Valter Schytt (1919-1985)

Abstract

Valter Schytt, Sweden's leading glaciologist and polar scientist, died 30 March 1985 in the Tarfala valley, Kebnekaise, Swedish Lapland. ... Always an internationalist, Schytt became the first non-British president of the International Glaciological Society (1969-72), he was long-time council member and then president (1977-79) of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, he was president of the Swedish Travellers' Club (1976-85), and he was a council member of Comite Arctique International (1979-85). Elected to membership in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1974, he maintained his active interest in polar research and at the same time continued as director of the station at Tarfala. His standing in the Swedish scientific community was recognized in 1976 by his appointment as Lord Chamberlain in Waiting to the Court of King Carl XVI Gustav, a post that he enjoyed and handled with aplomb. The culmination of Valter Schytt's work in the field of polar research came in 1980, when the Swedish icebreaker Ymer made a voyage to commemorate Nordenskiold's attainment of the Northeast Passage (and the circumnavigation of Asia) in Vega between 1878 and 1880. Schytt was responsible for much of the organization and, as scientific leader, he was on board for both legs of the expedition, which ranged around Svalbard, to Greenland in the west, to the waters north of Franz Josef Land in the east, and to latitude 82 30 N. Schytt would have been pleased with the final report of this multifaceted expedition, issued in 1987 by the Swedish Academy of Sciences under the editorship of Gunnar Hoppe. For his outstanding work on the Ymer-80 Expedition Valter Schytt was awarded the Vega Medal, the highest award of the Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography, in 1981. Another result of Schytt's efforts to stimulate polar research was the creation of a Committee for Polar Research within the Secretariat (a special government entity). Sweden acceded to the Antarctic Treaty in 1984, and during several recent austral summers Swedish glaciologists, physical geographers, and Quaternary geologists have again worked in the Antarctic. This is Valter Schytt's legacy.