Vilhjalmur Stefansson:
Arctic Adventurer
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by Tom Henighan
Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2009
216 pp., illus., $19.99 paperback
Vilhjalmur Stefansson is not a typical, straightforward biography. It starts off as a narrative of the controversial Canadian-born explorer’s life, then moves into essay mode, ruminating on the mystery of the North and its place in popular culture. The book ends unusually, with the script of a play that presumably takes place in the afterlife — it imagines Stefansson interacting with some of the people who played key roles in his life.
It doesn’t all work. But this short bio gets at some of the main things to know about Stefansson: he was undeniably brilliant and driven, letting nothing get in the way of his passion to explore the Arctic and its Inuit culture; he was also disliked by some of his contemporaries, who denounced him as a charlatan.
Definitely short on leadership qualities, his lack of attention to detail led to disaster when the Canadian Arctic Expedition ship Karluk was trapped in ice in 1913. Reports that Stefansson had discovered a lost race of “blond Eskimos” descended from Vikings damaged his credibility for a while, although recent archaeological finds on Baffin Island may yet prove his theory.
Others have written more extensive biographies of Stefansson, but Tom Henighan’s book provides a quick, analytical introduction to this complex explorer.
— Nelle Oosterom (Read bio)
Nelle Oosterom is the Senior Editor of Canada's History magazine.