Tryggvi Julius Oleson, FRSC, (1912-1963) was a Canadian historian from Manitoba. Of Icelandic heritage, he specialised in the early medieval period and Norse history. He was the author of Early Voyages and Northern Approaches, the first volume in the Canadian Centenary Series, a collection of historical texts by leading historians to commemorate the centennial of Canada in 1967. Early Voyages and Northern Approaches proved controversial because of Oleson's theory that the Thule culture, the predecessor of the Inuit, was the result of inter-mingling between Norse people from Greenland and Iceland, and Arctic inhabitants of the pre-existing Dorset culture. This thesis helped explain the origins of the Thule culture, and the contemporaneous gradual disappearance of the Norse settlements in Greenland. The book attracted considerable academic criticism, but Oleson was not able to publish any rebuttals as he died shortly after it was published. Early life and family Oleson was born in 1912 in the village of Glenboro, Manitoba, to Gudni Julius Oleson and Gudrun Kristin Thomson, who were from the Icelandic community at Gimli, Manitoba. He studied history at the University of Manitoba with an interest in early medieval European history and the Norse culture, graduating with an MA in Roman history in 1936. He went on to post-graduate studies at the University of Toronto, including studying at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. His dissertation was published in 1955 as The Witenagemot in the Reign of King Edward the Confessor. He married Elva Hulda Eyford. The couple had three children. Academic career Teaching Returning to Manitoba, Oleson began his teaching career at the Jon Bjarnason Academy, a private Icelandic school in Winnipeg. He later lectured in history at the University of British Columbia and at United College (now the University of Winnipeg). In 1950, he joined the history department at the University of Manitoba, becoming a full professor in 1957. Oleson was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1956. He was inducted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Early Voyages and Northern Approaches In the early 1960s, two major Canadian historians, Donald Creighton and W.L. Morton, planned the Canadian Centenary Series as a centennial project to commemorate the centennial of Canadian Confederation. They envisioned a multi-volume historical series written by leading historians, covering the history of Canada up to 1967. They asked Oleson to write the first volume in the series, covering the early European explorations in what