Portland Press Herald Glass Negative Collection

Donald Baxter MacMillan, teacher, author, scientist and explorer, brought the small town of Wiscasset closer to the Arctic when he made it the home base of many of his voyages north.

He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1898 and worked as a teacher for about a decade.

One summer, Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary heard about MacMillan rescuing a number of people in Casco Bay and invited him on his expedition to the North Pole in 1908.

MacMillan accepted, although frozen heels led him to leave the voyage before Peary reached the pole.