Wally Herbert
If Peary was "The man who refused to fail", then Herbert was "The man England could not afford to let fail"...
Expert reviews Noose of Laurels / Herbert's financial motive exposed
Britain could not afford another embarrassing polar disaster like Franklin, Shackelton or Scott. While America went to the moon, the British tried to re-gain pride in conquering a Pole. So they spared no expense air supplying their team with everything it desired for 16 months. But one must appreciate the deep seated British love of polar bungler Scott and their similarly strong negative feelings for Peary.
From an email we received from Douglas R. Davies:

Many of the Bryce reviews (Cook & Peary) bow down to Herbert. One refers to him as a navigational expert. He was not the navigator on his own trip and frankly admits he doesn't know anything about celestial navigation.

Herbert can be blasted on a couple of very broad, simple concepts before going into the details. First, he keeps harping on "proof" but his own 1968 book has a nice passage about how, when he got to the Pole, they took some pictures holding flags, because, "what other proof could we offer" or something like that.

Second, he is a conspiracy theorist. He is constantly looking for some ulterior motive. For example, and entire chapter on the 1906 farthest
north is entitled "The first day of dark." This title comes from a typescript of Peary's diary (original lost). What does first day of dark mean, Wally wonders? The sun was continually above the horizon, so it cannot mean plain old dark. It must refer to some mood that came over Peary, because he knew he wasn't going to make the Pole, or even a farthest north, and would have to fake it. Buzzzzz. Wrong, Wally. It is a typo.

Anyone familiar with Peary's handwriting knows that he leaves the bottom of cursive s's open, so they look like cursive r's. Put a little curve in the last part of a letter h, and first day of dash becomes first day of dark. The diary starts on the first day of the final northward dash, after all
supplies and all hope of re-supply was left behind due to a six day storm. Back...
Wally's error
(below in red) Wally's mistake is still in the encyclopedia, March, 2002. That is 14 years after his book and 12 years after his theory was proven to be wrong.

Examination of Peary's expedition diary and new documents in the 1980s suggested he may only have reached a point 30-60 mi (50-100 km) short of the pole.

Wally couldn't tell "dash" from "dark". That was one of his mistakes.

That is an error any student could make but the professor would catch it. Herbert was not an historian and had no peers to oversee his work. As a result he rushed a book into print that is based on errors. Not errors of opinion, but errors of demonstrable fact.
Discrediting Herbert's "theories"

Recent scholarship by the Internet's most knowledgeable "Polar Controversy" author discovered Herbert's numerous correspondence with the viciously vindictive daughter of the colossal fraud Dr. Cook. Herbert's letters to the anti-Peary, anti-National Geographic, anti-establishment inner circle indicate a long standing motive to pervert history so that Herbert could claim to be the first to reach the North Pole.
• Invented a bizarre psychological theory about Peary based on a typographical error.

• Badly researched—mistakenly stated Peary never mentioned, in his diary, having been to the North Pole. In fact there are several positive references.
• Herbert "ice drift theory" is wrong. He failed to research properly and missed the correct field data.

• Herbert's "unreliable witness" theory is wrong and may in fact be based only on racist slurs.

• Herbert's impossible speed theory wrong. In fact, the sledging speeds he claimed were impossible were equaled by Landry and Crowley on their very first attempt.

In 1988 a morbid book by failed Polar adventurer turned writer Wally Herbert claimed that Peary had missed the North Pole by about 60 miles. But the author had no proof. Instead he concocted a pseudo-history novel in which, I believe, Herbert tried to project his own life's failures and shortcomings onto Peary. Herbert's dreary book of innuendos might be viewed as an effort to make his candle burn brighter by blowing out Peary's. The Noose of Laurels author cast doubt, for example, on Peary's "sledging speeds". But they have been proven to be very easily attainable by Landry & Crowley. Wally thought it impossible based upon his unskilled attempt with overloaded sledges. His 16 month Arctic camping trip had nothing in common with Peary's expeditions. The Canadian Air force flew in supplies for his crew that included fresh dogs, a bathtub, music tapes, etc. This polar stunt, a recreation of the failed Shackelton crossing of Antarctica set in the Arctic, was overshadowed by America landing on the moon.
Twenty years later Herbert publishing his book, although it revealed he had no concept of what Peary's disciplined army could do in a forceful dash of relay teams employing lightly loaded sledges. However, the British people found solace in Noose of Laurels. Brits have long harbored anti-Peary sentiment because Peary did not take British citizen Bartlett to the Pole.

But now Peary's travel methods have been duplicated by Paul Landry and Paul Crowley with their powerful dog teams. They attained the Pole April 13, 2000 at a speed unmatched since 1909. This is a remarkable event that makes fools of all the self-proclaimed experts who decided that it was so hard to reach the Pole that Peary could not have done it. Instead, the opposite is true. Adventurous men and women regularly walk to the Pole, ski, use snowmobiles, and occasionally dog teams which require the most expense and skill. All of this happened since Wally floundered about for 1 1/2 years on the ice. But no one is holding their breath for Herbert to apologize. Such people never have the integrity for that. Thankfully my copy of his work is library stamped "DISCARDED".
© 2002 by Russell R. Robinson