As a young man, Peary worked as a civil engineer in Nicaragua, surveying a route for the canal that later built in Panama. In 1886, while doing survey work in Greenland, he came to love the Arctic. He and Artican-American navigator Matthew Henson returned there regularly, collecting meteorites they could sell to finance their expeditions.
By 1893, Peary knew he wanted to explore the North Pole, even though more than 750 people had already died trying to reach it. To avoid the others' mistakes, Peary studied the clothing, food and igloos of the Inuit people. In 1909, he was ready to make the trip.
On 1 March, Peary, Henson and their team left the northern tip of Canada's Ellesmere Island by dog sled. Although the polar ice cracked apart in places, its surface was generally smooth and flat, and they were able to cover 42 kilometers a day.
On 6 April, a week after the last supply team had turned back, Peary, Henson and their Inuit helpers Ooqueah, Ootah, Egingwah and Seegloo reached the pole. Peary spent 30 hours confirming their location by moving to different spots and measuring the sun's angle above the horizon.
Finally, "with the resolute squaring od his jaws, I was sure that he was sarisfied, and i was confident that the journey had ended, " Henson wrote in his book A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. "Feeling that time had come, I ungloved my right hand and went forward to congratulate him on the success of our eighteen years of effort." Fearing that the coming of spring would split the ice and cut them off from land, the team hurried back in what Henson described as "17 days of haste, toil and misery".
In Greenland, shocking news awaited them. A former member of Peary's team, Frederick Cook, said he had got to the pole before Peary. Peary had to wait until 6 September, when he reached a telegraph station in Labrador, to announce his claim to being first.
The National Geographic Society was able to show that Cook had no witnesses and had paid a sea capttain to produce notes that would be beievable sextant readings. Congress officially recognized Peary's claim in 1911, but the public was hesitant to belive either explorer. Peary died in 1920 and was buried with full honours at Arlington National Cementery. Henson, meanwhile, lived in obscurity and held menial jobs. Shortly before his death in 1955, the important role he played in the expedition was officially recognized. In 1988, Henson was given a monument in Arlington, next to Peary's.