Vilhjalmur Stefansson - Later Career

Later Career

Stefansson remained a well-known explorer for the rest of his life. Late in life, through his affiliation with Dartmouth College (he was Director of Polar Studies), he became a major figure in the establishment of the US Army's Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) in Hanover, New Hampshire. CRREL-supported research, often conducted in winter on the forbidding summit of Mount Washington, has been key to developing matériel and doctrine to support alpine conflict.

Stefansson joined the Explorers Club in 1908, four years after its founding. He later served as Club President twice: 1919-1922 and 1937-1939. In the all-male Club, the Board drew attention under Stefansson's reign when it put forth an amendment to its bylaws that read in 1938, "A Woman's Roll of Honor shall be instituted to which the Board of Directors may name women of the United States and Canada in recognition of the noteworthy achievements and writings in the field of the Club's interests, primarily exploration." Perhaps to comfort fellow members, the article added, "This Woman's Roll of Honor shall be quite outside the Club's organisation but shall correspond in dignity to the Honorary Class of (male) members within it."

While living in New York City, Stefansson was one of the regulars at Romany Marie's Greenwich Village cafés. During the years when he and novelist Fannie Hurst were having an affair, they met there when he was in town.

In 1941 he became the third honorary member of the American Polar Society.

In 1940, he met his future wife Evelyn Schwartz Baird at Romany Marie's; Stefansson and Baird married soon after.