ARCTIC

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Stefansson; eskimo*; inuit; Inupiat
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.694.1967; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic45-1-90.pdf

Few Inuit have displayed the same wanderlust and indefatiga-ble spirit of exploration as the Alaskan Inupiat Natkusiak. AS Vilhjalmur Stefansson’s primary guide and travelling compan-ion on the noted explorer’s two major arctic expeditions, the Stefansson-Anderson Expedition of 1908-12 and the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913- 18, Natkusiak logged thousands of miles by foot, ship, and dog sled. While Stefansson provides few details of Natkusiak’s per-sonal life, his voluminous works do contain frequent passages of praise for his companion. In Stefansson’s first major publi-cation, M y ’ LLife with the Eskimo (1913), the author compli-ments Natkusiak as one of the best Eskimo hunters he has ever known (p. 151), as an individual with the spirit of an adven-turer and investigator (p. 155), and as an extremely competent man in everything that concerns making a living in the Arctic