Round 12: Tossup 11

This person was accused of altering his diary in Wally Herbert’s 1989 book The Noose of Laurels. This chief surveyor for the planned Nicaragua Canal tried to get a funding extension by dubbing a nonexistent island “Crocker Land.” Six people abducted by this person (15[1])at the behest of Franz Boas included the child Minik Wallace. This person’s second in command, the first African-American to be admitted into the Explorer’s Club, helped him spend three years carting away giant fragments of the (*) Cape York Meteorite. Fraudulent Denali climber Frederick Cook also claimed to have beaten a 1909 expedition led by this person, who described an improbably quick journey from Ellesmere Island by dogsled. For 10 points, Matthew Henson accompanied what explorer long credited as the first person to reach the North Pole? ■END■

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