BOOK REVIEW; A Negro Explorer at the North Pole

[lobelia321]

The middle of this book about the 1908-1909 expedition to the North Pole is a spellbinding read of adventure, peril and arctic beauty. The beginning and ending are stodgy and suffer from dutiful information about a host of people about whom I did not care and whom I did not remember. This is due to the American author not being a writer; as he says himself, he lacks imagination. He is a practical man and an arctic endurance traveller so his language tends to have an overblown or dry quality. But when he hits his flow, that is, the 'meat' (as it were) of the actual trip across ice and water, his story gains momentum.

The best bits are a) descriptions of the geography and b) descriptions of the dogs. I learned words like lead, talus, undulating ice, raftering, pressure ridges and paleocrystic floeberg. The Arctic is weird because it is mainly water, and the ground one sledges on shifts constantly, opening water channels (leads), with floating ice floes crashing together and forming continuous surfaces (raftering), and breaking apart again. Who knows what will happen with the climate crisis? There are also engaging accounts of the life-important packs of dogs, especially the fights among the 'kings' for preeminence.

Less edifying are the period-typical attitudes. The commander calls the author 'boy' throughout, and Henson calls 'his' 'eskimos' 'boys' in turn. After their return, the commander barely speaks to Henson and gathers all the attention of reporters around himself. Henson comes across as craven, always deferring to his admired commander and praising that man's characteristics. Here is a paragraph that reads oddly:

'...as in the past, from the beginning of history, wherever the world's work was done by a white man, he had been accompanied by a colored man. From the building of the pyramids and the journey to the Cross, to the discovery of the new world and the discovery of the North Pole, the Negro had been the faithful and constant companion of the Caucasian...' (p.100)

Comparing the 'discovery' of the North Pole with the 'discovery' of the new world seems particularly disingenuous.

The author describes the people of Greenland with period-typical condescension. They are his friends and he is clearly fond of some of them and respects much about them but they are not civilised, they are filthy and immoral, and at any rate, they will soon die out.

It was interesting to read this. A few years ago, I read another memoir of another man of African descent, the wonderful An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie from Togo, and it was intriguing to think of this heritage of Black men in Greenland.

Chosen for the 52 Books challenge of 2026: Set in the Arctic or Antarctic.

Cross-posted from Goodreads.

NOTE on Goodreads: I did not read this edition. I read A Negro Explorer at the North Pole: The Autobiography of Matthew Henson by Matthew A. Henson. However, Goodreads is not allowing me to post a review there. A pop-up informs me that 'this is not a valid book'. I wonder whether this is because of that edition's original title which includes what today is a racial slur. I have posted the issue to Goodreads Librarians.
ETA: Goodreads issue now fixed.