Knud Rasmussen was a Danish polar explorer and anthropologist born June 7, 1879 and died December 21, 1933. His mother was of Danish- Inuit descent and his father was a Danish missionary to Greenland. Knud was born in Ilulissat, Greenland. Knud spent his formative years among the Inuit and learned the language, hunting, driving sled dogs and got accustomed to living in the harsh climate. His childhood playmates were the Inuit.
Formative Years
The Inuit peoples, used to the harsh climate and winter darkness, developed a belief system of spirits and witchcraft. These stories may have developed as a result of the long winters and being confined to their igloos or turf huts. The early Inuit beliefs were that every thing whether animate or inanimate had a soul. These souls could travel from human to animal and back again. The stories of the Inuits developed a culture of absolute morals and beliefs. Knud Rasmussen collected these stories and legends which were then published and available to the rest of the world.
These stories encouraged Christian missionaries from Denmark to convert their territory, