Background
Vilhjalmur Stefansson was born on 3 November near Arnes, Manitoba, of Icelandic parents recently settled in Canada. The family soon moved to North Dakota, where Stefansson grew up.
(Explorer of the last unknown lands in North America proph...)
Explorer of the last unknown lands in North America prophet of the transpolar air and Arctic submarine routes, Vilhjalmur Stefansson was the inspiration of northern explorers for 40 years. In this book, completed just before his death in August 1962, he recalls his whole adventurous and exciting life, and the great achievements that made him a top authority on the Arctic and its people.
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(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
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(The author details his experiment in extreme nutrition. T...)
The author details his experiment in extreme nutrition. This famous book extols the virtues of meat in the human diet.
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("A first class writing man, a first class hunter and expl...)
"A first class writing man, a first class hunter and explorer, most entertaining." -New Outlook "He has challenged our preconceptions about the Arctic." -American Review "A man of action who is at the same time a man of letters...eminently successful." -M.S.T.A. Quarterly Review Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879 1962), of North Dakota, was an arctic explorer and ethnologist. Because of his studies of the Eskimos, his discoveries of land, the application of new ideas and new methods of exploration, Stefansson was considered the foremost polar explorer of his day, and one of the few great explorers of all time. During a period of three or four years Mr. Stefansson has produced a creditable list of books about the Arctic. In some respects his service in publishing the results of his Northern studies has differed from that of earlier explorers. He has challenged our preconceptions about the Arctic. Hunters of the Great North gives details of Northern life such as have doubtless come within the experience of all Arctic explorers, but which are new to the average American reader. In short, it is an elementary text-book of the Arctic. Stefansson lived among the Eskimos of the Mackenzie River, studying their language and adopting their mode of life, and spending ten winters and thirteen summers in the polar regions. Among Stefannson's most famous discovery was that of a race of blond Eskimo on Coronation Gulf. Stefansson writes: "In the present book I have tried by means of diaries and memory to go back to the vivid impressions of my first year among the Eskimos for the story of what I saw and heard." In describing his confrontation with a polar bear, Stefansson writes: I heard behind me a noise like the spitting of a cat or the hiss of a goose. I looked back and saw, about twenty feet away and almost above me, a polar bear. I had overestimated the bear's distance from shore, and had passed the spot where he lay. From his eye and attitude, as well as the story his trail told afterward there was no doubting his intentions: the hiss was merely his way of saying, "Watch me do it!" Or at least that is how I interpreted it; possibly the motive was chivalry, and the hiss was his way of saying Garde! Contents I. PREPARATIONS FOR A LIFEWORK OF EXPLORATION II. DOWN THE MACKENZIE RIVER THROUGH 2000 MILES OF INDIAN COUNTRY III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ESKIMOS IV. CAPTAIN KLINKENBERGSEA WOLF AND DISCOVERER V. THE WHALING FLEET SAILS AWAY VI. LEARNING TO LIVE AS AN ESKIMOON A DIET OF FISH WITHOUT SALT VII. HOW AN ESKIMO SAILED THROUGH THE STORM VIII. AN AUTUMN JOURNEY THROUGH ARCTIC MOUNTAINS IX. THE SUN GOES AWAY FOR THE WINTER X. LOST IN THE MACKENZIE DELTA XI. AN ARCTIC CHRISTMAS WITH AN ENGLISH COUNTRY GENTLEMAN XII. THE LIFE AT TUKTUYAKTOK XIII. LEARNING TO BUILD A SNOWHOUSE AND TO BE COMFORTABLE IN ONE XIV. TRAVELS AFTER THE SUN CAME BACK XV. WE GO IN SEARCH OF OUR OWN EXPEDITION XVI. A SPRING JOURNEY IN AN ESKIMO SKIN BOAT XVII. A RACE OVER THE ARCTIC MOUNTAINS IN SUMMER XVIII. ON A RAFT DOWN THE PORCUPINE RIVER SHORT STORIES OF ADVENTURE I. HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT CARIBOU II. HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT SEALS III. HOW WE HUNT POLAR BEARS
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(The plans of my second expedition took gradual shape duri...)
