Travelling Passions: The Hidden Life of Vilhjalmur Stefansson 0887551793, 9780887553905

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TRAVELLING PASSIONS

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TRAVELLING PASSIONS

The Hidden Life of Vilhjalmur Stefansson .by

Gisli Palsson

Translated from the Icelandic by Keneva Kunz With a Foreword by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada

UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA P R E S S

© Gisli Palsson, 2003 Title of the original Icelandic edition: FraegQ og firnindi - aevi Vilhjalms Stefanssonar Published by agreement with Edda - Publishing, Reykjavik, www.edda.is English edition © Gisli Palsson, 2005 Travelling Passions: The Hidden Life of Vilhjalmur Stefansson Published by University of Manitoba Press Translated from the Icelandic by Keneva Kunz University of Manitoba Press Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2 Canada www.umanitoba.ca/uofrnpress Printed in Canada on acid-free paper by Friesens. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the University of Manitoba Press, or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from ACCESS COPYRIGHT (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), 6 Adelaide Street East, Suite 900, Toronto, ONM5C 1H6. Cover design: Doowah Design Cover image: Vilhjalmur Stefansson, courtesy Dartmouth College Library Text design: Sharon Caseburg Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Gisli Palsson, 1949Travelling passions : the hidden life of Vilhjalmur Stefansson / Gisli Palsson ; Keneva Kunz, translator. Translation of: Fraegd og firnindi. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-88755-179-3 1. Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, 1879-1962. 2. Canada, Northern—Discovery and exploration. 3. Stefansson, Vilhjalmur, 1879-1962—Relations with women. 4. Explorers—Canada—Biography. I. Kunz, Keneva II. Title. G635.S7G5713 2005

917.1904T092

C2005-903283-9

The University of Manitoba Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for its publication program provided by the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP); the Canada Council for the Arts; the Manitoba Arts Council; and the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism. Publication of this book has been made possible through the support of the Icelandic Language and Literature Fund, Icelandic Department at the University of Manitoba.

In memory of my father Pall Gislason (1922-2002)

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CONTENTS

Foreword by Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada / ix Acknowledgements / xiii Introduction: Hard Facts and Emotive Fluff/ 3 One: Formative Years 727 Two: The Bone Collector / 45 Three: My Little Wife 765 Four: Among Inuit 775 Five: To the "Blond Eskimos" 7 89 Six: In the Wake of the Karluk I 129 Seven: Farewell to Family Life 7 169 Eight: Back to Civilization 7181 Nine: The Saga of Alex Stefansson 7 217 Ten: The Dartmouth Years 7251 Eleven: The Super Eskimo 7275 Twelve: Love and Fame 7 291 Epilogue 7 305 A Chronology 7323 Endnotes/ 325 Bibliography 7 347 Index 7 3 67

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FOREWORD

The more I read about Vilhjalmur Stefansson, the more I admire him, and the more I understand why he attracted such controversy. He was a brilliant anthropologist and an original thinker, and it is not surprising that he drove bureaucrats, including those in the Canadian geological survey, into fury. Waves of resistance often met his most creative ideas and plans. He was a man of great psychological complexity, but the story of his northern explorations—and his views on the reality of the lands and peoples he found there—fascinated his readers. In such books as The Friendly Arctic and Wrangel Island, which remain eminently readable, he infuriated his critics and delighted his admirers. His lengthy and extraordinary explanations drew a huge public, including Sir Robert Borden, the Canadian prime minister, who wrote an introduction to Stefansson's My Life with the Eskimo. He radically changed the image of the Arctic, especially in the minds of those who had never set foot there. He was an enemy of all who sought to fight the Arctic, to conquer it, to impose their will and their ideas on it. Stefansson was called "the prophet of the North", and, like many prophets, was sometimes without honour in his own country. But there was much truth in his observations. He said that the Arctic cold deprives no one of either health or comfort if he understands its conditions, takes the necessary precautions, and governs himself by common sense. Regarding the peoples we now know as the

