AUGUSTA — The Kennebec Historical Society’s January Facebook live presentation: “Find a Way or Make One: New Perspectives on Peary’s North Pole Quest” will be held at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 20, on the society’s Facebook page.
According to a news release from the society, 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.
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. She also will explain ways in which the Arctic of today differs from the Arctic of Peary’s time.
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, according to the release.
To view this presentation, visit facebook.com/KHS1891 and the video will air live. Because of copyright concerns, the January presentation will not be available for future viewing. Those who have a question can submit it in the comments during the live video presentation.
For more information about the program, call Scott Wood, executive director, at 207-622-7718.
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