The Crocker Land Expedition took place in 1913.
Following his 1906 expedition that failed to reach the North Pole, the explorer Robert E. Peary reported that he discovered a distant land off the shore of Ellesmere Island in Northern Canada.
In an attempt to secure funding from his financial backer’s estate, the late George Crocker, Peary named the land Crocker Island, and organized a team and a fleet to make the voyage.
On July 2nd, 1913 the first ship set sail, and crashed at the hands of its drunk captain. Other ships and dogsled teams made the northward trek across 125 miles of ice and snow for months, only to discover that the supposed island was in fact…just a mirage.
In April of 1914, the remaining explorers admitted defeat, and became stranded for four months on their trip home, with one member of the voyage calling the trek, "one of the darkest and most deplorable tragedies in the annals of Arctic exploration."
