Vilhjalmur Stefansson

Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Born	1879
Died	1962
Residence	Canadian Arctic Expedition, The Navy Yard, Esquimault, British Columbia American Geographical Society, Broadway, at 156th Street, New York City [1919] Harvard Club, New York City [1927]
Occupation	explorer ethnologist
Society Membership membership ordinary fellow left 1931 last listed elected_AI 1913.04.22 clubs Explorers Club Harvard Club societies Royal Geographical Society American Polar Society History of Science Society American Geographical Society

Notes

House Notes

1913.04.01 proposed by A.C. Haddon, seconded by C.G. Seligman

Notes From Elsewhere

Vilhjalmur Stefansson (Icelandic: Vilhjálmur Stefánsson) (November 3, 1879 – August 26, 1962) was a Canadian Arctic explorer and ethnologist.
Stefansson, born William Stephenson, was born at Gimli, Manitoba, Canada, in 1879. His parents had emigrated from Iceland to Manitoba two years earlier. After losing two children during a period of devastating flooding, the family moved to North Dakota in 1880.
He was educated at the universities of North Dakota and of Iowa (A.B., 1903). During his college years, in 1899, he changed his name to Vilhjalmur Stefansson. He studied anthropology at the graduate school of Harvard University, where for two years he was an instructor.
In 1904 and 1905, Stefansson did archaeological research in Iceland. Recruited by Ejnar Mikkelsen and Ernest de Koven Leffingwell for their Anglo-American Polar Expedition, he lived with the Inuit of the Mackenzie Delta during the winter of 1906–1907, returning alone across country via the Porcupine and Yukon Rivers. Under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, he and Dr. R. M. Anderson undertook the ethnological survey of the Central Arctic coasts of the shores of North America from 1908 to 1912.
In 1908, Stefansson made a decision that would affect the rest of his time in Alaska: he hired the Inuk guide Natkusiak, who would remain with him as his primary guide for the rest of his Alaska expeditions.[1] At the time he met Natkusiak, the Inuit guide was working for Capt. George B. Leavitt, a Massachusetts whaling ship captain and friend of Stefansson's who sometimes brought the Arctic explorer replenishments of supplies from the American Museum of Natural History.[2]
Christian Klengenberg is first credited to have introduced the term "Blonde Eskimo" to Stefansson just before Stefansson's visit to the Inuit inhabiting southwestern Victoria Island, Canada, in 1910. Stefansson, though, preferred the term Copper Inuit.[3] Adolphus Greely in 1912 first compiled the sightings recorded in earlier literature of blonde or fair haired Arctic natives and in 1912 published them in the National Geographic Magazine entitled "The Origin of Stefansson's Blonde Eskimo". Newspapers subsequently popularised the term "Blonde Eskimo", which caught more readers attention despite Stefansson's preference for Copper Inuit. Stefansson later referenced Greely's work in his writings and the term "Blonde Eskimo" became applied to sightings of light haired Eskimos from as early as the 17th century.
Stefansson organized and directed the Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913-1916 to explore the regions west of Parry Archipelago for the Government of Canada. Three ships, the Karluk, the Mary Sachs, and the Alaska were employed.
Stefansson left the main ship, the Karluk, when it became stuck in the ice in August/September 1913. Stefansson's explanation was that he and five other expedition members left to go hunting to provide fresh meat for the crew. However, William Laird McKinley and others left on the ship suspected that he left deliberately, anticipating that the ship would be carried off by moving ice, as indeed happened. The ship, with Captain Robert Bartlett of Newfoundland and 24 other expedition members aboard, drifted westward with the ice and was eventually crushed. It sank on January 11, 1914. Four men made their way to Herald Island, but died there, possibly from carbon monoxide poisoning, before they could be rescued. Four other men, including Alistair Mackay who had been part of the Sir Ernest Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition, tried reaching Wrangel Island on their own but perished. The remaining members of the expedition, under command of Captain Bartlett, made their way to Wrangel Island where three died. Bartlett and his Inuk hunter Kataktovik made their way across sea ice to Siberia to get help. Remaining survivors were picked up by the American fishing schooner King & Winge and the U.S. revenue cutter Bear.[5]
