Water on top of solid sea ice in June 



"MY LIFE WITH THE ESKIMO" 



REVIEW OF A RECENT BOOK ^ BY VILHJALMUR STEFANSSON, LEADER 'OF 

 THE CANADIAN ARCTIC EXPEDITION 



By Herbert L. Bridgman 



RARELY if ever has the dramatic 

 element colored and dominated 

 expeditions, as it has Stefans- 

 son's. "Blonde Eskimo," though only 

 an incident and a comparatively minor 

 one, of four years of hard, faithful work, 

 caught the popular fancy the world over, 

 and now after weary months of waiting 

 the certainty that the "Karluk" carry- 

 ing the northern party of the expedition, 

 is lost and a third of her party missing, 

 is succeeded by deeper and darker mys- 

 tery as to the fate of the expedition's 

 leader with his two companions. Those 

 who have known Stefansson longest and 

 best do not give up hope, but the little 

 party adrift in open Arctic pack must 

 be in desperate chance either of gaining 



I My Life with the Eskimo. Vilhjalmur 

 Stefansson. 8vo., 538 pages. Illustrated with 

 60 halftone plates from photographs by the 

 Author. New York: The Macmillan Company, 

 1913. 



Banks Land or of subsisting for any con- 

 considerable time. 



But no matter what may be the solu- 

 tion of the mystery haunting and en- 

 veloping the expedition of 1913, it but 

 heightens and intensifies the interest 

 with which one reads My Life with the 

 Eskimo, a comely volume of compelling 

 interest and that essential charm which 

 personal, truth narratives, well told, 

 always command. That Stefansson's 

 project to "live off the country," prac- 

 tically alone, was daring and original, as 

 well as the core of practical common sense 

 no one can now deny. Much of the 

 success which he achieved was, however, 

 due to him, rather than to his theory. 

 A man less tenacious and resourceful, 

 under circumstances exactly like those 

 which confronted Stefansson might have 

 made total wreck of his undertaking and 

 perished into the bargain. Contrast the 



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