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Biography of Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Name: Vilhjalmur Stefansson
Birth Date: November 3, 1879
Death Date: August 26, 1962
Place of Birth: Arnes, Manitoba, Canada
Nationality: American
Gender: Male
Occupations: explorer, scientist, author
Vilhjalmur Stefansson
The Canadian-American Arctic explorer, scientist, and author Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962) discovered new lands and became an authority on Eskimo life and language.Vilhjalmur Stefansson was born near Arnes, Manitoba, on Nov. 3, 1879, of Icelandic parents recently settled in Canada. The family soon moved to North Dakota, where Stefansson grew up. A brilliant student 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 …showed first 150 words…
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…showed last 150 words…teaching, and writing. 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. The author of more than a score of books and several hundred articles, Stefansson died in Hanover on Aug. 26, 1962. Further Reading The best source on Stefansson's life is his brilliant Discovery: The Autobiography of Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1964), completed just weeks before his death. An excellent study of Stefansson and his expeditions is Leslie H. Neatby, Conquest of the Last Frontier (1966). His exploits are recounted in Laurence Patrick Kirwan, A History of Polar Exploration (1960).Diubaldo, Richard J., Stefansson and the Canadian Arctic, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1978. Hunt, William R., Stef: a biography of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Canadian Arctic explorer, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986.Vilhjalmur Stefansson and the development of Arctic terrestrial science, Iowa City, Iowa: University of Iowa, 1984.
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