Stefansson becomes an American

Stefansson was born on 3 November 1879, the child of Icelandic immigrants to Canada Johann Stefánsson and Ingibjorg Johannesdóttir. The Icelandic settlements in Manitoba were plagued by difficulties, including a smallpox epidemic in which two of the Stefánsson family's other children died (see Jackson Reference Jackson1925; Eyford Reference Eyford2006). Like many others, the Stefánssons decided to try their luck in the United States. In the spring of 1881, when Vilhjalmur was only a year and a half old, they settled in Pembina County, Dakota Territory. Six and a half years later, on the day after Vilhjalmur's eighth birthday, Johann Stefánsson became an American citizen (Galbraith Reference Galbraith1931). The American naturalisation law decreed that ‘children of persons who have been duly naturalized . . . being under the age of 21 years at the time of the naturalization of their parents shall, if dwelling in the United States, be considered as citizens thereof’ (printed in Howell Reference Howell1884: 111). Without having taken any action on his own behalf, young Vilhjalmur was now an American, a fact of which he was certainly well aware. He later told an old acquaintance that he ‘clearly’ remembered the occasion when his father received his citizenship papers, including ‘the talk about it’ and ‘many of the attendant circumstances’ (Stefansson Reference Stefansson1931b). After he came of age he never voted in the US (Stefansson undated), but he found other ways of participating in the political life of his adopted country. In 1902 Stefansson ran for the office of superintendent of public instruction in the state of North Dakota, receiving a respectable 15,347 votes to the winner's 36,769 (Hall Reference Hall1923).

The Canadian Arctic Expedition

In January 1913 Stefansson approached the Canadian government to ask that it make a financial contribution to his planned Arctic expedition. He had already obtained promises of funding from the National Geographic Society and other American sources, but he feared that the amount would not be sufficient. Prime Minister Robert Borden decided that, since the expedition was to take place in Canadian territory, the government should be its only sponsor. The expedition would then become an assertion of Canadian sovereignty. As such, it seemed to some Canadian officials that it should not be led by a foreigner.

In order to serve the government's true purpose, Stefansson would have to become a Canadian again. On 7 February he travelled to Ottawa and attended a meeting of the cabinet sub-committee appointed to deal with the matter. According to the Canadian record of the meeting, the explorer ‘did not seem to have any particular objection to taking the oat[h] of naturalization though he did not say definitely that he would do so’ (Record of meeting 1913). The Canadians made their formal offer in a telegram sent on 8 February: ‘Government will pay total cost expedition on condition you become naturalized British subject before leaving and expedition [carries] British flag’ (Roche Reference Roche1913). It seems that Stefansson initially saw no difficulty with this request. A few weeks later he made a statement to The New York Times. He told a reporter that he was ‘either an American citizen or a British subject as he chooses. His father was a naturalized American, and Mr. Stefansson has made his residence in this country since childhood. He was born in Canada, however, and under the doctrine “Once a British subject, always a British subject,” [he] is an Englishman’ (The New York Times 27 February 1913).

Stefansson may well have believed what he said. The British government held to the principle of indelible allegiance until the late nineteenth century, but the policy, a source of much friction with the United States, had at last been reversed nine years before Stefansson was born. The Naturalization Act of 1870 provided that ‘[a]ny British subject who has at any time before, or may at any time after the passing of this Act, when in any foreign state and not under any disability voluntarily become naturalized in such state, shall, from and after the time of his so having become naturalized in such foreign state, be deemed to have ceased to be a British subject and be regarded as an alien.’ A minor child whose father or widowed mother was naturalised in another country also ceased to be a British subject, so long as the laws of the country in question followed the principle that the child's status depended on that of the parent (Public General Acts 1870: chap. 14, articles 6 and 10.3). The Canadian Naturalization Act of 1881 made similar provisions.

To be a Canadian again, Stefansson would have to acquire a certificate of readmission to British nationality. The requirements were the same as for naturalisation: three years' residence in Canada and an oath of allegiance to the king. Because Stefansson had spent the years 1908–1912 in northern Canada, the residency requirement could be fulfilled. However, to become a British subject would mean the loss of his American citizenship. A 1907 act of Congress decreed that ‘any American citizen shall be deemed to have expatriated himself when he has been naturalized in any foreign State in conformity with its laws, or when he has taken an oath of allegiance to any foreign State’ (Public Law No. 193, section 2, printed in British and Foreign State Papers 1913: 975). It was highly unlikely that Stefansson would be able to keep such an act on his part from public knowledge. Naturalisation or readmission to British nationality had to be registered with a court, thus becoming a matter of public record. Reporters in both Canada and the United States would be keenly interested in such a news item.

