The Cordova daily times., 1921-04-01
Thrills ofExplorer Climbing
 70 Altitude 0f 20, 300 Feet

adventure and romance. l met him recently. He is the president of an oil company in Texas, and is a very successful salesman of oil stock. He was also very delightful entertainer when he was on the vaudeville cir cult.
 "As you will remember, Robert E. Peary was president of the Explorers Club; l was vice president. Peary was broken-hearted upon his return from his trip to the north pole, to find that Dr. Cook also claimed to have discovered the north pole.
 You will remember the contest that waged all over the United States, and, in fact, all over the world, as to which of these men had really discovered the pole. Congress refused to commit itself. Dr. Cook was called before a committee of the Explorers Club and asked to produce evidenve that he had reached the summit of Mount Mckinley. If he could substantiate this claim we | were prepared to believe that he . had reached the pole. He asked | for a months time. We granted it to him but he dropped out of sight i for year. His whereabouts was one of the great mysteries of that day.
 "Dr Cook had brought an attorney to represent him at the meeting of the Explorers Club. Dr. Cook him. self refused to make any statements. The result of the investigation was that Dr. Cook was dropped from the club,
 While our evidence of the falsity of pr Cooks claim to having reached the pole was Considered conclusive by most people, cohEress refused to recognize Peary's claim, alleging that they could not tell whether he or Cook. had reached the pole. The only thing to do was to produce legal proof that could not be disputed that Cook Was unreliable and had made false claims.
 "The American Geological Society, of which I am a member, in connec. tion with General Hubbard. coinr1is. stoned Belmore Brown and myself 10 go to Mt Mckinley in an attempt to secure evidence as to the truth or falsity of Dr. Cooks claims. We took with us a party of eight selected men and a high powered motor boat, named "The Explorer" to run the Chulitna river. That river leads to within 40 miles of the base of Mt Mckinley We transported a large amount of supplies, equipment and scientific instruments to the head of navigation. This district, prior to the first maps we had made, had been completely blank on the map of Alaska, 30 we went in prepared to map the district. We were gone from our base camp 6u lays, taking our supplies on slets over the ice For 50 days we lived on pemmican and heated our tea on alcohol stoves. We made very complete exploration of the glaciers south of Mt Mckinley.
 We also found the summit of a rock 20 miles from the base of Mt. Kinley, which we discovered was the rock photographed by Dr. Cook and given out as the summit of Mt. Nc. Kinley. We had copies of his pho. tos along, and we found the point from which he had taken every photo, so we, ourselves, made photos of these places. Almost all of his pho tographs were taken within 15 miles of the camp where he and 1 had spent the summer of 1896.
 We made five attempts to cross the range to he eastward of Mt. Mckinley, so as to reach the north ern slope of the mountain, but we found it was physically impossible to do so.
 we tried the southern face of the mountain, and reached an altitude of 1O,3O0 feet. This was the first time that the south slope of Mt Mckinley had ever been reached. In spite of our most earnest efforts we were not able to reach a higher altitude on the southern slope.
 "On our return, our evidence, with the duplicate photographs of Dr. Cooks, which he had claimed were Mount Mckinley, were sent to con. gress. Congress at once acknowledged Peary's claim to having discovered the North Pole, made him admiral and voted him a pension of $5,000 a year. the payment to begin from the day on which he claimed to have discovered the pole.
 "In 1912 Belmore Brown and my self, with two of our former party