A Wretched and Precarious Situation: in search of the last Arctic frontier

A remarkable true story of adventure, betrayal, and survival set in one of the world's most inhospitable places.

In 1906, from atop a snow-swept hill in the ice fields northwest of Greenland, Commander Robert E. Peary spotted a heretofore unknown land looming in the distance. He called it "Crocker Land." Scientists and explorers agreed that Peary had found a new continent. Several years later, two of Peary's disciples, George Borup and Donald MacMillan—with the sponsorship of the American Museum of Natural History—assembled a team of amateurs to investigate. They pitched their two-year mission as a scientific tour de force that would fill in the last blank space on the globe. Instead, the Crocker Land Expedition became a five-year ordeal that endured Arctic blizzards, dwindling supplies, a fatal boating accident, a drunken sea captain, a shipwreck, marooned rescue parties, disease, dissension, and a crewman-turned-murderer.