
forcing them to return
to the hospital.
MINIK (dramatized):
"The worst thing for my father
"was when he got so weak
and had to stay in bed
"and couldn't come over to me.
"I cried the whole time
and couldn't eat anything,
"because I was afraid
my father was going to die.
"He very nearly choked
during the night.
"He was calling out for home,
"for his family, his friends
"and me.
I buried my head in my pillow
and just cried."
(coughing)
(coughing continues)
"When I got to feeling better,
they allowed me to go over
"and lie down next to him.
"He knew he was going
to leave me
"and was filled
with the most awful grief.
"'Your father's spirit will
always be with you, Minik, '
"he said in our language.
"He swallowed heavily,
and I knew he was going to die."
NARRATOR:
On February 17, 1898,
Minik's father died.
Initially, there was
a disagreement
over who owned Qisuk's remains.
Eventually, an agreement
was reached:
his internal organs
and brain would remain
at Bellevue for study,
while his skeleton would be sent
to the Museum of Natural
History, to Franz Boas.
JACKNIS:
The whole experience
of Minik and his family,
I think,
was devastating to Boas.
It was a situation
that got out of hand.
It really I think
It was nothing
that he ever dreamed
would happen,
and nothing he ever wanted
to happen.
But when things
like this happened,
you just made the best of it.
NARRATOR:
Boas had the skeleton
cleaned and mounted
for the museum's collection.
He then made a decision
that would come to haunt him.
Boas had museum staff
stage a funeral
of Qisuk on the museum grounds
for Minik to witness.
Boas would later say
the ceremony was intended
to comfort the young Eskimo.
THOMAS:
What Boas said is,
"We wanted to spare Minik
"the pain of knowing
that his father
"had been rendered
into a skeleton
"and was on the shelves
with the rest of
the anthropological specimens."
Boas took it fairly lightly.
He said, "Well, we were doing it
as best for the kid."
But, you know, today that looks
pretty callous.
JACKNIS:
It's very unfortunate
these people died.
He didn't want them to die.
He certainly did want them
to return to their homeland.
But he thought,
well, now that they were dead,
some good could come
of their death
and science could learn
from the records
of their skeletons.
NARRATOR:
Boas notified Peary
of Qisuk's death.
From San Francisco,
Peary telegraphed a reply:
"Deeply regret Eskimo's death.
"Confident everything was done.
Entire responsibility mine."
After Qisuk's death,
William Wallace took Minik
and the other Inuit to live
with him in the Bronx,
but the Eskimos' health
continued to decline.
Within a few weeks, Atangana,
who had been the first
of the Eskimos to sicken,
also died.
Nuktaq prepared a traditional
Inuit burial ritual
for his wife.
According to a detailed account
by one of Boas's assistants,
Nuktaq carried her out
of the house into the barn.
He then "began to talk
to the body,
speaking fast and in a very low
voice," the assistant noted.
With one hand he lifted up
the blanket covering her
and passed his other
over her body
from her forehead to her heart.
He reproached her
for being a Shaman
and not being able
to cure herself,
and added, "I am sure
I shall die myself."
Then he took her by the shoulder
and shook her hard,
telling her to remain
where she was.
On the tenth day
after her death,
Nuktaq was very anxious
to see the grave,
and according to Inuit
tradition,
planned to visit it
every ten days thereafter.
By spring,
Minik's health had improved,
but the others were
still gravely ill.
Wallace took the ailing Eskimos
to upstate New York,
where he owned a farm.
He hoped the mountain air
would improve their health,
but their condition
only worsened.
On May 14, Nuktaq died.
Ten days later his 12-year-old
daughter Aviaq also died.
Franz Boas instructed Wallace
to send Nuktaq and Aviaq's
bodies back to New York,
where their skeletons
would be archived
alongside Qisuk's.
After his companions' death,
Uisaakassak refused to return
to the house
in which Nuktaq had died
and moved into an old shed
near the local church.
"It is very difficult
to keep him there contented,"
noted Wallace,
who managed to convince Peary
to take the 23-year-old Eskimo
with him
to the Arctic that summer.
