Nanook of New York
"Facts are stubborn things," John Adams recently reminded us on HBO, but nevertheless the course of history is fluid. Each new generation interprets the past differently, according to its own tastes and beliefs, and even the most solid "facts" can shift over time.
That's one of the most powerful lessons of "Minik, the Lost Eskimo," a small, all but unknown story that nevertheless becomes one of the most impressive and emotionally involving episodes of PBS' "American Experience" when it airs at 10 p.m. Monday on WTTW Channel 11.
"Minik" contrasts one "great" man, an explorer revered around the world, with another who proved to be but a footnote. Yet the tragedy of that seemingly lesser man now threatens to overwhelm the achievements -- real or imagined -- of the great explorer. Who belongs on the ash heap of history? The great man, as it turns out.
That would be U.S. Navy Lt. Robert Peary, who for more than two decades pursued his goal of being the first man to reach the North Pole.
"No man could attain a more noble monument," Peary said of his dream.
"Getting to the North Pole meant everything to Robert Peary," says historian Bruce Henderson. "He was obsessed, and he was determined. And nothing or nobody was going to stop him."
Henderson goes on to call Peary one of the last of the "Old World" explorers. "They didn't much care about the people," he says. "They just wanted to get where they wanted to get."
And therein lie the seeds of tragedy. Yet it took another truly great man to cause those seeds to germinate. As curator of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, Franz Boas planted the idea in Peary's head of bringing back an Eskimo to be studied. Luring them with tales of spoils to be had, Peary brought back six Inuits in 1897, including a 7-year-old named Minik. Boas had all but forgotten the idea when Peary deposited them on his doorstep.
The irony is that Boas believed all people more or less equal and fought against the Social Darwinism of the era. Today, he is considered the "father of American anthropology." But if he wasn't going to put the Eskimos on display, as in a zoo, neither did he know just what to do with them. They were placed under the care of museum superintendent William Wallace and housed in an overheated basement, where they fell sick. Boas considered their plight "a stone around my heart," but felt powerless to do anything. Although they briefly recovered, within months four of the Eskimos were dead, including Minik's father. (His mother had died beforehand.) The other survivor returned home with Peary on another polar expedition, and the 8-year-old Minik was adopted by Wallace and his wife, raised along with their own son as Minik Peary Wallace.
Local agencies fought over the bodies; Minik's father's organs were given to medical agencies to study, while the skeleton was cleaned and returned to the museum. In yet another well-intentioned mistake, Boas staged a funeral for Minik, to seemingly lay his father to rest.
For a while, Minik thrived. Yet Wallace was fired in 1901, accused of misusing museum funds. His wife died, his son was sent away, and he lived in a tenement with Minik, who dropped out of school. Discovering the truth about his father's body in a newspaper story, Minik became disillusioned and depressed.
Minik's cause was adopted by a New York lawyer who called it "a national disgrace." Yet, at a time when Peary was raising sums of over $100,000 for additional expeditions, even Teddy Roosevelt rejected pleas to support Minik. So he asked Peary to take him home to his Inuit community on the 1909 expedition, but Peary said his ship was "too crowded." Peary at the time was concerned he'd be beaten to the pole by his former colleague Frederick Cook and had no time for delays.
Minik set out to reach Greenland on foot and sent back eloquent letters -- read in voice-over -- from Canada. His inevitable failure and return caused a public-relations nightmare just when Peary was claiming to have reached the pole. Peary's wife helped arrange passage home for Minik, with the promise he never return.
Yet Minik had lost his native language and had difficulty reacclimating. "Why am I no longer fit to live where I was born?" he wrote back. "Not fit to live where I was kidnapped?" He did in fact return to the states in 1916, but his story drew little attention amid the rush to war. He died in the 1918 flu epidemic while working as a lumberjack in New Hampshire. Peary died in 1920; his claims of reaching the pole today are widely derided.
I don't use the term "tragedy" lightly. A crane falling off a building isn't a tragedy; it's an accident. Yet by taking this small historical story and examining it with a contemporary eye -- and with the help of Minik's own enduring words -- "American Experience" elevates this historical footnote to the ranks of the truly tragic. This hourlong documentary will leave a viewer, much like Minik, disillusioned and depressed, but also enlightened. "American Experience" strives for something more in "Minik, the Lost Eskimo," and unlike Peary it actually attains it.
In the air
Slime ball
The slime will fly when Jack Black again plays host to Nickelodeon's 2008 Kids' Choice Awards at 7 p.m. Saturday. Miley Cyrus, aka Hannah Montana, will perform and is also primed to be slimed as favorite TV actress.
City secrets '24/7'
WMAQ Channel 5 airs a new after-hours look at downtown entertainment with "24/7 Chicago: Secrets of the City," debuting at midnight Saturday, immediately after "Saturday Night Live." Catie Keogh and Billy Dec play host to the weekly tour of local nightlife.
Nest egg goes boom
Paula Zahn plays host to the locally produced "Retirement Revolution," debuting at 9 p.m. Monday on WTTW Channel 11. The two-part documentary studies how Baby Boomers can make the most of their dotage.
Waste Watcher's choice
As William Faulkner's last novel, "The Reivers" would seem an unlikely star vehicle for action hero Steve McQueen. But he enlivens this comic lark of a road trip at midnight Saturday on Turner Classic Movies.