Christian Theodore Pedersen

Christian Theodore Pedersen (23 December 1876 – 20 June 1969) was a Norwegian-American seaman, whaling captain and fur trader active in Alaska, Canada, and the northern Pacific from the 1890s to the 1930s. He was called "one of the canniest old skippers in the western arctic" by a contemporary.

Pedersen, known as Theodore to his friends and usually as C.T. Pedersen for business, was born 23 December 1876 in Sandefjord, Norway. He left on his first whaling voyage at age 17; by 1908 he was captain of the schooner Challenge which wintered in the arctic at Herschel island. He was captain of the schooner Elvira in 1912. Pedersen was associated with the early stages of the Canadian Arctic Expedition under Vilhjalmur Stefansson whom he had known since 1906. He helped select the steam brigantine Karluk for the expedition and sailed it from San Francisco to Victoria, British Columbia. He resigned before the ship was outfitted and was replaced by Robert Bartlett.

Pedersen then returned to the Elvira for whaling and trading in the arctic in 1913. In August 1913, the Elvira was frozen in and damaged by ice near Icy Reef west of Demarcation Point on Alaska's arctic coast (east of Kaktovik, Alaska and west of the Canada–US border). The ship was further damaged by a storm to the point that Pedersen and her crew were forced to abandon her and seek refuge aboard the Belvedere. Pedersen and Olaf Swenson of the Belvedere traveled overland by foot and dogsled to Fairbanks to carry news and arrange relief supplies for the crews on the Belvedere. Sources differ on whether Pederson was owner as well as captain of the Elvira.

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