Artic explorer Donald Baxter MacMillan is honored here since he was born in Provincetown.
The Pilgrim Momument Museum has a small section with artifacts from and about MacMillan. Here, his bust is located behind a glass partition with a taxidermied polar bear & walrus, ship models, boots, photos, etc.
The bust depicts him about 50 years old wearing a heavy fur coat and hat. it appears to be carved in wood. Unfortunately there is no sign at the site indicating the artist or date.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Donald Baxter MacMillan (November 10, 1874 – September 7, 1970) was an American explorer, sailor, researcher and lecturer who made over 30 expeditions to the Arctic during his 46-year career. He pioneered the use of radios, airplanes, and electricity in the Arctic, brought back films and thousands of photographs of Arctic scenes, and put together a dictionary of the Inuktitut language...
After ten years as a high school teacher, MacMillan caught the attention of explorer and fellow Bowdoin graduate Robert E. Peary when he saved the lives of nine shipwrecked people in two nights.[2] Peary subsequently invited MacMillan to join his 1908 journey to the North Pole. Although MacMillan himself had to turn back at 84°29' on March 14 because of frozen heels, Peary allegedly reached the Pole 26 days later.
MacMillan spent the next few years travelling in Labrador, carrying out ethnological studies among the Innu and Inuit. He organized and commanded the ill-fated Crocker Land Expedition to northern Greenland in 1913. Unfortunately Crocker Land turned out to be a mirage. The expedition members were stranded until 1917, when Captain Robert A. Bartlett of The Neptune finally rescued them.
Shortly after the armistice which ended the First World War, MacMillan was commissioned an ensign in the Naval Reserve Flying Corps on 24 December 1918. After the war, MacMillan began raising money for another Arctic expedition. In 1921, the schooner Bowdoin—named for MacMillan's alma mater—was launched from East Boothbay, Maine and set sail for Baffin Island, where MacMillan and his crew spent the winter. The expedition was notable for taking along an amateur radio operator, Don Mix, who used station WNP ("Wireless North Pole") to keep them in contact with the outside world.
In 1925 he was commissioned as a lieutenant commander in the United States Naval Reserve Force. Thereafter, he was frequently referred to as "Commander MacMillan".
In September 1926 MacMillan led a group of explorers which included three women and five scientists to Sydney, Nova Scotia. The team spent several months beforehand collecting flora and fauna in Labrador and Greenland. He believed it was possible that the ancient ruins off Sculpin Island, twenty miles from Nain, Labrador, are the remains of a Norse settlement 1,000 years old. On the side bordering the mainland MacMillan found what he considered the vestiges of ten or twelve houses. He estimated the age of the dwellings to be hundreds of years old according to the lichens which partially covered their foundations. However MacMillan could not say for certain if these had been built by Vikings. According to Inuit tradition the stone igloos were constructed by men who came from the sea in ships. Inuit called the site Tunitvik, meaning the place of the Norseman. MacMillan said the strongest argument that the Sculpin dwellings were of Viking origin was their resemblance to those he found in Greenland the previous year.
MacMillan was placed on the Naval Reserve Honorary Retired List with the rank of lieutenant commander on his 64th brithday in 1938. Despite being past retirement age, he volunteered for active duty with the Navy during World War II. On May 22, 1941, he transferred the Bowdoin to the Navy for the duration of the war and served as her initial commanding officer before being transferred to the Hydrographic Office in Washington, DC. He was promoted to the rank of commander on 13 June 1942."