Evening star., 1943-05-23
Unique Monument
to Peory
BIZ Frederic J. Hdskfn.

There are monuments to the memory
of Americans in nearly every country in
the world, but possibly the most out
standing is the 60-foot shaft erected in
1882 at Cape York, Greenland, to the
memory of that dauntless American,
Robert Edwin Peary. Ten degrees above
the Arctic Circle and only IA degrees
from the North Pole, the column stands
as reminder of human courage and
fortitude never surpassed in the annals
of great explorations. This broWn-gray
monument looking across the ice-laden
tides of Baffin Bay is unique among the
earth's memorials to great men.
The monument was erected in land :
that Peary loved, land that loved him
In return and gave him, for his long
devotion, the highest honor won by any
explorer of his time. To the humble
Eskimo folk of Cape York he is still a
kindly god who dwelt among them for
while, leaving them with legends Of
| his greatness to be handed down for
centuries. They helped in building the
monument as they helped In all OF !
Peary's epic tolls in the north.
capped headland at the upper end of
Melville Bay. It's mountainous mass
rises above the sea a thousand feet or
more, and upon its top rests fringe Of I
the great ice the eternal glacier that
covers Greenlands interior. Around its 6
foot and beyond for miles is thin strip
of land, really an oasis amid a wilder
ness of ice and snow where human beings
can survive. Across its front the ice
bergs of Melville Bay drift westward
| until they are caught in the current of
Smith Sound and swept down Baffin
Bay. Southwark is open water all the
way to Labrador. Northward is the mar
rowing chain of iceberg filled bays and
channels by which Peary reached the
ice-locked polar sea. From here he took
off on many venture into the true
| Arctic. Here" he wrote, "the world,
or what we know as the world, is left
behind; the Arctic world of aboriginal
experiences begins"
On one of the Cape York cliffs stands
the monument, three-sided column of
masonry, with one angle pointing due
north. It's material is blocks of the
rough gneissose stone which had been
lying there for centuries waiting to be
used Seal and walrus swim in the
shadow of the shaft, and myriads Of
gulls and auks wheel about it as they
fly to feed their young in the rookeries
of the cliff walls at its base. The Smith
Sound Eskimos have built their stone
huts in sight of it as if to honor their
| q of int
that Peary would pick up the Eskimos,
taking them on board with their families
and their dogs for his work ahead. There
are scarcely more than 200 of these
northerly people in the world, and Peary
knew every man, woman and child Of
them living in his time.
The form of the monument originated
with Peary himself In the last years
of his life, when he knew he would never
be we'll again, he spent most of his sum-
mers lying in the sunshine on a musk-ox
skin spread on the lawn of his daughters
island home in Maine. AS he looked
out to sea, directly in his line of vision
was a rough stone monument on a
nearby island marking the ship channel.
AS boy he had camped by that monu-
ment, and as man his happiest times
had been spent within sight of it on his
own Eagle Island. 1t was his wish that
a similar monument mark his grave.
Because of the rule governing the
height of monuments in the National
Cemetery at Arlington where Peary Is
buried, his wishes to have the monu-
ment erected there could not be carried
| E11+ ~, OF
Cape York, spot holding the deepest
sentimental meaning to his family and
his millions of admirers.
To the building of the 60-foot memo
rial the Danish government gave whole
hearted approval. Set in the stonework
high on each side is large letter and
at the base are tablets commemorating
Pearys work and acknowledging gifts to
the monument fund. The design is by
Felix Arnold Burton, son of Peary's
closest friend, DR.. Alfred E. Burton,
former dean of Massachusetts Institute
of Technology.
The hurrying world often thinks Of
Peary as merely "the man who found
the North Pole" But the north meant
far more to him than that single victory.
The ambition to reach latitude 80 de-
greeS was, in a sense an afterthought
with him, an idea that grew as he fell
under the Arctic spell. First in his in
terest came the unknown in Greenland.
AS an engineering expert in the Navy,
he had surveyed canal routes in Mica
ragua. A chance-found pamphlet in
book shop turned his thoughts to an
other zone. The mystery of the Green.
land ice plateau drew him to Disco Bay
in 1886 and sent him far inland on a
reconnaissance of the great ice. For %
years thereafter he belonged to the north.
The erection of the Peary monument
in the Cape York region symbolizes
more than daring exploits. To him, in
large sense, 1t was home. In Whale
Sound, In sight of the monument, Peary
built two houses amid the waste,
frowned upon by lifeless mountains and
beset by glaciers whose icebergs, falling,
sent tidal waves raging through the
bays. In that land of midnight sun
and midday night" Mrs Peary saw him
begin his long combat with the cold
mystery that lay around and beyond
them. The area became home all the
more to Peary and to Mrs Peary, be-
cause in Anniversary Lodge in Bowdoin
Bay at the onset Of an Arctic night was
born their daughter, on whose lawn in
| tor Iva - III