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magazine / apr08
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April 2008 issue |
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Into Battle (page 3)
After the meal, before we begin our
shuttle back to the cruise ship, a group
of us follow Earle toward the Church
of St. James the Apostle, the oldest
surviving Anglican church in Labrador.
En route, we pass a flake - a platform
of round logs on which fish were once
laid out to dry. Although the platform
looks large, it is only one-tenth the size
of the original.
The church was Earle’s first restoration
project back in 1990. Among the
challenges: periodically repairing windows
broken by polar bears that wander
by during the winter. Near the head of
the church, a triptych of stained glass
casts diffuse light. Earle sings an old
Labrador shanty of the hard fishing life
scratched out from this land God gave
to Cain. The song is a little sad but
mainly lovely, like Battle Harbour itself
on this mauzy day.
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The Great Polar
Controversy
Long before the tourists arrived, Battle
Harbour was the starting point for one
of the most bitter disputes in the annals
of exploration.
On Sept. 5, 1909, American explorer
Robert Peary stopped at the island on his
sea voyage back from the Arctic. He sent
a wire informing The New York Times that
he had reached the North Pole in April,
making him the first explorer to complete
such an expedition. To his dismay,
however, he learned that rival adventurer
Frederick Cook had announced only five
days earlier that he had completed the
trip the previous year.
Peary denounced Cook as a fraud,
and a controversy ensued. Cook lost
credibility when he was found to have
lied about his 1906 ascent of Alaska’s
Mount McKinley, North America’s
highest peak. Peary was later recognized
by the United States Congress
and the National Geographic Society
to be the first explorer to have reached
the North Pole.
Yet historians are still arguing about
the legitimacy of both claims. In his
1997 book, Cook & Peary: The Polar
Controversy, Resolved, librarian and historian
Robert M. Bryce argues that, based
on primary documents written by both
men, it was impossible for either
explorer to have reached the pole.
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Jerry Kobalenko is a writer, photographer and adventurer based in Canmore, Alta.
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