TRAVELLING PASSIONS

limit, Stefansson said, "[Their] social organization, their conception of life, their ideas respecting the phenomena of nature and their practical adaptability to a difficult environment, were probably similar to those which prevailed among our ancestors. They spoke several dialects of a remarkably complex language and in everyday life, they used a vocabulary far exceeding that which we ordinarily employed." Borden concluded that, thanks to Stefansson, "many illusions with respect to Arctic conditions have been dissipated", and that is one of his greatest and most lasting contributions. Stefansson's achievements were not limited to his anthropological studies of how people survived and how their societies evolved. In the course of 12 years in the Arctic, he discovered some of the world's last uncharted land masses, such as Brock, Borden, Meighen, and Lougheed islands. His hydrographic soundings outlined, for the first time, the continental shelf from Alaska to Prince Patrick Island, revealing the mountains and valleys beneath the Beaufort Sea. It has been estimated that he travelled 32,000 kilometres by sled and dog team, exploring roughly 160,000 square kilometres of Arctic territory. In addition to the Canadian fascination for the North, Stefansson attracted our attention and interest by his undoubted bravery and by his wide-ranging interests and theories including, interestingly enough, his authoritative opinions on diet, especially the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that is popular today. For Stefansson, the far North was not a wasteland but a frontier, destined to be explored and peopled much as the American West had been. For him, the North was a place where people could live and thrive, and any disbelief was countered by his own life experience. Stefansson was certain, for instance, that grazing animals like muskoxen could supply meat for the rest of Canada, making the Arctic part of a larger system of food production. He would be pleased to see today that ktviuk, the undercoat of the muskoxen, is being woven into wool finer than cashmere. Stefansson was a visionary. He anticipated "the great circle route" of today's airline traffic between North America and Europe; he foresaw the possibility of submarine travel under the polar ice caps; he suggested the use of ice floes as mobile scientific platforms. Vilhjalmur Stefansson's approach also gave us a model for the ongoing work of meeting and mutual understanding between the peoples of the south and the Inuit. In The Friendly Arctic, the great explorer relates that X

FOREWORD

he was the first white man ever seen by the Copper Eskimos of the western Arctic. As Stefansson made his way across the ice and snow, he saw figures in the distance approaching him. Not wanting to frighten them or to invite hostilities, Stefansson slowly and deliberately set down his rifle and his pack on the ice. He stretched his empty arms towards them. They responded in kind, putting down their scythes and harpoons. And thus the two worlds met, with arms opened in peace, in respect, with a willingness to embrace and learn about each other. This is Vilhjalmur Stefansson's true legacy. Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson, Governor General of Canada

XI

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It was during my years as a student at the University of Iceland in the early 1970s that I first became acquainted with Stefansson's works. It was only much later, however, that my real interest in his life and work was aroused, when I visited, together with my colleague E. Paul Durrenberger and our families, the Icelandic settlements in North Dakota and Manitoba where Stefansson grew up. Our journey was intended to investigate how Icelandic settlements had adapted to North American conditions, including the greater climatic variations and multicultural society of Natives and immigrants. Here lay the roots that shaped Stefansson as an explorer, author, and anthropologist. Before setting out, I had contacted June Helm, professor of anthropology at the University of Iowa. She was a well-known expert on Arctic issues, especially with regard to Aboriginal societies in Canada's Northwest Territories. I was interested in hearing her assessment of Stefansson's contribution to Arctic research. Helm was a gold mine of information, but our conversation had taken an unexpected direction. She told me she had travelled in the areas Stefansson had visited along the Arctic Ocean, close to the border separating Canada from Alaska. There she had become acquainted with Alex Stefansson, the boy Stefansson had had with an Inupiat woman who had assisted him on his expeditions. Alex had worked for her and her former husband, Scotty McNeish, two summers on archaeological excavations.

