Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1913-04-02
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TO | ANSWER Gall Of NORTH.
=vilhjalmur stefansson Will Return 70.
!. tho Land OF l. Blond Eskimos.'y
Cousin Of King Of Denmark May
Tour Agricultural districts Of the.
United States Charles Z. Erickson,
" Weli Known swsdls American pub
Usher, Dead 4 Chicago.
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+ NORWAY,
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In the Interesting People depart.
mont OF the April American Magazine
appears an account of Vilhjalmur stef-
ansson, the young Canadian-born de.
scendant Of Vikings, who discovered:
the Blond Eskimos'' on the ice Of
Northern Canada, and proposes to
spend the best twenty years OF his life
studying the secret of their origin
Following is an extract: zsz ...
'Stefansson is the daring young ex-
plorer and scientist who discovered
the Blond Eskimos,' thus adding q
new race to the catalogue of the ma
lions. ..s Z: ,s..z. n. @.s
"The Far North always calls its chill
dren back again to the ice and snow.
Stefansson's parents we're born in Ice.
land, near Akureyri on the northern
coast, within rowing distance Of the
Arctic circle. They were schooled in
the old 1celandic Sagas Of Eric the
Red, whose son Left had planted
colony to the west on the coast Of
America nearly five centuries before
the time of Columbus. A year or two
before Vilhjalmur's. birth his parents
emigrated to America and settled in
Manitoba on Lake Winnipeg. Here
Vilhjalmur was born, Nov. 3, 1879, to
be Graded in hardship. In 188O-18S1
a famine swept over Manitoba and
took on their neighbors by scores. His
brother and sister died of malnutrition,
but Vilhjalmur survived. From his in
fancy he was Injured not only to star
walton, but also to intense cold. At
Lake Winnipeg the thermometer
reached SO degrees Fahrenheit below
zero, four degrees under the lowest
temperature at Herschel island, Stef-
ansson's most northern station in the
Arctic. >,.. .s> -. =; -. : :
: I'm 1881 the family crossed the line
into y North Dakota, and ever since
Stefansson has been loyal to Uncle
SAM. His determination and fondness
for books and study carried him
through school and college. Many
stories are told both OF his achieve
ment in the classroom and of his
jokes and pranks and boyish insurrec-
tons: for Stefansson has always been
q leader of men. In 1903 he graduated
at the University Of Iowa and came
east to Harvard for three years Of
study in his chosen field Of anthropol-
ogy, the study Of the races of man
kind. For two years he was assistant
In the Peabody Museum at Harvard,
and published several learned articles
that attracted international attention.
In 1906 he went to New York, where
he has since been connected with the
American Museum of Natural History.
+ "Stefansson's first expedition to the
Arctic was in 1906, while the long jour:
ney from which he has just returned
was begun in 1908. In all he has
tramped 10000 miles. On the ice Of
Northern Canada, in regions hereto
fore marked 'uninhabited,' Stefansson
discovered hundreds of Eskimos who
had never seen white man before.
These strange people often themselves
resembled white men more than Els
kimos; indeed they welcomed the ex-
plorer. as one Of their own kind:
''Most remarkable was a tribe whom
Stefansson discovered May II, 1910,
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tai number is about forty says Stef-
ansson, of whom 1 saw seventeen, and
was said not to have seen the blondest
Of the group. They are markedly diff
ferent from any American aborigines
I have seen; they suggest, in fact, a
group Of Scandinavians- or North Eu-
ropean peasants. Two Of them had
full chin boards to be described as
light, tending to red every one had
light eyebrows; one, perhaps the dark
est Of all, had hair that curled slight
~ 4. ID. &c . @:.. ss5
What is the history Of this race?
How account for their European ap-
pearance? Are: they the lost tribe Of
Greenland, the defendants of the
Morse colony founded by Eric the Red
which disappeared so mysteriously on
the map Of Greenland IN the Fifteenth
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