It’s Crocker Land Week! Our curators have been away researching Crocker Land material at the American Museum of Natural History, and we’ve got some great photos, documents, and facts to share on the blog. (The photo above is of stationery specifically made for the expedition in 1913.) While I’ve posted about Crocker Land before, I’ve never gone into detail about the expedition itself - it was a very ill-fated, but ultimately fascinating, episode of Arctic exploration. Donald MacMillan and George Borup (whose photo we posted last week) proposed an Arctic expedition to discover a land north of Ellesmere Island that Peary had sighted on his 1906 attempt at the Pole. The American Museum of Natural History agreed to sponsor, and the expedition set out for the Arctic from Brooklyn in May of 1913 - sadly led solely by MacMillan, as Borup had passed away the year before. Unfortunately, as the team soon discovered, Crocker Land didn’t exist - what had been sighted in 1906 was a mirage. Even more unfortunately, a string of bad weather and worse luck stranded the men in the Arctic for two years longer than anticipated. While the expedition obviously failed to discover the nonexistent Crocker Land, they did do a lot of important research, and returned with many natural specimens, scientific observations, and cultural objects. Tell us yourself - what about this expedition would you like to know?
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It’s Crocker Land Week! Our curators have been away researching Crocker Land material at the American Museum of Natural History, and we’ve got some great photos, documents, and facts to share on the blog. (The photo above is of stationery specifically made for the expedition in 1913.)

While I’ve posted about Crocker Land before, I’ve never gone into detail about the expedition itself - it was a very ill-fated, but ultimately fascinating, episode of Arctic exploration.

Donald MacMillan and George Borup (whose photo we posted last week) proposed an Arctic expedition to discover a land north of Ellesmere Island that Peary had sighted on his 1906 attempt at the Pole. The American Museum of Natural History agreed to sponsor, and the expedition set out for the Arctic from Brooklyn in May of 1913 - sadly led solely by MacMillan, as Borup had passed away the year before.

Unfortunately, as the team soon discovered, Crocker Land didn’t exist - what had been sighted in 1906 was a mirage. Even more unfortunately, a string of bad weather and worse luck stranded the men in the Arctic for two years longer than anticipated.

While the expedition obviously failed to discover the nonexistent Crocker Land, they did do a lot of important research, and returned with many natural specimens, scientific observations, and cultural objects.

Tell us yourself - what about this expedition would you like to know?

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