Eight-year-old Minik, however,
remained in New York.
Wallace and his wife Rhetta
had grown fond of the boy.
They took him into their home
and set about raising him
as one of their own.
He became known as Mene Wallace
and took the middle name Peary.
It had been a year
since Peary brought the six
Polar Eskimos to New York.
Now, Minik was the only one left
in America.
NARRATOR:
Robert Peary arrived
in Greenland
in the fall of 1898.
He would spend the next
four years in the Arctic,
on his most ambitious effort yet
to reach the North Pole.
"If there is no route,"
he declared,
"then I shall make one."
But almost immediately
Peary encountered a series
of setbacks.
During the first winter,
while pushing north
through intense storms
and temperatures hovering
near minus 60 degrees,
the explorer developed frostbite
on his feet,
requiring the amputation
of seven toes.
Undeterred,
he made another push north.
Nothing was heard from him
for more than a year,
and for a while
he was feared lost.
On each advance north,
Peary relied on the Inuits
to drive his sledges.
But with each failure
to reach the Pole,
the number of natives willing
to accompany him dwindled.
In the spring of 1902,
despite the promise of rewards,
Peary was able to convince
just four Eskimos
to travel northward with him
across the frozen sea ice.
HENDERSON:
They thought these crazy
white men were going
to get them killed.
They were taking them out
onto areas of the ice flow
and whatnot that no native in
his right mind would go out on.
Peary would say,
"We're going there
because I want to get there."
Until the white man came
looking for the Pole,
the Eskimos didn't really care
much about the pole.
And why should they?
There wasn't any game there.
There wasn't any water there.
It was a place to go and die.
And the natives had always tried
to stay away from places
where you would go to die.
And they thought it was rather
curious that these guys
like Peary wanted to go
to these dangerous places
that, frankly,
they were afraid of.
NARRATOR:
On April 21, 1902,
dangerous weather conditions
dealt Peary
another crushing setback.
Stalled by storms and rough ice
and still more than 300 miles
from the Pole,
Peary was forced to turn back.
HENDERSON:
The Navy put right in his orders
that, uh, you will get
to the Pole.
We are giving you paid leave
to get to the Pole
and to represent
the United States Navy.
And nothing short will suffice.
Well, he came up short.
NARRATOR:
As Peary struggled
to reach the Pole,
Minik was settling into life
in America with the Wallaces.
He divided his time between
the family home in New York
and their country retreat
upstate.
He became close friends with
the Wallaces' young son Willie
and attended Mount Hope
Public School,
where he learned to read
and write.
"Born in a land
where life means nothing more
than a mere physical existence,"
a journalist noted,
"he has been brought by accident
into an American home to enjoy
all that that means."
Minik was enjoying
the material comforts
of life in America.
Then, suddenly, Minik's new life
began to unravel.
In 1901,
after being accused of
fraudulent use of museum funds,
William Wallace lost his job
at the museum.
Three years later,
Wallace's wife, Rhetta, died
and Willie was sent away
to live with relatives.
Minik dropped out of school.
He and his foster father shared
an apartment on 14th Street
while Wallace struggled
to make ends meet.
Peary was also struggling.
When he returned
from his failed attempt
to reach the North Pole,
he was dismayed to learn
that public support
for his efforts was waning.
It took him three years
to revive public interest
in another expedition
and to raise funds
from wealthy patrons.
HENDERSON:
Peary was a networker,
whether it was the president
of the United States
or whether it was any
of these industrialists,
wealthy men, uh,
Peary did have a way
of garnering their support
and raising money.
He was certainly a showman.
He could go on tours
and circuits
and talk about the North Pole
and show the Eskimo dogs
and tell rather
dramatic stories.
And he did have some charisma.
And he could get people
to believe in him.
NARRATOR:
Finally Peary managed
to raise $100,000
to build a new expedition ship,
which he named after President
Theodore Roosevelt,
one of Peary's most prominent
supporters.
In July 1905,
the explorer set off
for Greenland,
only to return a year later,
having failed to reach the Pole
once again.
