Dr. Richard Cornelia will return to the Camden Public Library with another intriguing slide talk, The Ill-Fated Polaris Expedition. The Polaris expedition, America’s first attempt to reach the North Pole in 1871, ended in tragedy. Doomed from the start, the mission was plagued by politics, insubordination and the suspected murder of its commander, Charles Francis Hall. Half the crew would spend over six months drifting 1,700 miles on an ice floe in the Arctic’s black winter, fighting starvation, storms and intense cold.