The Recursive Explorer

When I was eleven, I befriended a girl whose father was a professor at Bowdoin College. The former home of Admiral Peary was the faculty housing in which she and her family resided.

As I recall it, the house was a sprawling Victorian labyrinth with strange narrow passages and an octagon-shaped room somewhere in the middle. The structure impressed my young mind. Its eccentricities seemed suited to a man who dared to traverse the Earth's extremities.

In one of the parlors my friend pointed out some of the stuff her family found in the attic when they moved in. There were small glass bottles bearing century-old labels from a local pharmacy, dilapidated wooden snow shoes, and a stereoscope.

Playing with these items was marvelous. Somehow the provenance of these objects led me to plumb the depths of my imagination. It felt like we were stepping into the footsteps of history just by exploring the house and its contents. The situation pushed my mind to take a turn it would not have considered prior to this experience. The extraordinary seemed a little more possible.

Later, I marveled that his effects were strewn in faculty housing rather than locked in a museum. In the United States any historical object with a pedigree is regarded as precious.

My experience in his house engendered an affinity for Admiral Peary. At the time, I understood that he was the second person to reach the North Pole, and I felt a little sorry that he hadn't met his goal of reaching the Pole first.

Strangely, I didn't bother to research Admiral Peary. I suppose I thought my direct experience didn't render further investigation necessary.

Months ago I read a New York Times article about the arctic explorer. It was written around the centennial of Peary's celebrated North Pole voyage, and noted that Peary's claims to have reached the Pole are widely disputed. His rivalry with Frederick Cook now appears unseemly, and his treatment of Inuits unethical. I learned from other sources that he fathered children with very young Inuit women and abandoned both mothers and offspring.

Sometimes concepts I read about incubate in my mind for weeks, months, or years. I suppose I am not bright enough to digest some ideas upon first encounter, so I'm glad that my brain appears to be automatically inclined to gnaw at some notions over time.

The revelations of Peary's fraud led me to ponder whether the objects in my friend's living room really belonged to him at all. Perhaps my memory or cognition is faulty. I may have attributed the objects to Peary because they were found in his house. Although I recall my childhood friend as an earnest girl, perhaps she embellished the truth.

Whether they were genuine historic artifacts or old junk, I wonder about the impact of these objects now that they have been cast in a new light. Interacting with the items made events in the past seem more accessible and deeply intriguing. Would I have been as inspired by them if their story of origin were less interesting?

Would I have bothered to strap on a pair of old snow shoes and march across the living room if those shoes hadn't crossed the North Pole? I remember excitedly telling my parents about wearing Peary's arctic snow shoes. I don't recall that they were impressed. But I know the experience generated in me a heightened sense of possibility because something grand had intersected my meager life.

It's really the authenticity of my interest in the subject matter rather than the provenance of the objects that is at question. If I had known that Admiral Peary was a jerk, would I have shunned these articles? Would I have bothered to figure out how to use the stereoscope of a lesser person? Would I have gained the sense of expansiveness I got from that experience from something else?

The New York Times article explores the phenomenon of people's blind loyalty to either Cook or Peary and relates it to polarized politics. Myopic supporters of the explorers (from 1909 to today) overlook plain facts that make the arctic claims dubious. I regard this academic dispute and current polarized political maneuverings in the context of the endless caucus race from Alice in Wonderland.

After mulling it over, I've decided that the part of this history that matters most is the extraordinary attempt that inspired so many. The journey, particularly at that time, was amazing whether it was the first or hundredth. It's the story that perseveres. In fact, it has branched out and radiated into many stories -- stories about a race, a journey, hardship, grand deception, cultural transgression, abandonment, identity, multiculturalism, and more.

The story is an ember that lights a thousand fires.