After losing two children during a period of devastating flooding, the family moved to Dakota Territory in 1880 and homesteaded a mile southwest of the village of Mountain in Thingvalla Township of Pembina County.

Under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, he and Dr. Rudolph Martin Anderson undertook the ethnological survey of the central Arctic coasts of the shores of North America from 1908 to 1912.

George B. Leavitt, a Massachusetts whaling ship captain and friend of Stefansson's who sometimes brought him replenishments of supplies from the American Museum of Natural History.

[3] Adolphus Greely in 1912 first compiled the sightings recorded in earlier literature of fair-haired Arctic natives and in 1912 published them in the National Geographic Magazine entitled "The Origin of Stefansson's Blonde Eskimo".

Stefansson later referenced Greely's work in his writings and the term "Blonde Eskimo" became applied to sightings of fair-haired Inuit from as early as the 17th century.

[4] Stefansson organized and directed the Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913–1916 to explore the regions west of Parry Archipelago for the Government of Canada.

[5] The four young men Stefansson recruited, Americans, Frederick Maurer, E. Lorne Knight, and Milton Galle, and Canadian Allan Crawford, were inadequately experienced and ill-equipped for the expedition.

The only survivors were Ada Blackjack, an Iñupiat woman the men had hired in Nome, Alaska as a seamstress and taken with them as a cook, and the expedition's cat, Vic.

[5] Stefansson produced the first written records of several places, such as Brock, Mackenzie King, Borden, Meighen, and Lougheed Islands[7] and the edge of the continental shelf.

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 United States 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, was key to developing matériel and doctrine to support alpine conflict.

"[12] His continued support of women in anthropology is demonstrated in his 1939–1941 mentorship of Gitel Steed as she undertook research on diet and subsistence for his two-volume Lives of the Hunters, from which she began a dissertation on the topic of hunter-gatherer.

While living in New York City, Stefansson was one of the regulars at Romany Marie's Greenwich Village cafés[13] During the years when he and novelist Fannie Hurst were having an affair,[14] they met there when he was in town.

Stefansson is frequently quoted as saying that "An adventure is a sign of incompetence..."[18] Roald Amundsen stated he was "the greatest humbug alive"[5][19] referring to his mismanagement of the Wrangel Island fiascos.

A tireless proponent of settlement in Birobidzhan, Stefansson appeared at countless Ambijan meetings, dinners, and rallies, and proved an invaluable resource for the group.

Among these was one from Stefansson, who was now also listed as a member of Ambijan's Board of Directors and Governors: "The Birobidjan project seems to me to offer a most statesmanlike contribution to the problem of the rehabilitation of eastern and central European Jewry," he wrote.

Prominent guests and speakers included New York Representative Emanuel Celler, Senator Elbert D. Thomas of Utah, and Soviet Ambassador Andrei Gromyko.

[25] Arctic physiologist Kåre Rodahl has written that Stefansson's diet on his arctic explorations should not be confused with the Eskimo diet as the Eskimos in addition to meat and fat also "eat considerable quantities of entrails and plant food in the form of land plants and sea algae" and during the summer, marine algae makes up 50% of their vitamin C supply.

[22] Stefansson and his fellow explorer Karsten Anderson agreed to undertake an official study to demonstrate that they could eat an exclusive meat diet for a year.