(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.
("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 KLINKENBERG—SEA WOLF AND DISCOVERER
V. THE WHALING FLEET SAILS AWAY
VI. LEARNING TO LIVE AS AN ESKIMO—ON 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
The Friendly Arctic; the Story of Five Years in Polar Regions
(
This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
(
This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
(1939 history of various Arctic expeditions that had met w...)
1939 history of various Arctic expeditions that had met with disaster and had not at that time been resolved. Written for middle school level of 1939, or the equivalent 21st century college senior.
Writing on Ice: The Ethnographic Notebooks of Vilhjalmur Stefansson
(An extensive account of the often elusive anthropology of...)
An extensive account of the often elusive anthropology of a famed Arctic explorer.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879 - 1962), son of Icelandic immigrants in Manitoba and North Dakota, was affiliated with Harvard's Anthropology Department and Peabody Museum. His association with Dartmouth began in 1929, and his later visits laid the foundation for the polar study program formally established in 1953.
Gisli Palsson is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Institute of Anthropology at University of Iceland.
(This manual was written for the Air Corps of the US Armey...)
This manual was written for the Air Corps of the US Armey, but the reasons for it go back to civilian flying, indeed to the first job of ordinary commercial air transport between North America and Asia.
The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years...)
Excerpt from The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions
As the plans progressed, it became apparent that more funds would be needed for the expanding program, and Mr. Stefansson.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson was a Canadian-American Arctic explorer and ethnologist. He is remembered for spending five consecutive record-making years exploring vast areas of the Canadian Arctic after adapting himself to the Inuit (Eskimo) way of life.
Background
Vilhjalmur was born on November 3, 1879 at Arnes, Manitoba, Canada, the son of Johann Stefansson and Ingibjorg Johannesdottir, who had emigrated from Iceland in 1877. Christened William, he changed his first name to its Icelandic form Vilhjalmur when an adult. In 1880 a flood caused great property damage around Arnes and claimed numbers of lives, including two Stefansson children. This prompted the family to settle in Dakota Territory outside the small town of Mountain. They engaged in subsistence farming and probably raised some cash crops.
His father died when Stefansson was a teen-ager, and in order to be less of a burden to his mother, Stefansson went to live with a married sister at Mountain.
Education
Stefansson attended school, but supplemented his meager education by reading the Bible, Icelandic sagas, and the Icelandic newspaper Heimskringla.
In 1898 Stefansson entered the Preparatory Department at the University of North Dakota. But in 1902 he was expelled, allegedly for encouraging students to protest against the administration. (Stefansson denied such activity in his autobiography. ) He entered the University of Iowa shortly thereafter and took equivalency examinations in order to graduate in one year (1903).
When Fenn and Eliot agreed that he could study religion from an anthropological perspective, Stefansson entered Harvard Divinity School in the fall of 1903. At the end of his first year he abandoned theological studies and became a full-time graduate student in anthropology, eventually obtaining his M. A. in 1923.
Career
After studies Stefansson supported himself by helping his brother Johann in a stock-herding enterprise and by capturing wild horses in Montana and selling them to North Dakota farmers.
The summers of 1904 and 1905 he went on archaeological expeditions to Iceland for the Peabody Museum of Harvard. In 1905 the Harvard Department of Anthropology selected him as a teaching fellow for the polar regions, especially the Arctic. Ernest de Koven Leffingwell, a geologist, offered him a position as the ethnographer for an Anglo-American polar expedition in April 1906.
Stefansson accepted but the expedition was aborted in April 1907 because Leffingwell's ship failed to appear at the appointed spot. Instead he lived with an Eskimo family in a village west of the mouth of the Mackenzie River. Stefansson went to New York City in the fall of 1907 and met with officials of the American Museum of Natural History, persuading them to finance an Arctic expedition. (At this time he published his first articles about Eskimos in Harper's. )
With additional support from the Canadian government, the expedition departed in May 1908. Before it reached Cape Parry the following spring, Stefansson had learned to adequately speak the Eskimo language. He departed from Cape Parry in April 1909 and spent the next three years among the Eskimos of eastern Alaska. In the spring of 1912 he returned to New York City, where he hoped to find backing for another expedition.
A September 12, 1912, article in the Seattle (Washington) Daily Times stated that Stefansson had discovered "blond Eskimos" who may have been descendents of early European explorers. This caused great controversy, and he became known to many Arctic scholars. He published his findings on blond Eskimos in both the Literary Digest and Scientific American. The Canadian government agreed to finance a second expedition. Stefansson divided it into two groups: The first, of which he would be the leader, would explore in the Beaufort Sea, take soundings, look for signs of animal life, and search for undiscovered land - islands of the Canadian archipelago.
The other party, led by his friend Rudolph Martin Anderson, an ornithologist, was to do anthropological, zoological, archaeological, and geological research in the vicinity of Coronation Gulf. Both parties left for Alaska in the summer of 1913. Stefansson focused his attention on explorations in the Arctic Ocean - primarily the Beaufort Sea - for the next five years.
In 1914 he and two companions lived on the floating ice of the Arctic Ocean for several months and supplemented their limited supplies with polar-bear and seal meat, dispelling the notion that the area had no animal life. While he was at Herschel Island in early 1918, he developed typhoid and pneumonia and did not fully recover until the summer.
Stefansson went to England in 1920 and tried to persuade the British to finance another Arctic expedition. The government refused to subsidize his new venture, and Stefansson decided not to undertake any more Arctic expeditions, preferring instead to lecture and write. His two most influential books, The Friendly Arctic: The Story of Five Years in Polar Regions (1921) and The Northward Course of Empire (1922), stressed that the Arctic was not a barren land and that transpolar commercial airline travel was feasible. Some explorers, particularly Roald Amundsen, rejected Stefansson's claims, and it was some years before his findings were generally accepted. Stefansson began acquiring materials dealing with polar regions in the early 1920's. The collection, which eventually exceeded fifteen thousand volumes, was sold to Dartmouth College.
During World War II the United States government frequently employed him as a consultant on Arctic matters. In 1951 he moved from New York City, where he had maintained his home and offices for many years, to a Vermont farm.
He was encouraged to become a Unitarian minister, offering him financial assistance to study theology at Harvard University.
Membership
He was a member of the Royal Geographical Society and of the History of Science Society. In 1941, he became the third honorary member of the American Polar Society.
Connections
On April 10, 1941, he married Evelyn Schwartz Baird; they had no children.