[1] He was born in Kristiania to Prosecutor General and Minister Harald Smedal (1859–1911) and Caroline Kirkgaard Hofgaard (1863–89).
Following the Permanent Court of International Justice ruling in the disfavor of Norway, the official claims were abandoned, but Smedal continued his activism.
Instead, he was active in the organization Norges Ishavskomité together with the other prominent leader of Norwegian claims in East Greenland and chairman of the Arctic Trading Co., Adolf Hoel.
[4] Smedal published several articles and pamphlets to strengthen a Norwegian claim to Greenland, which in the meantime (1941) had been occupied by the United States.
[5] As part of the legal purge in Norway after World War II, Smedal was punished economically for his collaboration.