On April 18, 1909, Whitney met Frederick Cook and his two Inuit companions on the ice on Smith Sound. Cook claimed that the previous year the three men had been to the North Geographic Pole, and then had overwintered on Ellesmere Island. Cook left some items with Whitney and headed to southern Greenland to report his triumph. When Peary came south on the "Roosevelt" later that summer, he refused to allow Whitney to bring Cook's belongings on his ship. Cook would later claim that proof of his discovery had been among the papers Peary refused to embark. When Whitney reached St. John's, Newfoundland in September, he found himself at the center of the rival claims of Cook and Peary. He declined to take sides in the controversy. The following year Whitney published his book "Hunting With the Eskimos", illustrated with his own photographs and reproductions of pencil drawings done by the Inuit at Etah.