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History List
"Two caribou were hardly sufficient meat to go on with, so that I went across the Horton River a mile or two east of where the Eskimo went to get the cached meat, and shot three caribou and a fine specimen of white wolf. This wolf was not only fat and excellent eating..."
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 15
March 22, 1911
"The main part of the food was whale, the carcass of which had drifted into the beach just before the freeze-up in the fall. This animal had been freshly killed when he drifted ashore, and furnished us, therefore, a supply of food which was not only abundant but also palatable." The challenges of hunting caribou and camping in the cold are also covered.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 14
December 4, 1910
A blizzard springs up while Stefansson is traveling with an Indian and an Eskimo, and he decides to build a tent in a safe place according to his experience. "We ate frozen raw caribou meat and drank cold water" since fire could only be had with heavy wood brought on sleds.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 14
November 8, 1910
Spending the summer with the Copper Eskimo, Stefansson learned they also survived through hunting and eating game and they treated him as one of their own, despite his magic usage of a rifle. They also had no use for white man's food of flour and sugar, but considered it it a great gift to distinguish them from those who had nothing.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 14
August 1, 1910
"But show him the work of the rifle, which he does not in the least understand, and he is face to face with a miracle; he judges it by the standards of the supernatural instead of by the standards of the natural; he compares it with other miraculous things of which he has heard and which he may even think he has himself seen, and he finds it not at all beyond the average of miracles"
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 11
May 14, 1910
"The meat we had was all lean; we had therefore for some time been living on a diet of exclusively lean meat, which had aggravated the diarrhoea from which Ilavinirk suffered and which had now brought down my two companions." Stefansson fixes the problem by fetching blubber from animal traps.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 7
December 17, 1909
Stefansson describes a long trip through a blizzard and how he must depend upon four year dead whale blubber, caribou fur dipped in seal oil, and even clothing material and buried scientific specimens. He even explains why it's a bad idea to eat your own dogs.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 7
November 23, 1909
I now felt in a measure repaid for the loss of my caribou meat through learning, from Akpek, that Kunaluk had fed the entire fifty pounds of rice to his dogs while he himself and his family lived on my deer meat, which showed precisely how much he thought of the rice that would have been nearly priceless to us.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 7
April 22, 1909
“But can't you see to it,” they asked him, “that the whales do not come on Sunday and that a northeaster does not blow too hard while we are away from our boats? God controls the winds and the movements of the whales; can't you ask Him to have the whales come on week days only, and can't you ask Him to keep our boats and gear safe?”
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 6
December 27, 1908
What the people especially wanted, they told us, was a new prayer for caribou. Three years before, they said, they had obtained an excellent prayer for caribou from Kotzebue Sound. It had worked so well for the first two years that they had secured plenty of caribou through the use of it
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 6
November 9, 1908
During the four months that intervened between this and our next meeting he secured numerous specimens of sheep, caribou, and other far northern mammals, and incidentally had his first experience of “living on the country.” Most people are in the habit of looking upon the articles of our accustomed diet, and especially upon salt, as necessities. We have not found them so.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 5
October 12, 1908
Stefansson learns about Eskimo beliefs "I learned also why it is that animals allow themselves to be killed by men. The animals are much wiser than men, and know every thing in the world , -including the thoughts of men; but there are certain things which the animals need, and which they can get only from men"
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 4
September 5, 1908
Stefansson complains about a man who wouldn't lend him matches to survive off of hunting alone. "We could not agree on the possibility of a white man making a living in the country . I told him that I needed but matches to be safe and independent, but he believed that a white man needed twelve months' provisions of white man's food in order to live twelve months in the country."
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 3
August 15, 1908
The ships brought, too, an abundance of provisions. At first the Eskimo would have nothing to do with any of these ; but in the course of a few years they learned the use of flour, molasses, sugar, etc. , which became first luxuries and then necessities. It was important for the whaling ships to get plenty of fresh caribou meat to keep their crews from getting scurvy, and they employed practically the whole population in the pursuit of caribou, fish , and ptarmigan.
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 3
December 1, 1907
Stefansson talks about Mr. Thomas Anderson of the Hudson Bay Company "much of his talk concerned the degenerate later days when people insisted on living on such imported things as beans, canned corn, and tomatoes, whereas in his day they lived entirely on fish and caribou meat."
My Life with the Eskimo - Chapter 3
June 1, 1906
A book on etiquette says: "A perfectly safe way to get thin is to eat chopped meat without any potatoes, and if possible eat no bread, butter, or sweets. Thin people who wish to get stout should eat oatmeal, hominy, or any of the preparations of wheat now sold."
Social Culture; a Manual of Etiquette and Deportment
January 1, 1903
With the absorption of the Graham Journal , Library of Health shifted from a generalized physiological journal to one focused on meatless dietary reform. Library of Health supported the continued growth of a meatless, proto-vegetarian community
Nutritive Properties of Various Kinds of Food
January 1, 1841
Library of Health sought to distance itself from the claims of pseudo-science and religious heresy that traditionally followed meat abstainers, arguing that dietary reform “is indeed nothing less than the application of Christianity to the physical condition and wants of man.”
Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages
May 1, 1836
American Physiological Society (APS) was founded in 1837 in Boston and had 251 members by 1838. Members of the APS lectured against the effects of flesh foods, which caused “the most horrid, blasphemous thoughts” among its consumers.
Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages
January 1, 1841
Graham started publishing a journal to recommend vegetarianism, even using diagrams to make scientific cases for it, however an anonymous person wrote back to say “there are far worse articles of food in common use than healthy flesh-meat. . . . A man may be a pure vegetable liver, and yet his diet be far less favorable to health than a diet of animal food might be."
The Graham Journal of Health and Longevity
April 2, 1837
Just as Graham claimed that the benefit of a vegetable diet was scientifically observable, his new followers attested to the natural life’s ability to ward off disease. These stories—often similar to Graham’s own account of his moral and physical ascension—presented common narratives of the evolution from darkness to light, all thanks to a meatless diet.
A Defence of the Graham System of Living
December 13, 1834
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