Interesting Trivia:

His Story:

Although he spent some of his young years in America, he was Canadian by birth. Stefánsson studied anthropology at Harvard University and even became an instructor there.

His first expeditions were in 1904 and 1905, when he traveled to Iceland.  Harvard had recommended him for the Anglo-American Polar Expedition, but the explorers failed to make their rendezvous with him on the Arctic coast, so he decided to use the trip as a training mission. He lived with the Inuit of the Mackenzie Delta in the following two years, studying the language and culture of the peoples.

He got an official appointment with his former University of Iowa classmate, Dr Rudolph M Anderson, a zoologist, from the American Museum of Natural History in New York to do ethnological surveys of the Central Arctic coasts.  He spent the next four years doing that (from 1908 till 1912). They traveled to Herschel Island, Cape Parry, and the south side of Victoria Island. This research required them to totally immerse themselves in the peoples way of life, which required them to devote most of their time and energy to day-to-day survival. In 1910, he discovered previously unknown Inuit (who were then called Eskimos) who were blond. These people had never seen a white man before. He met the Copper Inuit (who used copper for tools) with whom he stayed till 1912. By studying and living among the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic, he contributed a great deal of insight and knowledge about the indigenous cultures and their unique adaptations to the Arctic environment. He wrote about this experience in his book “My Life With the Eskimo”, 1913.

His next expedition was to be his last to the Arctic (from 1913 -1916) was for the Canadian Government.  Again, he went with Anderson as co-leader of the Canadian Arctic Expedition. He was to take the three ships “Karluk”, the “Mary Sachs”, and the “Alaska”, and explore the regions west of Parry Archipelago. In August of 1913, the “Karluk” got stuck in ice around Newfoundland. Stefánsson had not been on board when the ship got stuck but it set bad blood between him and Anderson. The expedition members were forced to leave the ship in search of food. The ice later completely crushed the ship and it sank. Four members of the expedition head out for Herald Island, in the hope of being rescued, but unfortunately, died there. In total, eleven of the crew died but the rest of the expedition members made it to Wrangel Island where they were picked up by American ships. 

In April 1914, Stefánsson resumed his explorations by dogsleds over the Arctic Ocean.  They traveled more than 20,000 miles and discovered four uncharted islands. The rest of the journey, they drilled holes in the ice to take soundings, and mapped the mountains and valleys on the floor of the Beaufort Sea. He reached the “Mary Sachs” 96 days later, together with the two other men who had joined him. He eventually made it back to Canada in 1918.

Back in Canada, and having resumed his Canadian citizenship in 1913, he tried during the early 1920s to interest the Canadian people and Government in their northern resources. He urged the Governments and businesses to exploit the economic and strategic potential of the Arctic. He saw the Arctic as the crossroads of the world, "a hub from which the other oceans and continents of the world radiate like the spokes of a wheel." But, in spite of all his efforts to promote further exploration to establish sovereignty over the Arctic islands (he even served on a Parliamentary commission on northern development in 1919-20) the government was slow to put his ideas into practice.

He decided it is time for action and if the Government was not going to take it, he would.  A decision which was to have disastrous results. In 1921, he sent out an expedition, to “colonize” Wrangel Island (north of Siberia).  Several surviving members from the “Karluk” had lived there for several months in 1914. Stefánsson wanted to start an exploration company, for people interested in touring the Arctic Island.  He caused an international incident when the expedition claimed Wrangel Island for the British and planted a British flag. Wrangel Island was acknowledged Russian territory. Stefánsson originally had wanted to claim the island for Canada, but when the Canadian Government refused to support the expedition he decided to claim it for England.  The British Government rejected the plan as well, nevertheless, the planting of the British flag caused serious friction with the Russians.

