The heroic age of polar exploration gave birth to epics as grand and as harsh as the landscapes in which they unfolded. And, as in all the best epics, their protagonists are often of interest not only for what they do, but also for who they are, or, in the case of the Arctic adventurer — “explorer” is too confining a word — Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962), who they pretend to be…