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the imagination. Weathering temperatures of minus fifty degrees Fahrenheit (not including windchill) and combating hypothermia for days at a time, the walrus-mustached Peary had planted an American flag near the north pole, even though he had, by then, lost eight toes to frostbite.4 Peary’s entourage of twenty-three men, 133 dogs, and nineteen sleds had encountered a rich continuum of wild environments never before marked. The Arctic, an almost desert landscape, was a different realm where snow geese (Chen caerulescens) ice-walked and polar bears ran as fast as shooting stars. On their trek, wrapped in Arctic furs to stay warm, Peary’s team shot more than 600 musk oxen to keep their camp stocked with high-protein meat. Cold weather burned away calories very quickly. By surviving the sea ice, the pressure ridges, and frostbite, Peary was, in Roosevelt’s estimate, a sustainable American hero in the tradition of Zebulon Pike.

When the explorer Frederick Cook claimed to have beaten Commander Peary by reaching the north pole first, nearly a year earlier, Roosevelt was dismissive. Writing an introduction to Peary’s memoir, The North Pole, Roosevelt lauded Peary for his “iron will” and “unflinching courage” in overcoming physical weariness in pursuit of Arctic knowledge.5 He thought it idiocy that Peary was being criticized by jealous explorers for not having a solar expert confirm his latitude. (Although Roosevelt enjoyed reading Cook’s memoir To the Top of a Continent—particularly the parts about climbing the Alaskan peaks McKinley, Foraker, Russell, and Dall—it was Peary’s descriptions of the north pole that he considered priceless.)*

But although Roosevelt was ecstatic that the American flag had been planted at the north pole, President Taft reacted with a yawn. To Taft, the geographical blankness of the Arctic made the region uninteresting; he was a city man. What could America possibly do with a frozen landscape where towns like Barrow lived in darkness between Thanksgiving and late January? Why would anybody want to explore north of the timberline where animals were lucky to survive? Roosevelt saw the Arctic from the scientific perspective of a Smithsonian Institute expedition: young caribou migrating 2,700 miles annually and snow geese building up fat reserves on the tundra before flying down to Mexico. But the very notion of twenty-four-hour light at the summer solstice, at a latitude of 66° 33' North, was disturbing to Taft; and the fact that the Yenisey and Lena rivers flowed in the Arctic with more freshwater than the Mississippi or Nile bored him.6 When Peary offered to put the Arctic at Taft’s disposal, the president was unable to imagine that the north pole held any hidden biological secrets. “Thanks for your interesting and generous offer,” Taft wrote to the fifty-three-year-old Peary. “I do not know exactly what to do with it.”7

As a student of geography, Roosevelt was perplexed that the United States wasn’t more proud of its northern lands. In Russia the Arctic was a part of nationalistic pride. Norway considered the Arctic the core of its economic future. Canadians viewed their Arctic real estate as a symbol of their greatness. But in America the north pole was viewed as a frozen wasteland not worth the time it took to consider. Years later, Peary, now an admiral in the U.S. Navy, recalled how bravely Roosevelt had stood by him when envious critics claimed that he had exaggerated his exploits at the north pole. In an article published in Natural History, Peary wrote that old-fashioned loyalty was Roosevelt’s finest quality; that was a fact. Those who actually knew Roosevelt always thought of him as a strong ally. Upon returning to American soil from the north pole, Peary sent Roosevelt the finest polar bear skin he had collected on his daring expedition. It became the drawing room rug at Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt’s estate in Oyster Bay, New York. The ex-president was also given an ivory walrus tusk. Holding court over pots of black coffee, Roosevelt would talk with Peary about what a precious “heirloom” Arctic