PREFACE 



By Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 

 who was commander of the expedition 



IN reading the books of other explorers I have commonly found 

 tedious the long accounts of how their expeditions were organ- 

 ized. My own inclination is to say nothing about the organiza- 

 tion of the expedition that resulted in the story told in this volume, 

 but many of my friends say that an account of the organization is 

 both important and interesting. I shall compromise between their 

 judgment and my own feelings by a short and general account where 

 they advise a long and detailed one. 



The plans of this my third polar expedition developed in my 

 mind gradually during the years 1908-12 while I was engaged in 

 the work of the second expedition. Our experience was then show- 

 ing us day by day the friendliness and fruitfulness of those parts 

 of the Arctic which are either inhabited by Eskimos or which are 

 immediately adjacent to the Eskimo districts. But I was told by 

 the Eskimos, and I had read the same before in geographies and 

 works of exploration, that the vast unknown areas beyond the 

 Eskimo frontier were devoid of animal life. The Eskimos agreed 

 with the rest of us in thinking that no one could live in those regions 

 except for brief periods, and then only by taking along enough 

 supplies to last for the whole period of what must necessarily be a 

 dash into and a hurried retreat out of a region of permanent desola- 

 tion. 



But I am an anthropologist by profession, and the very reason 

 for the beginning of my work in the North was a desire to learn 

 whatever I could about the Eskimos. I had during these five or 

 six years of continuous residence learned that the Eskimos resemble 

 an uninstructed peasantry in possessing a large measure of native 

 intelligence lying fallow, lacking opportunities of instruction and 

 development. The ignorant classes of all countries have positive 

 beliefs about many things, and a large number of these beliefs have 

 no foundation in fact. I had long since learned that the Eskimos 

 are honest and intelligent, but that they have a higher percentage 



