Polar secrets

While it draws from the historical record, its purpose is not to answer historical questions or settle historical controversies.

Wayne Johnston, Author's Note, The Navigator of New York

That author's note comes at the end of Wayne Johnston's 2002 novel The Navigator of New York, but perhaps it should have been in large bold letters at the beginning. For the novel deals with one of the great scientific/historical controversies of all time: Who got to the North Pole first, Robert E. Peary or Frederick A. Cook? Or did either of them ever make it to the pole? Should the honor actually go to Richard E. Byrd or Roald Amundsen?

Johnson doesn't settle the matter, either in fiction or in fact, but he does draw some fictional conclusions that may seem like fact to readers. So beware.

The Canadian novelist tells his story through the voice of a Newfoundland orphan named Devlin Stead. His father, a doctor, abandons his family to become a polar explorer with Peary. Cook is the other doctor on the expedition, which fails to reach the pole. At some point Dr. Stead walks off into the ice and snow and is not seen again. Later Devlin's mother dies in a jump from a cliff. The boy is raised by his aunt and uncle.

Then comes a series of letters from Dr. Cook, who claims he is Devlin's actual father. He says he met the boy's mother in New York when she visited New York City before her marriage to Dr. Stead. They fell in love, but later when she revealed her pregnancy, Cook declined to marry her. Stead did, but he couldn't forgive her, which was why he fled to the north.

When the boy is older, he himself flees Newfoundland to join Dr. Cook in New York and eventually joins him on his polar and mountain climbing expeditions, even saving Peary's life on one occasion.

Once colleagues, Peary and Cook become bitter rivals. Neither is portrayed as a hero. Peary is shown to be bitter, obsessed and, after losing most of his toes to frostbite, barely able to walk. Cook, at first, seems the more admirable man, yet he too is bitter and obsessed. To Devlin he keeps dribbling out secrets, each more horrifying than the last. Devlin struggles to maintain his trust in and support for Cook, and the reader faces the same struggle.

Each explorer returned from the polar ice at about the same time, both claiming to have gotten to the North Pole first, but neither had proof, records or even a knowledgable witness. The scientific community first gave one the credit, then the other, then back again. The debate goes on. Today it hardly seems to matter, but it certainly did a century ago. Johnston nicely captures both the public and personal quest for truth.