HENDERSON:
Getting to the North Pole meant
everything to Robert Peary.
He was obsessed,
and he was determined.
And nothing or nobody was going
to stop him.
NARRATOR:
With Roosevelt's support,
Peary convinced the Navy
to give him another three years
of paid leave to pursue
his Arctic expeditions.
In July 1907,
he announced
what he felt certain
would be his last attempt
to reach the North Pole.
"I believe I shall win
this time," he wrote Roosevelt.
"I believe this is the work
for which God almighty
intended me."
That same year,
Minik made a shocking discovery.
From newspaper accounts
he finally learned the truth
about his father's burial.
It had all been a fake;
his father's bones were being
held at the museum.
The 17-year-old Eskimo grew
melancholic and restless.
"We did our best to cheer him
up," Wallace wrote,
"but it was no use.
"His heart was broken.
He had lost faith in the new
people he had come among."
Chester Beecroft,
a prominent New Yorker,
was moved by Minik's plight
and took his case to Washington.
Beecroft requested that
the government support Minik
and his education.
In a letter
to President Roosevelt,
Beecroft described Minik
as "a national guest
and a national prisoner"
whose condition "is becoming
a national disgrace."
But no one came to Minik's aid.
NARRATOR:
In June 1908,
as he was making
final preparations
for his expedition north,
Robert Peary received a letter
from William Wallace.
WALLACE (dramatized):
"Dear Lieutenant Peary,
"Minik desperately wants
to visit his people up north
"and I beg you to allow him to
accompany you on your journey.
Please let me know if you can
fulfill this request."
NARRATOR:
"I have received your letter
of June 23,"
Peary replied,
"and while I would like to
please Mene in this matter,
"I regret that my ship
will be too crowded
"for me to take him this summer.
"Or if he is very anxious to get
some things from up there,
"I shall be glad to try
to send him back a kayak
or a sledge or whatever
he may most desire."
More than ever,
Peary felt himself
in an intense race
to reach the North Pole.
The previous year,
Frederick Cook, a physician
and Peary's former colleague,
had announced his own plans
to reach the Pole
using a new route.
While the Roosevelt
still lay docked in New York,
Cook was making his way
to Northern Greenland.
HENDERSON:
There's no doubt that Peary was
getting increasingly desperate,
and I think he felt that
he didn't have much time left,
and indeed he didn't.
When he left
on his last polar expedition,
he was 51 years old 50, 51.
I think he thought
that it was now or never.
NARRATOR:
Upon his departure,
Peary made a dark promise
"This time
I will reach the Pole or die."
That August,
Robert Peary finally set up camp
in Northern Greenland.
The following winter,
he set out with 22 Eskimo
drivers and 246 dogs
One of the largest polar
expedition teams ever assembled.
Six weeks later,
while still more than 100 miles
from the Pole,
the size of his crew had
dwindled to just four Eskimos.
Peary would later claim
that with this small team
he reached the North Pole
on April 9, 1909.
(cheering)
Upon his return to the US,
Peary's claim was echoed
across the country.
PEARY:
Here is the cap and climax,
the finish,
the closing of the book
on 400 years of history.
The discovery of the North Pole
on the sixth of April, 1909,
by the last expedition
of the Peary Arctic Club
means that the splendid
frozen jewel of the north,
for which through centuries
men of every nation
have struggled
and suffered and died,
is won at last
and is to be worn forever
by the stars and stripes.
NARRATOR:
But almost immediately,
doubts surfaced
as to whether Peary
had actually reached the Pole.
(whistle blowing)
The same month that Peary
supposedly reached the Pole,
Minik had decided
to leave New York.
Increasingly frustrated
at the museum's refusal
to return his father's bones,
he struck out on his own
for Greenland
with just five dollars
in his pocket.
Minik wrote of his decision
to Chester Beecroft,
who passed his letter
along to the press.
MINIK (dramatized):
"When this reaches you,
I will be well on my way.
"You made a brother of me
"when all the others
that were responsible
"for my being stolen
from my own country failed.
