Each year, thousands of people visit Forest Lawn Cemetery to enjoy all it has to offer, but business tends to slow as fall and then winter roll in. While this may be an inconvenience to some, it would likely be to the satisfaction of Dr. Frederick Albert Cook, who showed a liking for the cold. Cook’s claim to fame is the discovery of the tundra; not in Buffalo, but at the North Pole.

Although much controversy surrounds Cook’s allegations, many of which have been rejected, he is still applauded for several accomplishments as a doctor and an explorer.

In 1865, the future Dr. Cook was born to fresh German immigrants living in Callicoon, New York. He went on to attend Columbia University and earn a medical degree from the NYU Medical School in 1890, and his exploration of explorations began less than a year later. From 1891 to 1892, Cook was the surgeon on future rival Robert Peary’s Arctic expedition. He is noted for saving the lives of several crew members on this expedition (as well as another in 1897), which he did by hunting vitamin C-producing animals to prevent scurvy. (Because this was the first expedition to the Arctic in the winter, citrus was not an option.) Cook led his first expedition to the Denali range in 1903, and his second in 1906, in which he claimed to have made the first ascent of Mt. Denali, also known as Mt. McKinley. Although several members of his team expressed doubts immediately, this claim was not publicly challenged until 1909. Although paid to do so, Ed Barill, Cook’s companion on the summit, signed an affidavit revealing that he and Cook turned back at the north end of the Great Gorge (the “Gateway”), discounting Cook’s claim to have reached the peak.

Although Cook argued in his memoir that he did climb Mt. Denali and reached the North Pole, a study by the University of Copenhagen revealed that Cook’s photograph of the summit was actually an image of what is now known as Fake Peak, nearly 20 miles away, and his claims to have reached the North Pole were identified as fraud. However, the study did present Cook’s legitimate discovery of Meighen Island, the only island  to be discovered by a United States expedition in the American Arctic.

Cook is also credited with being a founding member of the Arctic Club of America and Explorer’s Club, of which he was also the second president, but his membership was rescinded after his claims to have reached the North Pole first were rejected. 

Although the Buffalo snow may prevent you from visiting the North Pole anytime soon, you can visit Cook in Section 21 at Forest Lawn, which, in winter snows, is almost the same thing.