Captain Mac: The Life of Donald Baxter MacMillan, Arctic Explorer

Captain Mac: The Life of Donald Baxter MacMillan, Arctic Explorer — page 9
Seventeen of the twenty four men in this group were Inughuit people of northwest Greenland Donald MacMillan could plainly see they were getting panicky He knew Peary desperately wanted to reach the North Pole He also knew that without these men Peary’s 1908 1909 mission was doomed MacMillan made a quick decision Right there on the polar ice at 59°F Fahrenheit below zero he organized boxing and thumb pulling contests to take their minds off their fears of the ice It worked Had the Inughuit deserted Peary and his assistant Matthew Henson likely never would have discovered the North Pole MacMillan made a discovery of his own that winter It became his all consuming passion to explore the Arctic and Share everything he learned with the world Ethe grant In 1909 men and dogs trekked over the frozen Arctic Ocean for more than