THE LAST PLACE EXPLORER FREDERICK COOK WANTED TO BE ON NEW YEARS DAY

He had risked his life in an unknown part of the world to accomplish the impossible. He had beaten the odds. And what was his reward for his dangerous adventure? Spending New Year’s Day 1909, freezing, struggling for life with two Innuit companions and a lot of angry bears who considered them food.

On April 21,1908, Frederick Albert Cook was the first white man to reach the North Pole. He described the entire incredible adventure in his book, MY ATTAINMENT OF THE POLE, which I narrated as an audiobook for the Listen2Read American Adventure Library. Cook was accompanied by two experienced Inuit natives, who helped make the accomplishment possible. And yet, no one in the civilized world, hundreds of miles south, knew about it.

THE ISOLATION OF THE FARTHEST NORTH

In 1909 at the North Pole, there was no radio or satellite communication. The only way anyone would know about Cook’s accomplishment was if he told the story to someone. But there was no one around for hundreds of miles. The only way he could reach civilization was the way he left civilization- walking through the snow and ice with temperatures 40 degrees below zero.

Cook believed he had paved the way home by leaving food and supplies on the trail to the North Pole for the return journey. Only after he reached the Pole did he realize that the North Pole was floating above a moving sea and the sea was carrying him in the wrong direction. How could he know? No one had ever been there before.

WINTER DARKNESS

Worse than that, a long, cold Winter Darkness was descending, during which Cook could not travel at all. He needed a new, safe permanent home for the long winter ahead. Cape Sparbo, a long journey from the North Pole and closer to Greenland, was to become his home for 100 arctic nights. It was going to be a long way home and long time before anyone knew of his achievement, if he could make it back to civilization at all.

COOK WROTE IN HIS BOOK:
“Bears headed us off at every turn. We were not permitted to proceed beyond an enclosed hundred feet from the hole of our den. Not an inch of ground or a morsel of food was permitted us without a contest. With no adequate means of defense we were driven to imprisonment within the walls of our own den.”

After 100 difficult days of darkness on Cape Sparbo, the light of day finally appeared. The Cook party left their ice home on February 7,1909 and pushed toward civilization to report their great accomplishment.

BACK TO CIVILIZATION
But once back in civilization, instead of Polar Bears, Cook found he now had to deal with the most dangerous animal of all- human beings. And instead fighting the elements of nature, he now had to battle with politics.

MY ATTAINMENT OF THE POLE

by Frederick Albert Cook is an amazing story and a wonderful book and audiobook. You can download it wherever audiobooks are downloaded, including HERE.

HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of us at Listen2Read audiobooks. To all our subscribers and listeners, we send wishes that your New Year will be a lot warmer and happier than that of Frederick Cook.

Andre Stojka
Publisher
Listen2Read audiobooks
©Listen2Read.com

View the entire 18 audiobook Listen2Read American Adventure Library HERE