The Race For the Poles

Documentary about four men who devoted themselves to a "race for the poles," risking their money, reputations and lives in the process. Robert E. Peary was fascinated with Arctic exploration as a child and made repeated attempts to reach the North Pole. Peary's surgeon on his first polar attempt, Dr. Cook, decided to attempt the North Pole on his own after Peary refused to share the limelight. A Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, who'd been the first mate on an earlier expedition with Cook, decided to attempt the South Pole. Amundsen's chief competitor, a young English naval officer by the name of Robert F. Scott, reached the South Pole one month after Amundsen. The program uses reenactments, archival photographs and film, as well as expert historian interviews, to capture each man's quest and explore what drove them to the ends of the Earth.