MEDIA ADVISORY

TO:                        News and Features Editors, PSA Directors

SUBJECT:               MOUNTAINEER BRAD WASHBURN IN TRIAL OVER COOK'S CLAIM TO BE FIRST ON MCKINLEY

LOCATION:             Schaible Auditorium, Bunnell Building, UAF Main Campus

DATE AND TIME:    Saturday, Feb. 3, 9 a.m.

Mountaineer and explorer Bradford Washburn, former director of the Boston Museum of Science, will be in Fairbanks Saturday, Feb. 3, to participate in a 9 a.m. hearing to determine if Dr. Frederick Cookís claim to be the first to climb Mount McKinley is valid.

Cook claimed that in 1906 he ascended North Americaís tallest peak, but Washburn and others have dismissed the notion. Washburn, the first man to climb Mount McKinley three times and a recognized expert in the aerial mapping of the peak, says photographs allegedly taken by Cook at the summit of McKinley are fakes.

Evidence from both sides will be presented this Saturday at UAF in front of a panel of district and superior court judges. Local attorney Bob Groseclose will present information on behalf of the Frederick Cook Society at the hearing. Representatives of the Cook Society have declined invitations to participate.

1 The seminar is being sponsored in part by UAFís history department, Northern Studies Program and the Denali Foundation.

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CONTACT: Northern Studies Graduate Student Mike Sfraga, at UAF Student Services, (907) 474-7317.

DPD/1-30-96/96-46med.adv.