He took over 200 photographs in 1908-09, marking the beginning of a long-term interest in documentary photography and cinematography. Ultimately he would leave behind a valuable archive of thousands of photographs of the people and places he visited in the Arctic. The 1908-09 photographs are special for a number of reasons. They are first and foremost a significant record of the historic events of the expedition. They also represent MacMillan's first impressions of the people and landscapes of the region.
Following the North Pole Expedition, MacMillan abandoned a successful teaching career to focus on Arctic exploration, ultimately leading 26 expeditions, the last in 1954. He returned again and again to the places he visited in 1908-09, and maintained life-long friendships with the people he met. Although largely forgotten today, at the height of his career in the first half of the twentieth century, MacMillan was a nationally known figure who traveled throughout the country delivering illustrated lectures and showing films taken on his expeditions. The photographs taken on his first expedition served him well throughout those years. They represent a newcomer's view of the north, and so have a fresh quality that belies their age. Today, they are particularly relevant as they are of a region and people facing extraordinary challenges due to global warming and increased contact with Western cultures.
The exhibit is made up of digital enlargements of a selection of the hand-tinted lantern slides MacMillan used in his lectures. The majority of the images are his own photographs, augmented with a few taken by other members of the expedition including Peary's assistant Matthew Henson, chief engineer George Wardwell, and various Inughuit companions. The texts accompanying the images are MacMillan's own words, drawn from published and unpublished sources. The narrative follows the expedition from the departure from New York City in 1908 through its return in the fall of 1909. It highlights the people and places MacMillan visited, from Cape York, in northwest Greenland, where he first met the Inughuit inhabitants of the region, to Battle Harbour, Labrador, where reporters interviewed Peary about his accomplishments. More than a simple account of Peary's “dash” to the Pole, the photographs and texts convey the excitement and joy of a man discovering his own love of the far North.
MacMillan's lecture notes and journals are preserved among his papers in the George J. Mitchell Special Collections and Archives at Bowdoin College. His lecture slides and other photographs are in the collections of The Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum.
