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Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879–1962)

Författare till Mitt liv med eskimåerna

31+ verk 360 medlemmar 3 recensioner

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Stefansson, Canadian-born of Icelandic parentage and the last of the dog-sled explorers, spent many years in the Arctic. His books aim to combat popular misconceptions about the Far North. They show that it is a good place for colonization, that human life can be supported there on a diet of seal visa mer alone, and that it has possibilities for commercial usefulness. Stefansson's "findings changed man's prevailing concepts. By "humanizing' the icy north, he became known as the man who robbed the Arctic Circle of all its terrors and most of its discomforts" (Boston Globe). As far back as 1915, he suggested the feat that the atom-powered Nautilus finally accomplished---submerging under the Arctic ice on the Pacific side and emerging, after two months, on the Atlantic side. The whole fascinating search for a northwest passage is told with scholarly authority in his Northwest to Fortune (1958). "Clearly and lovingly written, the book brings color and even warmth to regions which for so many of us have seemed wrapped in cold, fog, and ice" (Christian Science Monitor). (Bowker Author Biography) visa färre
Foto taget av: Photo by Louis Fabian Bachrach: Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division (REPRODUCTION NUMBER: LC-USZ62-116932)

Verk av Vilhjalmur Stefansson

Mitt liv med eskimåerna (1922) 58 exemplar
Hunters of the Great North (1990) 24 exemplar
Not by Bread Alone (1946) 15 exemplar
The Fat of the Land (1956) 13 exemplar
The northward course of empire (2011) 12 exemplar
Greenland (1942) 11 exemplar
Arctic Manual (1974) 10 exemplar
Kak, the Copper Eskimo (1924) 9 exemplar
Northwest to Fortune (1974) 8 exemplar

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I have long been fascinated by tragedy brought about by ignorance or stupidity - the Scott/Amundsen race to the South Pole being a prime example. Berton, author of [b:Arctic Grail|2019793|The Arctic Grail The Quest for the Northwest Passage and the North Pole, 1818-1909|Pierre Berton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1225948201s/2019793.jpg|2449293] recommended a book by Vilhjalmur Stefansson that deals with several examples of Arctic foolishness, including Franklin's mysterious disappearance.
Many "riddles" evolve simply out of ignorance, if not outright fraud, (witness Charles Berlitz's Bermuda Triangle nonsense). Usually, a careful researcher can find solutions to these puzzles by objectively analyzing all the data. Such is the case in Stefansson's book. He meticulously destroyed the Franklin enigma.

Franklin left Britain in 1845 with 129 men on his second expedition to search for a northwest passage. He had written after his first excursion how important native hunters were to locate food, but in true imperialist style, he made no effort to learn their skills. The British took only shotguns and muskets for hunting. (In Britain it was fashionable to use only shotguns to hunt fowl, so the explorers could not conceive of hunting in any other manner.) Two months after they left, letters from them were received in England; then Franklin's party, ship and all, vanished, seemingly without a trace.

Stefansson illustrates how the evidence overwhelmingly reveals they died of malnutrition and scurvy in a region that had supported hundreds of Eskimos for centuries. It was inexcusable. Franklin had the lessons of his first expedition. He had access to the writings of Ross who, in 1829-1833, had learned that a diet of raw seal and fish would prevent scurvy and that the Eskimo diet kept them healthy and fat. Franklin had insisted on taking the traditional salted meat and hardtack.
There were other weaknesses. A Hudson Bay Company trapper, after observing conditions of the first expedition, wrote: "the officer who commands the party [Franklin:] has not the physical powers required for the labor of moderate voyaging; he must have three meals per diem, tea is indispensable, and with the utmost exertion he cannot walk above eight miles in one day, so that it does not follow if those Gentlemen are unsuccessful that the difficulties are insurmountable."

Another mystery was the disappearance of 9,000 Greenlanders? Stefansson traces the settlement of Greenland from its discovery in 986 A.D. by Erik the Red, who arrived with some 400 settlers and many animals. During the next few centuries a regular trade was established between Europe and the fledgling republic in Greenland, and archaeological evidence has since revealed settlements as far north as 400 miles beyond the Arctic Circle.. After 1448, trade ceased, much of it because of plagues sweeping Europe. When Scandinavians reoccupied Greenland in 1721 only ruins were found, no descendants of Erik the Red. Stefansson convincingly shows that the "disappearance" of these people could only be considered such if interpreted from a nationalistic point of view. What had happened was amalgamation. The ex-Europeans had adopted the ways of the natives and had intermarried with the Eskimos.

… (mer)
1 rösta
Flaggad
ecw0647 | Sep 30, 2013 |
This is the Icelandic translation - Vilhjálmur Stefánsson Sjálfsævisaga
 
Flaggad
Words | Dec 16, 2005 |

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Statistik

Verk
31
Även av
2
Medlemmar
360
Popularitet
#66,630
Betyg
4.1
Recensioner
3
ISBN
37

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