For over a decade, staff members at Bowdoin College’s Peary MacMillan Arctic Museum and Arctic Studies Center have studied original journals, artifacts, and photographs related to Robert Peary’s efforts to be the first person to reach the North Pole. They have visited museums and archives, traveled to sites in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes with connections to the expeditions, and contacted descendants of expedition members. In addition, Arctic archaeologists Genevieve LeMoine and Susan A. Kaplan traveled to the edge of the Polar Sea to investigate one of Peary’s camps. In this illustrated lecture, Kaplan will discuss new insights they have reached about how Peary worked and the interpersonal dynamics on his last two expeditions. Also, she will explain ways in which the Arctic of today differs from the Arctic of Peary’s time.

KHS speaker Kaplan, an Arctic anthropologist and archaeologist, is a professor of anthropology and director of the museum at Bowdoin. She has studied some of the ways Inuit have responded to environmental change and contact with the West, as well as the history of Arctic exploration.

To view this presentation, head to the KHS Facebook page at 6:30 p.m. January 20, and the video will air live. Due to copyright concerns, the January presentation will not be available for future viewing. If you have a question, please submit it in the comments during the live video presentation. Here is the link to the KHS Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KHS1891.

If you have any questions about the program, please call Scott Wood, executive director, at 622-7718