Volume one contains 100 9cm x 9cm photographs taken during Robert Peary's expedition to present-day Nunavut and Greenland on the ship Hope in the summer of 1897. Each page (17cm x 29cm) contains two items; most include brief captions identifying places and people pictured. The volume's original covers are missing.
Many of the photographs feature scenery along Baffin Island in present-day Nunavut, including icebergs and glaciers; views of the Hope; small boats; Inuit boats and kayaks; Inuit huts and American tents; and natural features such as waterfalls, glaciers, and icebergs. The photographer also took pictures of Inuit adults, children, and crew members onboard the Hope; captions identify Robert Peary, his daughter Marie and her African American nurse, members of the expedition, and Inuit persons named "Kishu" and "Minnie". Kisuh may be Qisuk, and Minnie is very likely Minik, who were both taken to New York by Peary. A group photograph taken onboard ship may include Matthew Henson, Peary's African American assistant, although not identified as such. A few pictures were taken inside what appears to be a small wooden structure, and crew members occasionally posed outdoors with deer and caribou they had killed. One photograph of a "Fossil Bed" appears to have been printed from a broken glass plate negative.
Volume 2 is comprised of 92 12cm x 18cm and 10cm x 13cm photographic prints, likely taken on the Peary expedition of 1905 or later. The prints have been removed from the no longer extant original album pages, and are currently housed in a dark green ring-binder in a tan cloth sleeve measuring 34cm x 31cm. The images include scenes of northern settlements and camps; ice flows; crew-members on board ship; the hunting of a walrus, displaying a polar bear's head; men with bear cubs; and Inuit people, their dwellings, kayaks and boats. Several vessels appear including one that is likely the SS Roosevelt; also a fishing schooner; and an unidentified steamship. There are many portraits of crew members, all unidentified. Several are of a man resembling the Roosevelt's Captain, Robert Abram Bartlett.
Three magazine clippings from the mid-20th century are included that refer to Captain Bartlett.
Arctic explorer Robert Edwin Peary (1856-1920) led an expedition to present-day Nunavut and Greenland (by way of Cape Breton Island) in the summer of 1897, and treks towards the geographic North Pole, 1905-1909. Peary had traveled to the Arctic several times between 1886 and 1897 and hoped to establish a supply base on Greenland for use during future attempts at reaching the pole, and to retrieve a large meteorite that had been spotted on a previous expedition. The Hope left Boston on July 19, 1897, carrying Peary, his wife, their daughter, and their daughter's nursemaid; academics and artists; and the ship's crew. Peary returned in the fall with six Inuit adults and children, who were given into the custody of the American Natural History Museum in New York City. Four soon died of tuberculosis; the surviving adult returned to Greenland and the surviving child, a young boy named Minik, remained in the United States. As an adult, Minik criticized the museum for its treatment of the Inuit whom Peary brought to the United States, particularly regarding the sham funeral for his father, Qisuk and the public display of his skeletal remains.
Peary's later expeditions brought him closer to the North Pole, which he claimed to have obtained on April 6, 1909. Although his assertion is widely doubted by current scholars, some argue that Peary may have come as close as five miles of the pole. The vessel S.S. Roosevelt, under Captain Robert Abram Bartlett, was employed for the expeditions of 1905-1906, and 1908-1909.