The expedition was a disaster, as the four young men (from the US and Canada) Stefánsson had sent were ill-equipped and ill-prepared.  They all perished on the island with the only surviving members an Inuk woman Ada Blackjack and the expedition’s cat Vic. Ada herself was rescued two years later. Stefánsson had to deal with the angry families and, this being the second expedition after the incident with the Karluk where there were casualties, his reputation was largely destroyed. The resulting negative publicity made him for many years persona non grata in Canada.

In 1935, he was commissioned by the United States Government to prepare a bibliography of information about the Arctic, an Arctic survival manual for the Army, and reports on conditions in Alaska for the Air Force. Around this time he was also re-naturalized as an American citizen. 

In 1941, a year after the death of Fanny (Pan) Pannigabluk, his Inuit wife, he married Evelyn Schwartz Baird, a singer, actor, sculptor, and photographer, who he had helped getting a job. He was more than 30 years older than her, but it was a happy marriage.

During World War II, Stefánsson helped the US military as a consultant.  He set up an Arctic study center for them, trained personnel for winter and mountain conditions and after the war, was commissioned by the Office of Naval Research to prepare a 20-volume "Encyclopedia Arctica."  For some unexplained reason, the Navy cancelled the contract they had made with Stefánsson in 1949.  It was the era of the Cold War days and Stefánsson believed that the project had required cooperation with the Soviet Union, which made the Americans uneasy.

The latter part of his life was spent as Director of Polar Studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. In previous years, he had gathered a huge collection on books and manuscripts; everything related to the polar regions. He sold his collection to be put on display at the College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He and his wife Evelyn moved to Hanover where Evelyn took on the job as librarian of the Stefánsson Collection. Stefánsson acted as an honorary professor emeritus, writing, lecturing, and serving as a mentor for students in the Northern Studies Center.

His pro-Soviet feelings were the reason they were questioned by the state's Attorney General about their Communist sympathies. Although he was actually involved in various organizations, the state investigation did not turn up any of this material and he was cleared.

In his last years, after suffering two strokes, he took it easy.  He still advised his students, but his wife had taken over his teaching duties.  He started writing on his autobiography “Discovery”. Shortly after completing his autobiography, he died of a stroke.

During his long expeditions, he learned a lot from the Inuit,and was considered was an authority on polar regions.  He was fascinated in their low-carb diet of meat and fish.  He had documented the fact that most Inuit lived on a diet of about 90% meat and fish, often going 6-9 months a year on nothing but meat and fish which is essentially, a zero-carb diet. Findings of experiments he and a fellow explorer undertook on a 100% meat diet for the American Medical Association were published in the Journal of the AMA. It showed that, even without having had vitamin supplements or anything else except meat, they were perfectly healthy.

He had established peaceful contacts with the local peoples and adopted their native way of life during his expeditions.  He learned how best to survive in the harsh Arctic conditions and as such succeeded where many previous expeditions had failed. Due to his willingness to respect the Inuit he avoided the violent conflicts which had befallen several earlier explorers.  He believed that the stereotyping of the “Eskimo” as a primitive, inferior race was absolutely wrong and saw them instead as models of successful adaptation and teachers from whom much could be learned.

Wrote the following books:

• My Life with the Eskimo; The Macmillan Company, New York, 1912
• Stefánsson-Anderson Expedition, 1909-12; Anthropological Papers, AMNH, vol. XIV., New York, 1914
• The Friendly Arctic, 1921
• The Northward Course of Empire, 1922
• Standardization of Error; 1927
• Adventures in Error, 1936
• Not by Bread Alone; The Macmillan Company, New York, 1946
• Discovery - the autobiography of Vilhjalmur Stefansson; McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1964
• Cancer: Disease of civilization? An anthropological and historical study; Hill and Wang, Inc., New York, 1960
• Great Adventures and Explorations; The Dial Press, 1947
• Discovery (Stefansson's autobiography), which was published in 1964, two years after his death.
• Co-wrote a series of children’s books in the 1920’s, probably based on his memories of his son Alex.  One well known book is Kak, the Copper Eskimo, 1924