A detail from the map of Disko Bay we posted last week.
And check out the modern Google Maps satellite version! I think the juxtaposition here is really awesome.
“Everyone likes a puppy. The Eskimo children do. I think this is one reason why certain Eskimo dogs are so affectionate, especially those born in the Eskimo home which became pets of the children. I can never forget my dogs, who were always ready and really eager to respond to an act of kindness.”
Quote and slide (whose label identifies the Inuit girl as Shoeegingwah) from Donald MacMillan’s lecture on the Crocker Land expedition. To see more, visit the Museum’s page on this lecture here.
Cataloging spare medical supplies from the Crocker Land expedition in the lab the other day…some really cool stuff here!
I totally didn’t get to go through all of the things that I wanted to post about Crocker Land last week! If you liked the history we covered, stay tuned - I’ll be posting more about the expedition soon.
Since so many of you enjoyed the snow goggles we posted a while back, here’s another pair from the Crocker Land expedition, with a different design.
![“May his spirit be the Guardian Spirit not only of Bowdoin Athletics but of every Bowdoin [person].”
- Donald MacMillan, on presenting Bowdoin’s famous mounted polar bear to the College. MacMillan had shot the bear on the Crocker Land expedition in 1915, and gave it as a gift to Bowdoin.
Read all about the bear’s history on our curators’ blog!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4jlqpWakC1r5501go1_1280.jpg)
“May his spirit be the Guardian Spirit not only of Bowdoin Athletics but of every Bowdoin [person].”
- Donald MacMillan, on presenting Bowdoin’s famous mounted polar bear to the College. MacMillan had shot the bear on the Crocker Land expedition in 1915, and gave it as a gift to Bowdoin.
Read all about the bear’s history on our curators’ blog!
Like his predecessor Robert Peary, MacMillan employed Greenlandic Inuit men as guides and women as seamstresses for the Crocker Land expedition. Etah was an attractive location for MacMillan to build his base, as many Inuit families lived in the area. Here, women, children, and a few puppies are gathered around the camp’s summer tents - you can spot one of the expedition members on the far right.
After landing in Greenland in 1913, MacMillan and his team built their home base at Etah, a common base camp site for Arctic expeditions. They planned to stay here for two years, venturing out onto the ocean in early spring to try and locate Crocker Land before the ice broke up with warm weather, and collecting scientific data at the lodge (which they named Borup Lodge, in honor of George Borup) during the rest of the time.
Borup Lodge became their home until 1917, when the team was finally rescued after being stranded for two extra years.
Another great map! This one’s in German - “Unerforscht” means “Unexplored.”
The concept of any part of Earth being totally unknown is a pretty hard one for us to grasp in 2012 - when GPS and iPhone map apps abound, the thought of an entire geographical area being uncharted is bizarre.
But just 100 years ago, as MacMillan and his team departed for the Arctic, there were large swathes of the Arctic that no one had yet charted - marked “Unexplored” on contemporary maps. Crocker Land was often included in these maps.
I thought these maps were pretty cool - here’s one from our collection, created after 1909 when Peary reached the pole. You can see the area marked “Unexplored” on the left, while the second photo shows the approx. location of Crocker Land in detail.
What a grip the great white ice-fields get on a man! And what a fascination may exist in the most desolate places!