"I don't see any chance
in New York
"and I don't want to be a burden
for you any longer.
"So I go away.
"They won't give me my father's
body out of the museum
"and they never keep
their promise,
"so I'm disgusted
and will leave it all if I can.
"Never mind where I am,
"I'm just working north.
"I am homesick and disgusted,
"and when Commander Peary,
who brought me to New York,
"told me he had no room for me
on his ship, I lost hope.
"This is probably the
last letter I will ever write.
"You see,
I worked my way up here,
"and you can guess
how hard it is
"to beat your way
without any money,
"and many days
I have been hungry
"and many nights I have cried.
"Now I am in Canada,
"and I am sick and weak
and have no more strength
"to fight off
the awful want to die.
"My poor people don't know
"that the meteorite that
Peary took, it fell from a star.
"But they know
that the hungry must be fed
"and cold men must be warmed
"and helpless people cared for
and they do it.
"Wouldn't it be sad if they
forgot these and got civilized?
"I remember one day you told me
that the sure way to get revenge
"is to be unlike the one
that hurt you.
I'm going to die smiling
at Peary and the scientists."
NARRATOR:
When Minik's letter
was published,
his plight created
a national furor.
Six weeks after leaving,
a bedraggled Minik returned
to the city.
The San Francisco Examiner
promptly published an article
with a banner headline
announcing Minik wanted
to shoot Peary.
"I would shoot Mr. Peary
and the museum director,"
Minik reportedly said,
"only I want them to see
"how much more just
a savage Eskimo is
than their enlightened
white selves."
Robert Peary's wife Josephine
was enraged.
The Minik affair, she feared,
was becoming a threat
to her husband's reputation.
HENDERSON:
Minik was giving interviews
with newspapers.
From Peary's point of view, he
didn't like getting bad press.
I mean, that was
the last thing Peary wanted.
He wanted everything
to be positive.
He wanted, you know,
the money flowing in,
the support, the accolades,
everything,
and so Minik was a problem.
NARRATOR:
Josephine Peary and a group
of Peary's supporters
made arrangements for Minik
to join a relief expedition
taking supplies
to the explorer in Greenland.
On July 10, Minik, now 18,
finally left
for his Arctic home,
but not before he was forced
to sign an agreement
stating he would never return
to the United States.
In August 1909, Minik looked out
on his native land
for the first time in 12 years.
As his boat sailed
into Melville Bay,
a thick layer of fog
shrouded the water.
Then, a ship became visible
in the distance.
On board stood Robert Peary,
clad in fur skins.
He was awaiting passage
to New York,
where he would make public
his claim to have reached
the Pole first.
Before Minik
could leave the ship,
Peary forced him
to sign a document
saying that he had received
provisions and supplies
from Peary
"all that is needed to make him
entirely comfortable."
When Minik disembarked,
the local Inuits gathered
excitedly around him.
The ship's crew explained
that the young man
was the son
of the great hunter Qisuk.
Minik was silent.
He had forgotten
his native language.
With gestures, the Eskimos
welcomed him back home.
Sodaq, a powerful shaman,
took Minik under his wing
and began to reintroduce him
into Inuit life.
(dogs barking)
But after a year,
Minik was still
having trouble adapting.
He confided his alienation to
his old friend Chester Beecroft.
MINIK (dramatized):
"I don't think both ends
and the middle of the earth
"are worth the price
that has been paid
"to almost find one pole.
"See all the white bones.
"Where is my father?
"Why am I no longer fit
to live where I was born?
"Not fit to live
where I was kidnapped?
"Why am I an experiment
there and here and tormented
"since the great white pirate
interfered with nature
"and made a failure
and left me a helpless orphan
"young, abandoned,
"10,000 miles from home?
"I have no friend here
or anywhere.
"I am lonely.
"Come up here and I will
show you how to find the Pole.
"I will make you king.
"Then, if you want me, I will go
back to New York with you.
"Or stay here
or go to Hell for you,
my friend when there was none."
NARRATOR:
Minik also told Beecroft
that many Eskimos doubted
that Peary had ever reached
the Pole.