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My conversation with June Helm in the spring of 1987 prompted me to look into the matter further. I had not been aware that Stefansson had fathered a child on his expeditions among the Inuit, as there was no indication of such in his works. I thought I might get in touch with Alex, to learn about his life and that of his family, and to hear what they had to say about Stefansson's relations with the Inuit. I was not only interested in finding out everything I could about Stefansson's secret, and the love story behind it, but also in learning about his work in the field and how he described it. In the late 1980s scholarly discussion was focussed to an increasing extent on the circumstances of research in the field, the person wielding the pen, relations between scholars and their hosts, and the impact this had on their writings and reports. As a result, it seemed a prime opportunity to take a closer look at Stefansson's field research. This might offer an opportunity to shed new light both on his writings and research, as well as that of other anthropologists and explorers at the beginning of the last century. However, various other tasks prevented me from undertaking this project at the time, and it was only a decade later that I picked up the thread once more. I had then learned that Alex Stefansson and his wife Mabel Okpik had had six children. Alex himself had died in 1966, and thus could no longer provide information about his father. By this time, a variety of other sources concerning Stefansson had been pointed out to me, of which I had not previously been aware. Philip Cronenwett, head of the section of the Dartmouth College Library in Hanover, New Hampshire, where documents donated by Stefansson to the library are preserved, produced reliable sources concerning Alex and his paternity, including letters from Stefansson's friends and colleagues. Some of these sources stated that Stefansson and his Inuit 'seamstress' Pannigabluk had been man and wife according to Inuit custom. June Helm told me of photographs of Alex and his family preserved in the Northwest Territories Archives in Yellowknife. Last but not least, I learned that Stefansson had left a substantial collection of travel journals, which were now the property of the Dartmouth College Library. All of this contributed to reawakening my interest in Stefansson, his works and research. I decided to wipe the dust off my research plans of a decade earlier and concentrate especially on Stefansson's diaries, which could conceivably offer useful information on his connection with the Aboriginal people he encountered and who worked with him, on his XIV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

methods in the field, and about his relations with his Inupiat family. Assisted by several graduate students at the University of Iceland, I worked intermittently on editing Stefansson's journals for three years. It was often tiring work, not least for my assistant, who contributed the lion's share of reading and entering the journals, since the text of Stefansson's manuscripts was often complicated and difficult to interpret. We were, however, rewarded well for our efforts. Selections from the journals, which were published by the University Press of New England with the title Writing on Ice, did open up many new perspectives on Stefansson and his work in the field. About the same time that I submitted the final journal-manuscript for publication, I undertook a two-week journey to the Northwest Territories, in July of 2000, to investigate what had become of Alex Stefansson's family. Here I finally had an opportunity to hear Inuit views on Stefansson's expeditions and research, and on his relations with local people. I conducted lengthy interviews, for instance, with four of Stefansson's grandchildren, all of whom were willing to provide me with information on their grandmother, Fanny Pannigabluk, and Stefansson's connections with her and Alex. At the same time, I had a chance to examine documents concerning Stefansson's Inupiat family. I enjoyed the very warm hospitality of Rosie Albert Stefansson and the patient guidance of Frank Stefansson in travelling around the town of Inuvik and surrounding area. Several years later, when Georgina Stefansson and her husband Frank visited Iceland in December 2003,1 finally had a chance to repay the hospitality she and her siblings had shown me. Although this book is in part based on my earlier works, in particular Writing on Ice, and my real interest in Stefansson's work has quite a lengthy history, it was only in the last five years that it began to take shape. It is the outcome of extensive independent research, both in Iceland and in the US and Canada. Mention should be made especially of research on written sources concerning Stefansson's connections with Iceland (letters and newspaper and journal articles) in archives and libraries (including the National Archives of Iceland, Dartmouth College Library, and the Peabody Museum at Harvard University). While this work was in progress, I learned of a new source on Stefansson, a bundle of private letters from among his possessions that had, incredibly enough, recently turned up at a flea market near Hanover, New Hampshire. There were XV

