[2] Chomsky recruited Schmitt, aged 19, to travel to Alaska's Brooks Range and attempt to learn the Nunamiut dialect.

Schmitt lived for four years at an Alaskan Inuit village named Anaktuvuk Pass before leading expeditions, including the Sierra Club.

[4]Schmitt is also credited with the July 2007 discovery of another candidate for the "northernmost" title, named Stray Dog West by expedition member Holly Wenger.

Schmitt was the first person to climb the highest point of the Daly Range, part of the northernmost mountain chain on Earth,[5] as well as Alaska's Brooks Range from Point Hope to the Mackenzie River,[citation needed] and made the first traverse of Axel Heiberg Island, northern Canada.

[citation needed] He also crossed the sea ice of the Bering Straits to the Soviet Union, and travelled through Eskimo villages of eastern Siberia.