The plans of my second expedition took gradual shape during the years 1906-1907, while I was still north of the Arctic circle engaged in the work of my first expedition. It was once intended that I should be the ethnologist of the Leffingwell-Mikkelsen Arctic Expedition, sometimes known as the Anglo-American Polar Expedition, which sailed from Victoria, British Columbia, in the spring of 1906. When the proposal was made to me I found it an attractive one in everything except this: that the expedition's schooner, the Duchess of Bedford, was unprovided with auxiliary motive power, and my book knowledge of Arctic conditions made me fear that she would never reach the proposed site of operations, the west coast of Victoria Island. Mr. Leffingwell and I therefore agreed that I should not join the expedition in Victoria as did its other members, but should go overland and down the Mackenzie River to meet them at Herschel Island, which lies about eighty miles west of the Mackenzie delta. My reason was that if the expedition failed to get so far east I should be able to occupy my time profitably in the study of the scientifically unknown Mackenzie Eskimo. At that point the ice blocked her further advance until the season had become late and she was finally overtaken by winter on the north coast of Alaska at Flaxman Island.
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Vilhjalmur Stefansson was born on 3 November near Arnes, Manitoba, of Icelandic parents recently settled in Canada. The family soon moved to North Dakota, where Stefansson grew up.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson was a brilliant student and despite little formal schooling, he entered the University of North Dakota but was expelled in 1902 for excessive absences. Transferring to the University of Iowa, within a year Stefansson received credit by examination for 4 years of college, after which he studied religious folklore and anthropology at Harvard University.
Stefansson's fieldwork began with trips in 1904 and 1905 to study the language and dietary habits of the Icelanders. In 1906 he signed on the Leffingwell-Mikkelsen Arctic expedition as its ethnologist. He arranged to meet the expedition in the North, but it failed to reach Stefansson at the Mackenzie River delta, so he spent the winter among the Eskimo, learning much of their way of life.
From 1908 until 1912 Stefansson led an expedition back to the Arctic, exploring northern Alaska and the Canadian archipelago. This trip led to his discovery of the Copper (blond) Eskimo.
From 1913 to 1918 he headed a Canadian government-sponsored expedition in the Arctic, during which he tested his controversial theories on diet and survival: he believed that explorers could live off the wildlife in the Arctic, even on the polar ice floes, by adapting Eskimo ways. Despite dissension among some of his subordinates and the loss of one ship, Stefansson and two companions traveled 500 miles across the moving ice of Beaufort Sea to Banks Island in dramatic proof of these ideas.
Upon returning to the United States in 1918, Stefansson made several lecture tours and began to establish himself as an expert on polar subjects through his numerous writings. His first major work was My Life with the Eskimo (1913), and he amplified his unconventional views of the North as he discussed his 5-year sojourn in The Friendly Arctic (1921). He stressed the economic potential of the Arctic and predicted transpolar trips by both airplanes and submarines.
He also developed at this time what had started as a hobby-a collection of polar literature now considered the finest in the world. From 1932 to 1945 Stefansson served as an adviser on northern operations to Pan-American Airways, and he performed similar services for the military during World War II. He prepared Arctic manuals and language guides and demonstrated survival techniques.
Stefansson spent the last 15 years of his life in Hanover, N. H. , where he served as Arctic consultant to the Northern Studies program at Dartmouth College and continued lecturing, teaching, and writing.
The author of more than a score of books and several hundred articles, Stefansson died in Hanover on Aug. 26, 1962.
(Explorer of the last unknown lands in North America proph...)
(The plans of my second expedition took gradual shape duri...)
( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
(The author details his experiment in extreme nutrition, a...)
("A first class writing man, a first class hunter and expl...)
(This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. T...)
(The author details his experiment in extreme nutrition. T...)
The National Geographic Society
A witty, gifted, and inspiring conversationalist and teacher, the iconoclastic Stefansson was as effective in assisting others and furthering Arctic knowledge as he had been as an explorer and scientist.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson developed what had started as a hobby-a collection of polar literature now considered the finest in the world.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson married Evelyn Schwartz Baird in 1941.