In 1906, Stefansson joined an Anglo-American Polar expedition led by Dane Ejnar Mikkelson. He lived with the Inuit during the winter where he learned to hunt and fish. At the end of the trip he met up with another known arctic explorer Roald Amundsen. In 1907, with the backing of New York's American Museum of Natural History and the Canadian Government, Stefansson went on a second expedition to the North, where along with fellow explorer Rudolph Anderson, a Canadian zoologist he met at University, he studied the lives of the Inuit of Alaska and those of Victoria Island which had strong Caucasian features, and he believed to be descendants of the Vikings or descendants of the men of the lost expedition of John Franklin. He lived among them for four years. He published many articles in Scientific American and other periodicals as well as writing a book, "My Life with the Eskimo".
A third expedition was granted by the Canadian government, and was led by Stefensson. In 1913, he sailed from Seattle in the United States to Alaska where the expedition was forced to leave their ship, which had been caught, in ice. Most of the men survived, largely due to their contact with the Inuit, which let them use their hunting and fishing. He returned home in 1918. After a fourth expedition set for 1920 wasn't given the support of the British Government, Stefensson gave up on expedition and began to give lectures and publishing his writings. In the 1930s and 1940s Stefensson helped map out flight plans, and educated the military in Alaska on the conditions in the Arctic. It is with his help that Alaska and Northern Canada began to be developed.
Stefensson was one of the last great explorers of the Arctic, and his findings on the way of life of the Inuit are of valuable academic importance. An island north of Victoria Island was named after him in 1952. He died in 1962 in Hanover, New Hampshire where he lived with his wife for many years before his death.
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