By late March 1913 Stefansson's attitude had become evasive and uncooperative. As Canadian politician George Perley recorded:

Clearly, Stefansson now knew that he could not simply be British or American as it suited him. Rather than make a choice between the two, he preferred to emphasise that he himself had never been naturalised in the US (an irrelevant point, since his father was naturalised while Stefansson was a minor), and that he ‘practically considered himself a British subject.’ Previously he had felt no hesitation about announcing to the newspapers that his expedition would carry the British flag, but now he did not want to be naturalised for fear of unfavourable publicity.

However, the Canadians were insistent, and finally Stefansson agreed to ‘take the Oath [in the] Spring just before sailing for the north’ (Perley Reference Perley1913). But when it came to the point, he adroitly managed to avoid a change in status. On 3 May 1913 Stefansson took the oath of office and oath of allegiance required by the Civil Service Act (Canada, Privy Council Office; Boudreau Reference Boudreau1913). The oath of office involved no more than an undertaking to ‘faithfully and honestly fulfil’ the required duties (Revised Statutes 1907: chap. 16, schedule C).

The oath of allegiance was a far more extensive declaration. Civil servants were required to state:

However, the two oaths were not sufficient to make Stefansson a Canadian. Applicants for naturalisation or readmission to British nationality had to take the oath of allegiance and make a sworn statement regarding their residence in Canada in front of a judge, magistrate, notary public, or commissioner for taking oaths. A certificate then had to be filed with the court of the county in which the applicant resided. Without this last step the process was not complete (Acts 1881: chap. 14). Stefansson's colleague Rudolph Anderson also took the oaths in May 1913, but Anderson was under no illusion that this made him a Canadian. Anderson applied for naturalisation after the expedition returned, and he duly received his certificate in September 1920 (Anderson Reference Anderson1920: 14 September). But Stefansson never applied for readmission to British nationality. Presumably he argued that because he himself had never acquired a certificate of American citizenship, he had never lost his British status, and so there was no need for a certificate to reaffirm it. But, given his statement to The New York Times only a short time before, it is clear that Stefansson knew his father's naturalisation had made him an American. Moreover, when Stefansson returned to the United States after a trip to Europe in April 1913, he informed immigration officials that he was an American citizen, ‘naturalized through nat of father’ (quoted in K. Vollen, personal communication, 22 July 2008).

Despite the key differences between the civil service oaths and the requirements for readmission to British nationality, the fact that Stefansson had sworn allegiance to the king satisfied the officials with whom he was dealing. They were evidently not well informed about such matters, and they may not have been familiar with the finer points of the Canadian and American naturalisation and expatriation laws. (The Department of the Interior's immigration branch does not seem to have been consulted.) From Stefansson's point of view, there were strong advantages to the civil service oaths. They freed him from further unwelcome Canadian demands, but they would not become a matter of public record, and hence they were not likely to endanger his American citizenship. If the fact that he had taken them did come to the knowledge of US officials, and if questions were asked about his service under a foreign monarch, Stefansson could always argue that he was poorly informed about the laws and that he had never intended to renounce his loyalty to the United States.

Stefansson as a ‘British subject’

When he returned from his expedition, Stefansson seems to have been of two minds about his citizenship. For a time he rented a house in Ottawa, possibly with an eye to the residency requirement. Though his main base was in New York, at first he took care not to have a permanent dwelling there. According to the 1910 Canadian Immigration Act, Canadian domicile was lost ‘by a person voluntarily residing out of Canada, not for a mere special or temporary purpose, but with the present intention of making his permanent home out of Canada unless and until something which is unexpected, or the happening of which is uncertain, shall occur to induce him to return to Canada’ (Act 1910: section 2.d). To the puzzlement of his friends, Stefansson lived at the Harvard Club, an abode which ‘left much to be desired . . . Its rooms were intended for the use of Harvard men visiting New York, not for anyone residing in the city. This made it necessary for him, from time to time, to move into a hotel until another vacancy occurred at the Club, and sometimes these sojourns were protracted. On moving out of the Club, his effects, beyond his immediate needs, were usually left in the checkroom.’ To suggestions that he should rent an apartment, Stefansson invariably replied that ‘he did not have the time to go househunting’ (LeBourdais Reference LeBourdais1963: 173–174).