Stefansson resumed his explorations by sledge over the Arctic Ocean, here known as the Beaufort Sea, leaving Collinson Point, Alaska in April, 1914. A supporting sledge turned back 75 mi (121 km) offshore, but he and two men continued onward on one sledge, living largely by his rifle on polar game for 96 days until his party reached the Mary Sachs in the autumn. Stefansson continued exploring until 1918.
In 1921, he encouraged and planned an expedition for four young men to colonise Wrangel Island north of Siberia, where the eleven survivors of the 22 men on the Karluk had lived from March to September 1914. Stefansson had designs for forming an exploration company that would be geared towards individuals interested in touring the Arctic island.
Stefansson originally wanted to claim Wrangel Island for the Canadian government. However, due to the dangerous outcome from his initial trip to the island, the government refused to assist with the expedition. He then wanted to claim the land for Britain but the British government rejected this claim when it was made by the young men. The raising of the British flag on Wrangel Island, acknowledged Russian territory, caused an international incident.
The four young men, Frederick Maurer, E. Lorne Knight, and Milton Galle from the US, and Allan Crawford of Canada, were inexperienced and ill-equipped for the trip. All perished on the island or in an attempt to get help from Siberia across the frozen Chukchi Sea. The only survivors were an Inuk woman, Ada Blackjack, whom the men had hired as a seamstress in Nome, Alaska, and taken with them, and the expedition's cat, Vic. Ada Blackjack had taught herself survival skills and cared for the last man on the island, E. Lorne Knight, until he died of scurvy. Blackjack was rescued in 1923 after two years on Wrangel Island. Stefansson drew the ire of the public and the families for having sent such ill equipped young men to Wrangel. His reputation was severely tainted by this disaster and that of the Karluk.
Stefansson's discoveries included new land (such as Brock, Mackenzie King, Borden, Meighen, and Lougheed Islands)[6] and the edge of the continental shelf. His journeys and successes are among the marvels of Arctic exploration. He extended the discoveries of Francis Leopold McClintock. From April 1914 to June 1915 he lived on the ice pack. Stefansson continued his explorations leaving from Herschel Island on August 23, 1915.
In 1921 he was awarded the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society for his explorations of the Arctic
Stefansson remained a well-known explorer for the rest of his life. Late in life, through his affiliation with Dartmouth College (he was Director of Polar Studies), he became a major figure in the establishment of the US Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, New Hampshire. CRREL-supported research, often conducted in winter on the forbidding summit of Mount Washington, has been key to developing matériel and doctrine to support alpine conflict.
Stefansson joined the Explorers Club in 1908, four years after its founding. He later served as Club President twice: 1919–1922 and 1937–1939. In the all-male Club, the Board drew attention under Stefansson's reign when it put forth an amendment to its bylaws that read in 1938, "A Woman's Roll of Honor shall be instituted to which the Board of Directors may name women of the United States and Canada in recognition of the noteworthy achievements and writings in the field of the Club's interests, primarily exploration."[8] Perhaps to comfort fellow members, the article added, "This Woman's Roll of Honor shall be quite outside the Club's organisation but shall correspond in dignity to the Honorary Class of (male) members within it."[8] His continued support of women in anthropology is demonstrated in his mentorship 1939 - 1941 of Gitel Steed as she undertook research on diet and subsistence for his two-volume Lives of the Hunters, from which she began a dissertation on hunter-gatherer.
While living in New York City, Stefansson was one of the regulars at Romany Marie's Greenwich Village cafés.[9] During the years when he and novelist Fannie Hurst were having an affair,[10] they met there when he was in town.
In 1941 he became the third honorary member of the American Polar Society.[11] He served as president of the History of Science Society from 1945-46.[12]
In 1940, he met his future wife Evelyn Schwartz Baird at Romany Marie's;[9][10] Stefansson and Baird married soon after.

Related Material Details

Other Material

Stefansson's personal papers and collection of Arctic artifacts are maintained and available to the public at the Dartmouth College Library