In the spring of 1909 Whitney found himself at the center of the controversy between Frederick Cook and Peary over who had reached the North Pole first.

Whitney worked briefly at Wallace & Sons, a wire manufacturing company in Ansonia, Connecticut, in 1901 and 1902.

[3] In July 1908, when Whitney was 34 years old, he and two "sportsman" friends found berths on the Roosevelt and the Erik, the ships carrying Peary's expedition north for his final attempt to reach the Pole.

Whitney and his friends hoped to hunt musk ox, polar bears, and other arctic game and then return on the ship.

Cook claimed that the previous year the three men had been to the North Geographic Pole, and then had overwintered on Ellesmere Island.

[5] When Whitney reached St. John's, Newfoundland in September, he found himself at the center of the rival claims of Cook and Peary.

[6] The following year Whitney published his book Hunting With the Eskimos,[1] illustrated with his own photographs and reproductions of pencil drawings done by the Inuit at Etah.

[7] In 1916, Whitney married Mrs. Eunice Chesebro Kenison, with Captain Bob Bartlett serving as an usher.