0:02

The Quest for the North Pole is a production of I

0:04

Heart Radio and Mental Floss. As

0:11

you pass through the main entrance of the American

0:13

Museum of Natural History in New York City,

0:16

you meet a statue of Theodore Roosevelt

0:19

and enter a hall crowded with tourists

0:21

and dinosaur skeletons. You

0:24

walk past a herd of taxi, der meat, elephants,

0:27

Native American artifacts, and the

0:29

New Gallery of Gems and Minerals

0:31

before reaching a small room

0:33

dominated by a giant meteorite.

0:36

It weighs about thirty four tons,

0:39

but it's just a fragment of the colossal

0:41

rock that crashed into Northwest Greenland

0:44

as much as ten thousand years ago. Scientists

0:47

estimate it's about four point five billion

0:50

years old, roughly the same age

0:52

as the Sun. It's about

0:55

iron and so heavy

0:57

that the apparatus supporting it had to

1:00

be drilled right into the Manhattan

1:02

bedrock. Two other pieces

1:04

of the meteorite are in the same room.

1:07

Before White explorers arrived in

1:09

Greenland, bringing with them metal tools,

1:13

these meteorites were the only sources

1:15

of metal for the in white people. How

1:18

did these massive, heavy meteorites

1:21

make their way from the Arctic to a museum

1:23

in New York City.

1:32

From Mental Floss and I Heart Radio, you're

1:35

listening to the Quest for the North Pole. I'm

1:38

your host, Cat Long, science editor

1:40

at Mental Floss, and this bonus

1:42

episode is Minic and the Meteorites.

1:59

John Ross was the first White explorer

2:01

to learn about the meteorites. On

2:04

his eighteen eighteen expedition to the Northwest

2:06

Passage, he met INU White, who

2:08

described black mountains some distance

2:11

away, where they chipped off pieces

2:13

of iron for their knives. Though

2:16

he was intrigued by this information, Ross

2:19

didn't have time to see them himself, and

2:21

they would remain an Arctic mystery

2:24

until Robert Peary searched for them

2:26

in the eighteen nineties. By

2:28

then, Peery had already completed two

2:31

expeditions to northern Greenland with

2:33

the idea of traversing its ice sheet.

2:36

On his third trip, in his

2:39

goal shifted to conquering the North

2:41

Pole. The expedition

2:43

was memorable for a few reasons. His

2:46

pregnant wife Josephine, held down

2:48

the operations of their base camp and

2:50

gave birth to their daughter, Marie on a

2:52

guito. There. Peery

2:55

and Matthew Henson made a death defying

2:57

dash over the Greenland ice sheet, looking

3:00

four route to the north pole, and

3:02

Peery would be shown the valuable meteorites

3:05

that the inuite had described to John

3:07

Ross seventy five years earlier. After

3:10

months of preparation, Peary and

3:13

a small crew launched the reconnaissance

3:15

of the northern ice sheet in March, but

3:19

a little over a month after setting off, Pierry

3:22

had to admit failure. The

3:24

weather was just too terrible and

3:27

it took weeks for everyone to recover. In

3:30

May, Peery asked the inuite assisting

3:32

his expedition to lead him to the Black

3:35

Mountains. With his guide

3:37

Telekotia. They drove dog

3:39

sleds over the treacherous spring Eyes to the

3:41

edge of Melville Bay. Telekotias

3:44

spied a pile of stones poking through

3:46

the snow that he said were used to chip

3:49

pieces from the mountains. As

3:52

Peery wrote in his book, northward over the

3:54

great ice. He then indicated

3:57

a spot four or five ft distant

3:59

as the cation of the long sought

4:01

object. Talakotia

4:04

began sawing away blocks of snow and

4:07

three ft beneath the surface. The

4:09

brown mass rudely awakened

4:11

from its winter sleep, found

4:13

for the first time in its cycles of existence

4:16

the eyes of a white man gazing upon

4:18

it, Peery wrote. Talakotia

4:22

said that the boulder was thought of as a

4:24

female figure in a sitting position. They

4:26

called it the Woman. Peerie

4:29

estimated it at roughly four ft long,

4:32

three ft wide, and two ft deep

4:34

at its maximum points, and

4:36

weighing about six thousand pounds.

4:40

Perry continued, I scratched

4:42

a rough pe on the surface of the metal

4:45

as an indisputable proof of my having

4:47

found the meteorite, in case I should

4:49

not be able later on to reach

4:51

it with my ship. Because

4:54

that was his plan. It wasn't

4:57

enough for Perry to find the legendary

4:59

meteorites. He wanted to excavate

5:01

them and take them home as personal

5:03

trophies. I

5:06

asked Ken Harper, author of the book

5:08

Minic the New York Eskimo, how

5:10

the Inuite might have felt about that the

5:14

meteorites had been the

5:17

only source of iron for

5:19

the Inohuite for a very long

5:21

time. But it's also true that

5:24

by the time period took them, the

5:27

Inuit were no longer you

5:29

know, chipping off iron to use

5:32

as as tools from

5:34

from the meteorites. They would get

5:37

metal objects and

5:40

knives and other metal

5:42

trade goods from the whalers

5:45

and then from Peery. You

5:48

know, people were dependent on Pery. So if

5:50

this is his mission in

5:52

certain years is to get these meteorites

5:55

and get them aboard ship and

5:58

use Innuit labor to help to

6:00

do that, and pay

6:03

in trade goods and the food

6:05

stuffs for that Innuit labor,

6:08

then the innuity are going to help them. But that

6:10

still doesn't mean he should have taken They weren't

6:12

his right. He wasn't given permission.

6:15

It was not within Peri's character to

6:17

ask Nuwit if he could do something. He

6:20

was there to do things, and

6:22

in his view, they were there

6:24

to do his beating, so

6:27

he didn't ask for permission. He gave himself permission.

6:31

The following spring, Perry returned

6:33

with his ship and crew to abscond with the

6:35

woman and another smaller

6:37

meteorite that the Inuit called the dog.

6:40

An oval mass a little over two

6:42

ft long and weighing about nine

6:45

pounds, the dog

6:47

was rolled onto a sledge made of spruce

6:49

poles and dragged towards the beach. The

6:52

crew floated it towards the ship on a cake

6:54

of ice. The woman

6:57

had to be transported on iron rollers

6:59

over a roadway paved with beach

7:01

pebbles, then ferried to the ship on

7:03

ice. But

7:06

before the woman could be fully secured,

7:08

the ice beneath it broke and

7:10

the meteorite began to sink, pulling

7:12

the ship down with it. By

7:15

slowly hoisting the massive rock

7:18

up on chains, the men were

7:20

able to swing it over the side of the ship and

7:22

into the hold. There

7:26

was still one more prize, the

7:28

biggest meteorite of all, which

7:30

the Innuite dubbed the tent, a

7:33

boulder so big and heavy

7:35

that Perry would need a stronger ship and

7:38

all of his experience as a civil engineer

7:40

to extract it. He

7:43

settled for transporting the two smaller ones

7:45

to New York in the summer. He

7:49

returned for the iron monster the following

7:52

year. Perry's

7:54

crew and every able bodied man

7:56

from the nearby village began digging

7:59

the meteorite out of the frozen ground

8:01

with picks and hydraulic lifts, while

8:03

Peery supervised as

8:06

it rose slowly inch by inch.

8:09

It grew upon us as Niagara grows

8:11

upon the observer, and there was

8:13

not one of us unimpressed by the

8:15

enormousness of this lump of metal,

8:18

Terry wrote, the

8:20

struggle to move the huge meteorite

8:22

proved to be a lesson in physics. Never

8:26

have I had the terrific majesty of

8:28

the force of gravity and the meaning

8:30

of the terms momentum and inertia

8:33

so powerfully brought home to me, he

8:35

recalled. After

8:37

pausing work during the winter, the

8:39

crew built a sturdy bridge from the shoreline

8:42

to the ship. They mounted

8:44

a railroad like track, and then secured

8:46

a rolling car to it. The

8:49

meteorite was lifted by Jack's into

8:51

the car and covered with the American

8:53

flag, while Peery's four

8:55

year old daughter dashed a little bottle

8:57

of wine over it and named it Aguito.

9:00

Perry wrote. Then

9:03

the meteorite was slowly pulled over

9:05

the bridge and lowered into the hold for

9:07

its voyage to New York. In

9:10

his book, Peery includes several

9:12

letters from eminent geologists asserting

9:15

the scientific value of the meteorites,

9:17

as well as reports on their chemical composition

9:20

and physical appearance. But

9:22

for all the attention Perry paid to

9:25

his precious rocks, he neglected

9:27

to mention that he also brought to New York,

9:29

some of his in white helpers and their families,

9:33

including an eight year old boy named

9:35

Minic. Let's

9:38

take a break here, We'll be right back. Perry

9:54

Ship the Hope arrived at the Brooklyn

9:56

Navy Yard in late septemb Twenty

10:00

thousand people, each paying a quarter, came

10:03

to see the giant meteorite and the six

10:05

inuite, still wearing their fur clothing

10:07

in the late summer heat. In

10:10

addition to Minic and his father Shook,

10:13

there were Nootka, his wife Attagona,

10:16

their twelve year old daughter Avia, and

10:19

a young man named Wikasakak. Pierri

10:22

had brought the inuite to New York at the request

10:25

of anthropologist Franz Boas,

10:27

then the museum's assistant curator for

10:29

ethnology. Boaz

10:32

pioneered the theory of cultural relativism,

10:35

a framework that argues that the values

10:38

of one culture should not be evaluated

10:40

based on the values of another. That

10:43

went against the prevailing belief that

10:45

human cultures existed on a spectrum

10:48

from primitive to advanced, and

10:50

implicitly that white Western

10:53

cultures were the most advanced in the world.

