Walter Elmer Ekblaw was born in Champaign County, Illinois. He was one of six children born to Andrew Ekblaw and Ingrid Ekblaw both of whom were Swedish immigrants. He graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.A. in 1910. At the University, he was editor of the Daily Illini. Together with fellow senior, Clarence Foss Williams, he also organized the first University of Illinois homecoming on October 15, 1910. He taught at the University of Illinois from 1910 to 1913. He subsequently became a research associate with the American Museum of Natural History. He attended Clark University where he received a Ph.D. in 1926. He served as a professor of geography at Clark University from 1924 to 1949. In 1947, he received the Order of the Polar Star from King Gustav V of Sweden for his work in promoting good relations between Sweden and the United States. He died in 1949 and was buried at the Glen Cemetery in Ford County, Illinois.
From 1913 to 1917, he served as geologist and botanist of the Crocker Land Expedition together with Maurice Cole Tanquary of the University of Illinois who served as the zoologist. The Crocker Land Expedition, which explored northern Greenland, was organized by Arctic explorers Donald Baxter MacMillan. The expedition was sponsored by the AmericanMuseum of Natural History, the American Geographical Society, and the University of Illinois' Museum of Natural History. Members of the ill-fated expedition, including Ekblaw, were rescued by the ship Neptune, commanded by Robert Bartlett in 1917. On his return to the United States, Ekblaw wrote a number of papers including The importance of nivation as an erosive factor and of soil flow as a transporting agency in northern Greenland, and also one on The food birds of the Smith Sound Eskimos, Vol. 26. Later publications dealt with The ecological relations of the polar Eskimo and Eskimo dogs forgotten heroes. Journals from Maurice Tanquary, Ekblaw, Donald and Mirriam MacMillan are available online at the website. Digitization of materials at Bowdoin College related to the Crocker Land Expedition generously funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation in 2016.
