Abstract | Keywords | Export | Availability | Bookmark

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The brilliant and adventurous journey by Stefansson across the polar pack, 'living off the country, ' and the substantial contributions' geography and many other branches of science brought back by himself and his staff have been justly applauded as distinguishing a notable arctic expedition. The contribution of most value to mankind brought back by Stefansson, however, is his appreciation that far northern lands are not the dread icy deserts of the popular belief but are possessed of a variety of resources and are available for occupation by civilized man. It is true that for years fur traders, gold miners, and, in Alaska, reindeer herds, have extended north to the arctic coast, but to Stefansson belongs the credit of being the first to have the clear vision to appreciate the potential value of the North as a whole, and for several years to have carried on an educational propaganda developing the startling fact that our last frontier did not vanish when the settlement of the United States and Canada reached the shores of the Pacific, but that another vast, untamed frontier lies ready for the adventurous pioneer in the North. With appealing literary charm he has developed here and elsewhere the story of the 'livability' of the Far North, and shown that this hitherto dreaded region offers a welcome to men of the stamp of the early pioneers of America. In fact, with present methods of communication and facilities of modern life such northern settlers would have much fewer real hardships and deprivations to endure than did many of our not distant forebears in occupying what are now some of the most settled parts of the continent.

Arctic regions.