TRAVELLING PASSIONS

several hundred letters between Stefansson and a number of female acquaintances, many expressing strong emotions. These letters revealed a new side of the man Stefansson and his emotions, as they were written in a completely different and more personal vein than his journals and published works. The letters revealed that Stefansson had been intimately involved with a young Canadian woman, Orpha Cecil Smith, when he set out on his first expedition to the Arctic. This relationship cast new light on Stefansson's expeditions and what followed, not least on his silence concerning his Inupiat family. I felt it was necessary to try to contact Cecil Smith's descendents, who might possibly be able to provide further information on her life and her relationship with Stefansson. After extensive searching, and with the aid of a number of helpful people in the US and Canada, I managed to get in touch with her daughter, Jerry Day Mason, who lives in Maine. A great number of people have assisted me, in one way or another, in writing this book. Philip Cronenwett and his colleagues at the Dartmouth College Library tracked down a variety of previously unpublished material, which they kindly allowed me to use. I would like to extend my thanks to Cronenwett for his assistance, encouragement, and various types of support. Without him, this volume could never have come into existence. The staff at the Icelandic publisher Mai og menning, who devoted their care and professional expertise to my original manuscript, deserve my warmest thanks, especially Olof Eldjarn, Gu5mundur Andri Thorsson, and Pall Valsson. Professor June Helm of the University of Iowa was an endless source of valuable information, right from the time I began looking into Stefansson's life and work until her death in February 2004. She informed me, for instance, of important photographic materials available concerning Stefansson's Inupiat family and companions. Tina Sangris of the Prince of Wales Heritage Museum in Yellowknife assisted in searching for visual material and the staff of the Aurora Research Centre in Inuvik helped in planning my first trip to northern Canada in 2000. Jette Elsebeth Ashlee (Ottawa), who has studied Stefansson's expeditions for years, pointed out very important sources and kindly allowed me access to her sources on the life of Storker Storkerson, interviews, and draft doctoral thesis, as well as reading over the manuscript and suggesting numerous improvements.

xvi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have also benefited from the suggestions of a great many other individuals on collecting data, individual aspects, or approaches. Here I should mention Charles Arnold (Prince of Wales Heritage Museum, Yellowknife), Gunnlaugur Astgeirsson (HamrahliS College, Reykjavik), Helgi Bernodusson (The Icelandic Althing, Reykjavik), Inga Dora Bjornsdottir (Santa Barbara), Varujan Y. Boghosian (Dartmouth College), Anne Brydon (Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario), Ernest S. Burch (Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC), Niels Einarsson (Stefansson Arctic Institute, Akureyri), Gu5run Gu6steinsdottir (University of Iceland), Jon Haukur Ingimundarson (Stefansson Arctic Institute), Helgi Skuli Kjartansson (Iceland University of Education), Mark Nuttall (University of Alberta), Hakon Mar Oddsson (Reykjavik), Astrid Ogilvie (University of Colorado at Boulder), Bonnie Paetkau (Vancouver), Peter Raymond (White Pine Pictures, Toronto), Patrick Reed (Toronto), Charles Swithinbank (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge), and Robert Welsch (Dartmouth College). Much of the visual material reproduced in the book has been loaned by the following institutions: Dartmouth College Library, Northwest Territories Archives in Yellowknife, Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa, Public Works and Government Services Canada, Geological Survey of Canada, Robert S. Peabody Museum in Andover, Massachusetts, Peabody Museum of Harvard University, Urban Archives at Temple University, and National Museum of Iceland. I am especially indebted to Kristin Erla HarSardottir, who provided invaluable assistance in financing and preparing the research upon which this book is based to a major extent, in addition to supervising the investigation of primary sources in Icelandic document collections and libraries. Cathrene Gehue of Toronto uncovered useful information on Orpha Cecil Smith's background and family. Cecil's daughter, Jerry Day Mason, in Maine, and nephew, Linton Love, related to me what the family knew of Stefansson's connections with Cecil. My own daughter, Rosa Signy Gisladottir, assisted in collecting material and entering it. Lovisa Asbjornsdottir prepared the maps and SigurSur Orn GuSbjornsson helped with the index. To my informants in the Inuit regions of Canada—Stefansson's grandchildren Frank, Georgina, Rosie, and Shirley—and to informants and assistants in Cambridge Bay—especially Navalik Helen Tologanak—go my thanks for their enjoyable contribution, as well as to all the other people whom I encountered and who set their mark on my story. xvii

TRAVELLING PASSIONS

My wife GuSny Gudbjornsdottir, who has had to tolerate my intense involvement with arctic travels and narratives since our trip to North Dakota and Manitoba in 1987, offered a number of useful comments throughout the writing process. This book was originally published in Icelandic as Fr