10:56

Here's Ken Harper France.

10:58

Boast is viewed as the father of modern

11:01

anthropology. Are very much

11:03

remembered today as an anti

11:06

racism activist

11:09

and did a lot of good work. But

11:12

the Inuit and the other people

11:15

are studied by most of these scientists

11:17

were subjects. They were subjects

11:19

for study. The New

11:21

York Times reported that the Inuite would

11:23

go to the Museum of Natural History,

11:25

where they will arrange the exhibit of their implements

11:28

that Perry had collected. They

11:31

planned to return home on Perry's next

11:33

expedition. The

11:35

museum held an informal reception

11:37

for the Inuite, who were by then

11:39

living in the basement. Matthew

11:42

Henson acted as interpreter. When

11:45

the throngs of visitors were told the Inuite

11:47

were not actually on exhibition,

11:50

they had to content themselves with a glimpse

11:52

through a grating above the basement, and

11:55

many lay prone peering through the

11:57

spaces and the hopes of catching a glimpse.

11:59

The Times wrote, between

12:01

giggling at their unfamiliar clothing

12:03

and mimics quote unspellable

12:06

and unpronounceable name. The

12:08

Times reporter mentioned that some of the six

12:11

were not well. The climate

12:13

didn't agree with them, The paper said, less

12:16

than a month later, all six

12:19

were rushed to Bellevue Hospital at

12:21

Taganhaw was so weak with pneumonia

12:24

that she had to be carried on a stretcher, while

12:26

the others appeared to have the flu. Franz

12:30

Boas explained to a reporter from the New

12:32

York Sun that the inuite had

12:34

no immunity to urban diseases.

12:37

When they come into this climate, they are the

12:39

prey of every germ that exists,

12:42

he said. Minics

12:44

seemed to have a milder case, but

12:47

the five adults and the young girl never

12:49

fully recovered, despite moving

12:51

out of the museum's basement and into

12:53

the Bronx home belonging to the museum's

12:56

building Superintendent William Wallace.

13:00

In February,

13:02

Menick's father, Heihuk died at Bellevue.

13:06

Three others died that spring, only

13:09

with Kasakak returned home on Perio's

13:11

ship in July eight. Now

13:15

an orphan, Menick continued to

13:17

live with the Wallace family. He

13:20

missed his father dearly, but his

13:22

loss was alleviated somewhat by

13:24

the funeral service Wallace had arranged.

13:28

The staff of the museum thought it was

13:30

important to bury

13:32

casual and have

13:34

a funeral for the benefit of impressing

13:37

young Munich. So they held

13:39

this ceremony on the grounds

13:41

of the American Museum of Natural History,

13:44

where they conducted against the

13:46

New York version of a traditional Inothuid

13:48

burial. As

13:51

he grew up, Minick learned English, rode

13:53

his bicycle, and befriended the Wallace's

13:56

son, Willie, who was about his own age.

13:59

He excelled in high school and competed

14:01

in an ice skating competition. Nine

14:04

years went by before Minnick learned

14:06

of the deep betrayal that would

14:08

shatter his trust. The

14:12

William Wallace and the museum had

14:14

held an elaborate ceremony for Hishook

14:16

back in Franz

14:19

Boas never actually intended

14:21

to bury him. Instead,

14:24

he had planned to add Hishook's body to

14:26

the museum's collection all along. At

14:29

the funeral service, the museum staff

14:32

had wrapped a log in cloth and

14:34

placed a mask at its head to mimic

14:36

his Shook's body. The

14:38

ceremony was held at dusk, and

14:41

they kept Minnick well back from the casket.

14:45

Wallace later told a newspaper reporter

14:47

the boy never suspected, so

14:51

where was his father's body? The

14:54

museum had retrieved it and brought it to Wallace's

14:56

farm west of Albany, New York.

14:59

Yeah, little building that straddled the

15:01

stream that went through the property,

15:04

and that was a de fleshing

15:08

plant. Museum specimens

15:10

were sent there, and unfortunately

15:12

Minick's father, Fratial, was sent

15:15

there and his body

15:17

was de fleshed in

15:19

this little building. Basically,

15:22

they ran water continually over

15:24

the body to strip the flesh from

15:26

the bones, and then the

15:29

bones were sent back to

15:31

the American Museum of Natural History.

