Tragic Betrayal: The Story of Robert Peary and Minik Wallace

Maine Historical Society - Programs Podcast

Genevieve LeMoine; Recorded November 16, 2023 - Robert Edwin Peary Sr. was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He is perhaps best known for, in April 1909, leading an expedition that claimed to be the first to have reached the geographic North Pole. Before his famous 1909 expedition, Peary sailed to Greenland in the summer of 1897 to bring an iron meteorite back to the United States. When he returned in the fall, he brought with him six Inughuit people invited to spend to winter in New York at the American Museum of Natural History. Tragically, many of the Inughuit soon fell ill, and by winter all but one man, Uisaakassak, and one child, Minik, had died of tuberculosis. Uisaakassak returned to Greenland in the spring, but a museum staff member adopted eight-year-old Minik and raised him with their children. Minik spent the next decade living the life of an American middle-class boy until a shocking discovery in 1907 would disrupt his life once again and find him crossing paths with Peary a second time. Genevieve LeMoine discussed this fascinating story and what it can teach us about the history of race relations, climate change, the Inughuit’s significant contributions to Arctic exploration, and the impact of Western expedition activity on the Inughuit community.