In 1979-80 scholars in Moscow, Ottawa Canada and the US, at the University of Iowa and Dartmouth College in Hanover, gathered to honor the 100th anniversary of the birth of the last, and one of the greatest true Arctic explorer/scientists, Vilhjalmur Stefansson.

School friends called him, Windjammer, but Will-yell-more is what his detractors nicknamed him for his aggressiveness in a debate. Stef, as he asked people to call him later in life, was the last Arctic explorer to travel on the ground-- by foot or dogsled. After Stefansson all Arctic exploration was from the air--by dirigible or airplane. By the estimates of some historians he is one of the three greatest Arctic explorers in history.

Stefansson (1879-1962) was active as an Arctic explorer from 1906- 1918, leading Arctic expeditions for the Peabody Museum and the American Museum of Natural History. For one unbroken period of 4 1/2 years stretching from May 1908 until August 1912 he lived as an Eskimo north of the Arctic Circle. In the summer of 1911 on Victoria Island he encountered a group of Eskimos with unexpectedly European-like features. These stone-age people had never seen Europeans before and were still effectively living in the Stone Age. He called the fair-haired people Copper Eskimos after their sole metal tool, copper knives. When Stefansson returned to civilization in September 1912, he speculated the Blond Eskimos could be descended from Icelandic Norsemen who had originally settled Greenland. A firestorm of ridicule descended upon him. Some critics were convinced Stefansson had sparked the controversy himself to become famous. If so, it worked. Stefansson became a celebrity. He gave the Museum a number of bone and stone tools, boots, and a parka he had collected from the Blond Eskimos in May, 1911.

Stefansson was a prolific author who wrote some 24 books and more than 400 articles about the Far North and its people. Lecturing, writing books for popular magazines such as Harper's and the National Geographic were the means he used to finance his expeditions and research into Arctic nutrition. Through books such as his The Friendly Arctic (1921) he urged development and settlement of the Arctic and predicted nonstop Great Circle flights over the north to Asia, and submarine travel to the Pole. Stefansson always minimized the danger and privations of Arctic exploration saying, I know nothing of courage, but I will speak to you about adaptability. (Folk, p. 70). Speaking of a friendly Arctic incensed competing explorers like Norwegian Roald Amundsen (1872-1928), the first person to reach the South Pole and whose fame rested on the continuing public perceptions of Arctic dangers.

The bust standing on the north landing of the first floor of Macbride Hall is a duplicate of the original, which resides in the National Gallery of Canada. It was created by Canadian sculptor Emanuel Hahn in 1930 and presented to the University by his daughter. The bust represents the youthful adventurer--hair blown by the wind, eyes squinting against the glittering sunlight, wearing a fur trimmed parka, the clothes of the Eskimos, a people who he admired tremendously and whose ways of life he always tried to emulate, and which he always credited for his success.

References: Hunt, William R. Stef: A Biography of Vilhjalmur Stefansson Canadian Arctic Explorer, University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 1986.

Folk, G. Edgar Jr., and Folk, Mary A., Eds. Vilhjalmur Stefansson and the Development of Arctic Terrestrial Science, 1984, University of Iowa.