HENDERSON:
Although Minik, I don't think,
is an objective observer
when it comes to Peary,
and certainly he did have
his issues with Peary,
and I think he was embittered.
At the same time,
I think that Minik was reporting
what he was hearing
among Eskimos,
and that was there was doubt
that he had made it that far.
The rest of the world
at that time was gathering
around Peary
and acknowledging him
as the discoverer
of the North Pole,
and Minik's going,
"Well, wait a minute.
This might not have happened."
NARRATOR:
As details about Peary's dash
to the North Pole emerged,
it became apparent
that he would have had to travel
across the ice
at an unprecedented speed to
reach the Pole when he claimed.
Peary continued
to press his case.
He won the endorsement of
the National Geographic Society,
and eventually
his well-connected supporters
convinced Congress
to certify that Peary
had in fact
reached the Pole first.
While Peary worked
to secure his place in history,
Minik continued trying to adapt
to life in the Arctic.
He relearned his native language
and lived with an Eskimo woman
for a while,
but they quarreled often
and Minik again struck out
on his own.
His language skills enabled him
to find work as an interpreter
on American expeditions
in the region,
but gradually he came
to long for the life
he had known in New York.
In the fall of 1916, after
seven years in his homeland,
Minik left the Arctic
and returned to America.
Confident the Polar controversy
still captivated the public,
he contacted the press,
intending to sell the true story
of the discovery
of the North Pole.
But Americans
were preoccupied
with a growing war in Europe
and no longer interested
in who had made it
to the Pole first.
As he waited for offers
that never came,
Minik worked briefly
in a machine shop,
visited with old friends
and considered starting
a trading business.
He talked about returning
to Greenland,
but never acted on it.
Instead, he applied
for American citizenship.
(train chugging)
(train bell clanging)
In the winter of 1917,
Minik headed north
to New Hampshire,
where there was a demand
for lumberjacks.
Life in the lumberjack camp
was hard
and the conditions primitive.
The timber was cut in winter
so it could be sent downstream
to sawmills in the spring.
Minik was in New Hampshire
a year before the flu epidemic
that was sweeping the country
reached the camps
in October 1918.
Minik contracted the disease.
Seven days later,
on October 29th,
Minik died in the home
of a friend.
JACKNIS:
The story of Minik is a tragedy
where someone, frankly,
becomes a stranger
in both worlds,
all of his worlds
His native world,
his newfound world.
Raised as an Inuit,
he comes to New York
at an early age
and finds himself an orphan.
There's so much
that he's uncomfortable with,
that's difficult for him
in New York,
but he makes a go of it,
like many immigrants.
He's trying to learn a new way
of life,
but it's not fulfilling him,
so he tries to go back,
which many immigrants do.
He goes back and tries
to rebuild his traditional life,
and then that doesn't work out,
either,
because he's a different person.
He's not an Inuit.
He has different ideas,
different perspectives,
different ways of looking
at the world
that he's gotten in New York.
He's caught between worlds.
He's not fully Inuit,
he's not fully American.
He's somewhere in between,
and those are very sad cases,
and I think Minik's life
is somewhat of that story.
NARRATOR:
Within a few decades,
the type of research
that Franz Boas had conducted
on Minik and his family
transformed theories
of cultural difference,
discrediting 19th century
concepts of a racial hierarchy.
Appointed to the faculty
at Columbia University,
Boas would come to be regarded
as the founder of modern
American anthropology.
Robert Peary died in 1920
at the age of 63.
Nearly 50 years after his death,
the National Geographic Society
reexamined Peary's records
and concluded that most likely
Peary had fabricated his claim
to have reached the North Pole.
The meteorites Peary
brought back from Greenland
and sold to the Museum
of Natural History for $50,000
remain a popular exhibit.
In 1993, nearly a century
after their deaths,
the bones of Qisuk, Nuktaq,
Antangana and Aviaq
were taken back to Greenland
by a representative
from the museum.
Minik's body was not among them.
He lies buried in a cemetery
overlooking a stream
in Pittsburg, New Hampshire.
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