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Trophy hunting for the wealthy

Dr. Cook showed his rich client a darn good time. There was shooting, spearing, axing, or outright clubbing to death wild beasts weighing up to 4,000 pounds!


Illustration and photo source: The Discovery of the North Pole by Cook and Peary. Jay Henry Mowbay,1909

Ah! You can taste the fresh roasted walrus and polar bear steaks...yummy! Fred and Bradley had weeks of exciting animal kills. Bradley as trophy hunter claimed valuable walrus tusk ivory, arctic fox pelts, seal skins, and giant polar bears. They feasted on roasted muskox steaks while sipping wine aboard the ship.

Cook traded trinkets with the Eskimos for valuable furs and ivory. He loaded Bradley's yacht with these. He even boasted in his 1911 book that he gave one "boreal pygmy", as he called them, a 9 cent tin cup for a $100 walrus tusk. He put an exclamation mark after that statement - thus revealing that he was excited to be be taking a valuable item in exchange for a trinket. He shows, in his written accounts of this, no respect for the natives. Cook would trade, for example, a red handkerchief for an ivory tusk. All Cook wanted was their valuables, as evidenced by his account in My Attainment of The Pole.

Interestingly, Peary never allowed this kind of activity with his expeditions. It was forbidden in the contract the men signed. No one was allowed to trade with the Eskimos in a manner such as Cook did to exploit them. Peary discusses in his books how he never gave the Eskimos worthless items. Instead, he made a point of only trading tools that were vital for their survival. Peary paid his Eskimos with sewing awls, needles, knives, cooking pots, harpoon spear heads of iron, axes, fishing gear, rifles & cartridges, boats, and even raw lumber. This last item was highly valued to make sledges. Their only source of wood had been drift wood. Thus he provided for their well being by ensuring that they could hunt and make tools and clothing.

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© 2000 Rusty Robinson