A Negro Explorer at the North Pole
Matthew Henson, 1912
A Black explorer's own account of the polar campaigns: hauling sledges, living as an Inuit among Inuit, and pushing north with Peary.
Matthew Henson
1866–1955
Congress awarded Henson a gold medal in 1944, decades after the expedition, when most of its fame had long since settled on Peary.
Feels like adventure, awe and wonder.
The kind of weather that makes shelter feel like a rumour.
Naturally there were frequent storms and intense cold, and in regard to the storms of the Arctic regions of North Greenland and Grant Land, the only word I can use to describe them is “terrible,” in the fullest meaning it conveys. The effect of such storms of wind and snow, or rain, is abject physical terror, due to the realization of perfect helplessness. I have seen rocks a hundred and a hundred and fifty pounds in weight picked up by the storm and blown for distances of ninety or a hundred feet to the edge of a precipice, and there of their own momentum go hurtling through space to fall in crashing fragments at the base. Imagine the effect of such a rainfall of death-dealing boulders on the feelings of a little group of three or four, who have sought the base of the cliff for shelter. Books by Matthew Henson
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