Abstract
NO geographical goal has been so long and ardently desired as the North Pole. The glamour of the Dark Continent, the mystery of the South Polar lands, the lure of Potosi and Golconda, have never touched the popular imagination like the attraction of the North Pole. The whale and seal hunters of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries developed the art of Arctic travel; while the Eskimo, the polar fauna, and the heroism of the knights of the frozen seas, kept an undue share of popular geographical interest “North where the bergs careen.” The commercial hopes that led to the search for the North-West Passage and the Franklin tragedy for a while made the Arctic Archipelago the centre of popular interest, but the North Pole, as a fixed spot, as definite as the winning post of a race, has kept its own as the goal most prized by sporting geographers.
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GANNETT, H., CHESTER, C. & TITTMANN, O. Commander Peary's Expedition to the North Pole . Nature 83, 283–286 (1910). https://doi.org/10.1038/083283a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/083283a0