The Northward Course of Empire

Stefansson, Canadian-born of Icelandic parentage and the last of the dog-sled explorers, spent many years in the Arctic. His books aim to combat popular misconceptions about the Far North. They show that it is a good place for colonization, that human life can be supported there on a diet of seal alone, and that it has possibilities for commercial usefulness. Stefansson's "findings changed man's prevailing concepts. By "humanizing' the icy north, he became known as the man who robbed the Arctic Circle of all its terrors and most of its discomforts" (Boston Globe). As far back as 1915, he suggested the feat that the atom-powered Nautilus finally accomplished---submerging under the Arctic ice on the Pacific side and emerging, after two months, on the Atlantic side. The whole fascinating search for a northwest passage is told with scholarly authority in his Northwest to Fortune (1958). "Clearly and lovingly written, the book brings color and even warmth to regions which for so many of us have seemed wrapped in cold, fog, and ice" (Christian Science Monitor). 020