Captain Robert "Bob" Abram Bartlett (1875 –1946)
was a Newfoundland Arctic explorer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Bartlett was captain of the Roosevelt and accompanied Commander Robert Peary on his attempts to
reach the North Pole. He was awarded the Hubbard Medal of the National
Geographic Society for breaking the trail through the frozen Arctic Sea to
within 150 miles of the pole, yet was excluded from the final exploring party
(possibly due to a rivalry between the two men). Bartlett took a ship and was
the first person to sail north of 88° N.
In 1914, Bartlett’s leadership in the doomed Karluk
Expedition helped save the lives of most of its stranded participants after
leader Vilhjalmur Stefansson abandoned the expedition. After being stranded for
several months, Bartlett and Inuit hunter Kataktovik walked 700 miles from
Wrangel Island over the ice of the Chukchi Sea and across Siberia and then
mounted an expedition from Alaska to rescue his surviving companions on Wrangel
Island. He received the highest award from the Royal Geographical Society for
his outstanding heroism.
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