When Stefansson arrived in New York after a trip to London in 1920 he gave his citizenship status as British (K. Vollen, personal communication, 22 July 2008). In the autumn of that year he began a campaign to secure the support of the new Canadian prime minister, Arthur Meighen, for his plan to claim Wrangel Island. Stefansson evidently told Meighen that he had been a Canadian since birth (see Meighen's remarks during the 1925 parliamentary debate on Wrangel, cited above). Stefansson was in England again in the summer of 1923, seeking to interest the British government in his Wrangel Island venture. He had obtained a British passport for this trip with the assistance of Canadian officials. The Department of External Affairs cabled the British consulate in New York to ask that the passport be issued: ‘Formal evidence of British nationality not submitted here but believe Stefansson claims it through birth in Canada status not having been lost since. Recommend him on general grounds and consider his statements may be considered reliable’ (Canada, Department of External Affairs 1923).

This telegram was sent a few days after the Ottawa Journal revealed two key facts about Stefansson: first, he had run for public office in North Dakota in 1902, showing that he then considered himself an American citizen; and, second, he had never been naturalised in Canada (Ottawa Journal, 1 May 1923). During a lecture he gave in Ottawa on the day the Journal's article was published, Stefansson stated:

To these highly equivocal remarks Stefansson added, ‘No one is eligible to the National Academy of Sciences unless he is an American. I have been elected to it’ (Stefansson Reference Stefansson1923). In one of his few public statements in Canada on the matter of his citizenship, Stefansson thus transformed the oaths he had taken on 3 May 1913 into a ‘statutory declaration’ by Canadian officials that he was a Canadian. If he was not, the error was theirs. Stefansson himself, having forthrightly ‘laid all the cards on the table,’ could not possibly be to blame.

A man without a country

In September 1923 came the news that the four men sent to claim Wrangel Island by Stefansson were all dead. Stefansson's prestige and influence in Ottawa had long been in decline, and the Wrangel Island tragedy turned most of his former supporters firmly against him. By the late 1920s it was clear to Stefansson that he had no chance of ever making a career for himself in Canada. In January 1931 he took steps to obtain ‘an opinion or a ruling on my citizenship from the United States point of view.’ Exemptions from the 1907 expatriation law had been granted to Americans who enlisted in the Canadian armed forces during the First World War, and Stefansson apparently hoped for similar treatment. He first approached an old classmate from the University of North Dakota, O.B. Burtness, now a member of the House of Representatives. Stefansson asked Burtness to forward his letter ‘with a suitable recommendation to some department of the United States Government that would either decide the case or give me an authoritative opinion.’ He gave Burtness an accurate outline of the relevant facts up to 1913. Stefansson then claimed that, at the cabinet sub-committee meeting on 7 February, Borden ‘asked the Minister of Justice whether he thought I was sufficiently Canadian for their purposes, and that Minister replied I was. He said that I needed to do nothing except to take the same oath that was required of all officers in a similar position – I believe this was a naval regulation, for the expedition was under the Naval Service of Canada’ (Stefansson Reference Stefansson1931a). The regulation was, of course, a civil service one, but Stefansson may have hoped that a mention of the Naval Service would help to put him in the same category as the wartime American volunteers. In a later statement, Stefansson explained that he had felt able to serve the Canadian government without a qualm because he had ‘no nationalistic feeling as between the United States and Canada – as I felt about it at least they were pretty much one country’ (Stefansson undated).

Eventually, Burtness advised Stefansson to make a direct approach to the State Department. The department requested a copy of the oath taken in 1913 (Castle Reference Castle1932). Stefansson duly wrote to Ottawa in order to obtain one. The clerk of the Privy Council, E. J. Lemaire, replied on 20 October 1932 with copies of both the oath of office and the oath of allegiance. Stefansson at once protested that he remembered taking only one oath, the oath of office (Stefansson Reference Stefansson1932). Unfortunately for Stefansson, Lemaire's next letter made it clear that the explorer had indeed taken the oath of allegiance (Lemaire Reference Lemaire1932). Though the oath alone had not made him a Canadian, it was enough to cause the loss of his American citizenship. After further correspondence with the Department of Immigration and Naturalization and with lawyer Charles Hamel, it became clear to Stefansson that his only course was to go through the naturalisation process in the United States. This he did, receiving his citizenship papers on 5 January 1937.