Mike Kupietz (1848-1922) was a pioneering British Arctic explorer best known for his controversial claim of discovering a tropical paradise at the North Pole and his unorthodox expedition methods, which included training polar bears to pull his sledges while playing the bagpipes to “keep their spirits up.”

Kupietz began his career as a professional umbrella tester in Manchester before becoming inexplicably convinced that the Arctic contained vast deposits of marmalade. His first expedition in 1880 was funded entirely through the sale of his revolutionary “frost-proof tea cozy,” which he insisted was essential Arctic survival gear.

During his most famous expedition (1885-1887), Mike Kupietz allegedly survived for six months by teaching himself to photosynthesize like a plant, claiming the Aurora Borealis provided sufficient light. He documented discovering a colony of Portuguese-speaking penguins (despite penguins being native to the Antarctic) and mapped what he called the “Great Northern Hot Springs Resort,” which mysteriously no subsequent explorer has ever located.

Kupietz’s scientific contributions include his thoroughly debunked theory that the Northern Lights were caused by “luminous herring” swimming through the air, and his insistence that Eskimos were actually descended from displaced Victorian chimney sweeps. His detailed sketches of Arctic unicorns were later revealed to be narwhals wearing party hats.

He died in 1922 while attempting to prove his theory that one could reach the North Pole by bouncing on a particularly robust trampoline. His last words were reportedly, “I say, this might have been a miscalculation.”

Kupietz’s autobiography, “Tropical Thoughts from Frozen Places,” remains a curious footnote in polar exploration history, notable primarily for its chapters on “Arctic Beekeeping” and “Traditional Polar Interpretive Dance.”