Paul-Emile Victor

Swiss ethnologist, the founder, organizer and director of French Arctic and Antarctic expeditions.

From the time he was a youngster, Victor was fascinated by adventure novels, ethnographic magazines and demonstrated a certain talent for drawing. In 1928 he became an engineer and after his military service in 1931 he got his pilot’s license. In 1934 he set foot in Greenland for his first polar expedition. In 1936 he crossed Greenland from west to east on foot and sledge and spent fourteen months with an Inuit family.

During WWII Victor enlisted in the United States Army, 1940-44, and accomplished missions in the northern territories as instructor, pilot and paratrooper. On 28 February 1947 he was commissioned by the government to organize the French polar expeditions. From 1947 to 1974 he led seventeen expeditions in Terre-Adélie and Groenland.

From 1962, along with Alain Bombard, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, Maurice Herzog and Haroun Tazieff he became involved in environmental issues. In 1976 he resigned as head of the French polar expeditions and one year later left with his family to live in Bora-Bora, French Polynesia.

He is the author of scientific documents and adventure novels, including "My Eskimo Life," 1938,"The Milky Way," 1961 "The Great Hunger," 1955 and "Nanouk, The Eskimo," 1979.

Victor made a second marriage 1 March 1965. He died on 7 March 1995 in Motu Tane, on the island of Bora-Bora, in French Polynesia (and not the 8th as given in some reports).