Henson was an assistant to an explorer named Robert Peary. Starting in 1891, the men made several trips to the Arctic region and tried to reach the North Pole. In 1909, they finally claimed success—thanks in a big way to Henson. He built the team’s dog sledges, or sleds, and drove one across the ice. He hired Inuit (IH-noo-wiht) people to join the team—and learned their language to communicate with them. He also used an ax to clear paths through big piles of sea ice called pressure ridges.
The journey was risky. The ice was always shifting, so the men had to watch their step. “They could never daydream,” says expert Susan Kaplan. “It might mean falling through a huge hole in the ice!”
On April 6, 1909, the team’s trek ended. Their navigation tools told them they had arrived at the pole. They stuck a U.S. flag in the ice.
“As the flag snapped and crackled with the wind, I felt . . . joy,” Henson later wrote in a book. “Another world’s accomplishment was done.”