Civilization.ca - Expedition Arctic

Team Members

The Expedition was composed of an international group of scientists and sailors. Countries of birth included Australia, Estonia, Portugal, Norway, Holland, Scotland, Canada and the United States. Also invaluable to the Expedition were guides, hunters, seamstresses and other personnel recruited from Inupiat communities in Alaska, and Inuvialuit and Copper Inuit communities on the Canadian side of the border.

Hover over each photo to meet some of the Expedition members:

Higilaq
Inuk seamstress

Higilaq was a mother of three who grew up travelling with the seasons, hunting and fishing with her family. She was very familiar with the Arctic and was recognized as a shaman, or "medicine woman." She and her husband adopted ethnologist Diamond Jenness so that he could study local Inuit lifestyles first-hand.

Higilaq at Bernard Harbour, Nunavutg
Photo: Rudolph M. Anderson
June 1916
CMC Archives 39058

Patsy Klengenberg
Inuk hunter

Patsy Klengenberg's father was a whaler and trader from Denmark, who settled in the Arctic and married an Inupiaq woman, having nine children in total. Although he could not read or write, Patsy was especially beneficial to the Expedition because he spoke both English and the language of the Inupiat.

Patsy Klengenberg with eider ducks at Bernard Harbour, Nunavut
Photo: Rudolph M. Anderson
July 1915

Aarnout Castel
Seaman

Aarnout Castel attended naval school in Holland. He had been working on Arctic whaling ships when he met the Expedition's leader Vilhjalmur Stefansson in 1906. He was put in charge of the schooner Alaska in the summer of 1914 because of his vast experience at sea. He travelled with Dr. Anderson and Diamond Jenness up the Coppermine River in 1915.

Aarnout Castel at the helm of his schooner, Belinda
Photographer unknown
About 1921
Canadian Museum of Nature

Dr. Rudolph Martin Anderson

At the age of 22, I served as a corporal with the National Guard during the Spanish–American War. Then, I finished my studies at the University of Iowa, where I was captain of the track team.

That's where I first met Stefansson, and from 1908 to 1912 we led an expedition to the Arctic. Now we're joining forces once again. Will this be our final expedition together?

Rudolph M. Anderson in front of a tent at Collinson Point, Alaska
Photo: George Hubert Wilkins
March 1914
CMC 50741

V. Stefansson
Explorer/leader of Northern Party

Vilhjalmur Stefansson studied theology at Harvard University, but dropped out within a year to join the 1906 Anglo-American Polar Expedition as an ethnologist. He paired up with Dr. Anderson for an Expedition in the Western Arctic that ran from 1908 to 1912. The inspiration for the Canadian Arctic Expedition came from his desire to explore unknown lands in the Beaufort Sea.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Collinson Point, Alaska
Photo: Frits Johansen
March 1914
CMC 42170