15:37

The three other Inuits bones also

15:39

ended up at the museum.

15:41

The newspaper reports had mentioned the museum's

15:44

plans. Minick remained unaware

15:46

of what had happened until seven,

15:49

when he somehow learned his father was

15:51

at the museum.

15:53

He demanded that the museum returned

15:55

his father's remains so he could bury

15:57

them properly in Greenland. But

16:01

Wallace, who might have been able to help him

16:03

convince museum officials, had been

16:05

fired a few years earlier for taking bribes.

16:09

As for Robert Peery, he had

16:11

washed his hands of the inuite the moment

16:14

they arrived at the museum. He

16:16

refused to take men at home. Then

16:19

Menick took his sad story to the media.

16:22

The bad publicity convinced the Periarctic

16:25

Club that something had to be done. Peery

16:28

was at just that time on

16:30

his quest to reach the North Pole, and

16:33

the public relations nightmare that might greet

16:35

him when he returned would cost them all.

16:39

Herbert Bridgeman, one of the founders of

16:41

the Periarctic Club, arranged

16:43

for Menick to return to Greenland on Pery's

16:45

regularly scheduled supply ship in nine

16:49

His father's remains stayed at the museum.

16:52

He arrived back with just the clothes

16:55

on his back, and he was

16:57

like a fish out of water. He had

16:59

lost his son doing skills. He had

17:01

lost his language. He spoke

17:03

only English. Manick

17:06

was eighteen or nineteen years old, the

17:08

age when his peers would already be starting

17:10

families and providing for them by hunting.

17:14

He relearned his native language, and

17:16

for a while he worked as a guide

17:19

and interpreter for Perry's former assistant,

17:21

Donald McMillan on an expedition

17:23

north of Ellesmere Island. But

17:26

unfortunately for Munich, he

17:29

was still neither fish nor foul.

17:31

When he had been in New York, he

17:34

longed for the Arctic the

17:36

Arctic that he viewed

17:38

as his home, but which he did not understand.

17:42

When he was back in the Arctic, he

17:45

longed for New York. Menck

17:48

never felt quite at home in Greenland

17:51

following his return in nineteen o nine. Several

17:54

years later, restless and without

17:56

prospects, he decided to go

17:58

back to the US and look for employment. But

18:02

by then the world had changed.

18:05

World War One was ripping Europe

18:07

apart. Pierre's triumph

18:09

at the Pole and his bitter feud

18:11

with his rival Frederick Cooke seemed

18:14

like a story from the distant past. Polar

18:17

adventurers turned towards Antarctica to

18:19

claim their fame, a fact clearly

18:22

illustrated by Sir Ernest Shackleton's

18:24

heroic rescue of his entire crew

18:26

from shipwreck. In nineteen six, Menck

18:30

began working as a lumberjack at a logging

18:32

camp in northern New Hampshire. There

18:35

he befriended another worker named Afton

18:38

Hall, and when blogging season

18:40

ended in spring, Menick stayed with Hall

18:42

and his parents at their farm.

18:45

As Ken Harper writes, Menick seemed

18:48

to have finally found a home where he felt

18:50

loved and cared for a

18:52

community where he felt like he belonged, but

18:55

it was not to last. Menick

18:59

died in nineteen eighteen in the influence

19:01

of pandemic, but

19:03

instead of being buried in an unmarked

19:06

mass grave, the fate of many

19:08

of the flu's victims, the Halls

19:10

laid Menic to rest in the local cemetery,

19:13

where you can still visit his grave. While

19:17

the three Cape York meteorites remain

19:19

at the American Museum of Natural History, the

19:21

bones of Menic's father and his companions

19:24

are no longer there.

19:27

As museums began to reckon with their unethical

19:30

collection practices of the past, officials

19:33

repatriated the remains of the four Inhuite.

19:36

They were finally buried in their home

19:38

village, which is all Menic

19:41

had wanted. The

19:57

Quest for the North Pole is hosted by Me cat

19:59

Law. This episode

20:02

was researched and written by Me, with fact

20:04

checking by Austin Thompson. The

20:06

executive producers are Aaron McCarthy

20:08

and Tyler Clang. The supervising

20:11

producer is Dylan Fagan. The

20:13

show is edited by Dylan Fagan. For

20:16

transcripts, a glossary, and to learn more

20:18

about this episode, visit Mental flaws

20:20

dot com slash podcast, The

20:23

Quest for the North Pole is a production of I heart

20:26

Radio and Mental Flaws. For more

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podcasts from my heart Radio, check out

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the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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