Paul-Émile Victor

Paul-Émile Victor, born Paul Eugène Victor on June 28, 1907 in Geneva and died in 1995, is a polar logistician recognized throughout the world.

As a child, Paul-Émile Victor practiced scouting in the Jura and later headed for engineering studies at the École centrale de Lyon, then in Paris in 1926, to study at the Musée d'ethnographie du Trocadéro. At the same time, he obtained his pilot's license.

In January 1934 at the Academy of Sciences he approached one of the big names in French polar exploration, Commander Jean-Baptiste Charcot, to whom he presented an ethnographic expedition project: Studying the “Eskimos” of Eastern Greenland and bring back to Europe information and objects embodying the culture of this population just discovered by Westerners. Charcot supports the operation, and will finance the “French Expedition 1934-35 on the east coast of Greenland”.

On August 25, 1934, Paul-Émile Victor disembarked from the polar ship “Pourquoi-Pas?” in the Danish counter of Ammassalik, accompanied by anthropologist Robert Gessain, geologist Michel Perez and filmmaker Fred Matter-Steveniers. “The Greenland Four” will spend a year in the field, collecting valuable information from some 800 Eskimos. They brought back from their journey 3,500 ethnographic pieces, sound recordings of traditional songs, an ethnological film and thousands of photos. In 1935, a major report entitled “Twelve months on the ice” even appeared in the daily Paris-Soir.

He leaves with a new mission, baptized “TransGroenland 1936”, with Robert Gessain, Michel Perez and the Dane Eigil Knuth consists of crossing the Greenland ice cap from west to east. Paul-Émile, who will be nicknamed "Wittou" by the Eskimos of Kangerlussuatsiaq will explore the icy expanses of the hinterland of Ammassalik, unmapped until then.