#Frederick Cook

[polarship]

he was the sun

[jeyneofpoole]

polar exploration dashboard simulator

🔖 drfreddyc

they call me the attainer. the way i attain these. poles. peary you can suck on my throbbing polar COCK!!!!!!!!

🍐 tearypeary

you will die like a dog

🍒 cherriesgarrard

yayyyyy i love my friends i love the ice yayyyyy this world is so beautiful and true

🍒 cherriesgarrard

MY FUCKING TEETH

🥫 franklinexpeditionofficial

HELP

🥫 franklinexpeditionofficial

HELP

🥫 franklinexpeditionofficial

HELP

⛴️ theotherross

brother i’m on the way

⛴️ theotherross

brother i’ve given up

⛓️ shacklez

my two polar exploring girlfriends. and yes, they traverse the frozen wasteland.

⛓️ shacklez

neverrrrrmind nevermind they fucking unionized the irish can’t have shit fuck this stupid baka life fuck you i hate you both fuckkkk you

🦅 falconscotts

get invalided idiot 🫵🫵🫵

⛄️ pengwilson

🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭🤭

🇧🇪 degerlache-belgiums-boy

EAT YOUR SLOP LIKE A PATRIOT

🔖 drfreddyc

too late i’m already baking people

❄️ amundzen

i’ve been baked

🪙 le-cointe

honk schnoooo 😴🧨 honk schnoooo 😴🧨

🫀 emile-danco

NO!!!!! MY PREEXISTING CONDITION!!!!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!

🐧 belgicas-pet-penguin

told you so 👻

📜 peglarpapers

eerfreve eht hserf os werg ti c nepo eht c eht c eht

🛷 leopoldmcccclintock

whagttttthe fucckkkjkkkk

🏝️ beecheyislandofficial

🪦🪦🪦

🏝️ beecheyislandofficial

🪦🪦🪦 🪦

🏝️ beecheyislandofficial

um hello?????????

👤 thomas-morgan-deactivated18540522

don’t ask.

❄️ amundzen

dr frederick cook and i shared one beautiful night of passion on the polar ice in 1898 he pretended to be the south pole and i claimed him for norway it was the greatest night of my life but i wish it had hurt more alright commandant i’m just going to slip this under your door feel free to ask followup questions but the answers will be thorough and i will make it as bad as possible for you ok goodnight see you in hell yes i still quit. kill yourself you trifling whore. 📝💋 xoxo

[irenydraws]

congratulations lil buddy that's the worst anyone's ever drawn it

[source: roald amundsen's belgica diary]

[north-pole-picture-co]

Feeling totally normal about this

[The New York Times, Thursday, March 4, 1926]

[roaldamundsen]

found the original

roald amundsen, a biography by tor bomann-larsen

[antarcticconfessions]

"i would give fred cook my life savings. this isn't a thirst confession i'm just bad with money"

[suddenly-frankenstein]

thinking about this every single day.

Amundsen visiting Cook in prison.

GRRRR grrrr GrRrGGr im So NORMal AbOuT ThiS

[so-i-did-this-thing]

Bringing back these photos of Fred Cook's book (signed by his publisher) with its "I did nothing wrong" intro. 🤣

[sunlaire]

He is kinda...y'know. like, I get why amundsen was so enthralled by the man.

[amundsenxcook]

always thinking about cookmundsen prison era

literally always thinking about amundsen turning on most every person in his life as he got older, becoming more paranoid and closed off and mistrusting. thinking about him sinking into his debts and being cast aside and becoming so depressed, he describes it as the lowest point of his life.

thinking about amundsen in an american hotel picking up pen and paper and writing a letter to a friend. and even though that friend is in prison, he is still a friend. even though the press had defamed him, even though the law had persecuted him. or maybe because of it – fred cook was roald amundsens friend.

thinking about fred refusing to see visitors, being ashamed of his status and situation, not wanting to see his ex wife or family or anyone.

thinking about fred agreeing to see amundsen.

thinking about amundsen never doubting or badmouthing fred. thinking about fred never envying amundsen. no rivalry, no jealousy, no resentment between the heroes of north and south. (one each.)

thinking about amundsen saying that he would have gone to visit fred even if fred had committed crimes much worse than the ones he was imprisoned for. thinking about amundsen not even knowing what fred did. thinking about amundsen not caring.

thinking about the gifts. a book and an embroidered tablecloth, both crafted in prison. thinking about the tablecloth being displayed in amundsens reception room, where anyone who’d come to visit would see it. thinking about it still lying there today.

thinking about hands clasped tightly. thinking about fred inventing words of comfort and love exchanged between them.

thinking about “come and see me again, captain, won’t you?” and thinking about “i certainly will, doctor.”

[fullcolorfright]

Sketch collage inspired by the 1897-1899 Belgian Antarctic Expedition, after reading Madhouse at the End of the Earth (Julian Sancton, 2021) and My Life as an Explorer (Roald Amundsen, 1927)

[drfrederickacook]

Frederick Cook, Georges Lecointe, and Henryk Arctowski on the Belgica Expedition.

[Fram Museum 'Antarctic Pioneers', 2010]

[polarexplorerspoll]

POLAR EXPLORERS SHOWDOWN: ROUND THREE

[irenydraws]

my "made it to the north pole" t-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt

[north-pole-picture-co]

The Truth About the Pole

I babbled about this in the tags of my last post. Frederick Cook made it to the North Pole, and he was there first, or so he claimed. He was determined to defend his honor with words, in the newspapers, on the lecture circuit, or, if push came to shove, with a few punches. In 1911, he added a new tool to his arsenal: the “moving picture.”

The Truth About the Pole is a little over 15 minutes long. It features Cook as himself, replicating his “heroic” feats and facing off against the “Arctic Trust,” a gaggle of dastardly characters who stand in for Peary and Cook’s other detractors. With their sinister moustaches and hammy gestures, they make for classic silent screen villains straight out of central casting. Spoiler alert: they lose. Onscreen if not off, Cook’s reputation as the discoverer of the North Pole remains intact. The film even ends with some footage of Cook arriving in Copenhagen after having (allegedly) reached the pole. The whole film is available on YouTube. It’s also on the Internet Archive, which is, hooray, back up and running!

For what it’s worth, I find this little movie charming in its way. If you’re on my blog and reading this post, then you already know how charismatic a guy Fred Cook is. That comes through here, even in the grainy 110+ year old footage. I particularly like the bit toward the end when he removes his hat and bows to the camera. You can see the hint of a sly smile on his face.

An advertisement published in Moving Picture World, April 1911. This was a trade publication, aimed at film distributors, theater owners, and other industry professionals. Cook incorporated The Truth About the Pole into a vaudeville act. He’d give a lecture and show the movie, along with slides of images from his expedition. This mixture of live entertainment (in Cook’s case, a lecture) with movies was common at this point in the history of the medium, when short films were the norm and feature-length productions had not yet taken off in earnest. His “North Pole Picture Co.”—really just Cook and the film’s producer-director, Wilbert Melville—took out ads in this magazine in order to sell the film to to distributors and get it into as many theaters around the country as possible.

I’m currently digging into when and where this movie was made, contemporary reactions, and Cook’s adventures in vaudeville. More to come.

[roaldamundsen]

this happened julian sancton told me