Book

Hunters of the Great North

Publish date:

January 1, 1922

"A first class writing man, a first class hunter and explorer, most entertaining." -New Outlook
"He has challenged our preconceptions about the Arctic." -American Review
"A man of action who is at the same time a man of letters...eminently successful." -M.S.T.A. Quarterly Review

Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879 – 1962), of North Dakota, was an arctic explorer and ethnologist. Because of his studies of the Eskimos, his discoveries of land, the application of new ideas and new methods of exploration, Stefansson was considered the foremost polar explorer of his day, and one of the few great explorers of all time.

During a period of three or four years Mr. Stefansson has produced a creditable list of books about the Arctic. In some respects his service in publishing the results of his Northern studies has differed from that of earlier explorers. He has challenged our preconceptions about the Arctic. “Hunters of the Great North” gives details of Northern life such as have doubtless come within the experience of all Arctic explorers, but which are new to the average American reader. In short, it is an elementary text-book of the Arctic.

Stefansson lived among the Eskimos of the Mackenzie River, studying their language and adopting their mode of life, and spending ten winters and thirteen summers in the polar regions. Among Stefannson's most famous discovery was that of a race of blond Eskimo on Coronation Gulf.

Stefansson writes:

"In the present book I have tried by means of diaries and memory to go back to the vivid impressions of my first year among the Eskimos for the story of what I saw and heard."

In describing his confrontation with a polar bear, Stefansson writes:

“I heard behind me a noise like the spitting of a cat or the hiss of a goose. I looked back and saw, about twenty feet away and almost above me, a polar bear. I had overestimated the bear's distance from shore, and had passed the spot where he lay. From his eye and attitude, as well as the story his trail told afterward there was no doubting his intentions: the hiss was merely his way of saying, "Watch me do it!" Or at least that is how I interpreted it; possibly the motive was chivalry, and the hiss was his way of saying Garde!”

Contents
I. PREPARATIONS FOR A LIFEWORK OF EXPLORATION
II. DOWN THE MACKENZIE RIVER THROUGH 2000 MILES OF INDIAN COUNTRY
III. FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE ESKIMOS
IV. CAPTAIN KLINKENBERG—SEA WOLF AND DISCOVERER
V. THE WHALING FLEET SAILS AWAY
VI. LEARNING TO LIVE AS AN ESKIMO—ON A DIET OF FISH WITHOUT SALT
VII. HOW AN ESKIMO SAILED THROUGH THE STORM
VIII. AN AUTUMN JOURNEY THROUGH ARCTIC MOUNTAINS
IX. THE SUN GOES AWAY FOR THE WINTER
X. LOST IN THE MACKENZIE DELTA
XI. AN ARCTIC CHRISTMAS WITH AN ENGLISH COUNTRY GENTLEMAN
XII. THE LIFE AT TUKTUYAKTOK
XIII. LEARNING TO BUILD A SNOWHOUSE AND TO BE COMFORTABLE IN ONE
XIV. TRAVELS AFTER THE SUN CAME BACK
XV. WE GO IN SEARCH OF OUR OWN EXPEDITION
XVI. A SPRING JOURNEY IN AN ESKIMO SKIN BOAT
XVII. A RACE OVER THE ARCTIC MOUNTAINS IN SUMMER
XVIII. ON A RAFT DOWN THE PORCUPINE RIVER
SHORT STORIES OF ADVENTURE
I. HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT CARIBOU
II. HOW I LEARNED TO HUNT SEALS
III. HOW WE HUNT POLAR BEARS

Authors

Image	Author	Author Website	Twitter	Author Location
	Vilhjalmur Stefansson			Deceased

Topics

	Pemmican	Pemmican is a condensed carnivore food that was popular in the past to trappers and hunters, as well as the Native Americans that made it from bison. One bison could be rendered and chopped and dried down into a 90 pound clump stored in its hide - made of rendered fat mixed with lean dried meat that is pounded into a powder. Pemmican represents the perfect fat:protein ratio and keeps for a long time as the stable saturated fat protects the dried out meat, which, devoid of moisture, cannot rot. It could be left in a cache for years at a time and still be eaten. Wars have been fought over it.
	Man The Fat Hunter	Man is a lipivore - hunting and preferring the fattiest meats they can find. When satisifed with fat, they will want little else.
	Facultative Carnivore	Facultative Carnivore describes the concept of animals that are technically omnivores but who thrive off of all meat diets. Humans may just be facultative carnivores - who need no plant products for long-term nutrition.
	Eskimo	The Inuit lived for as long as 10,000 years in the far north of Canada, Alaska, and Greenland and likely come from Mongolian Bering-Strait travelers. They ate an all-meat diet of seal, whale, caribou, musk ox, fish, birds, and eggs. Their nutritional transition to civilized plant foods spelled their health demise.
	Carnivore Diet	The carnivore diet involves eating only animal products such as meat, fish, dairy, eggs, marrow, meat broths, organs. There are little to no plants in the diet.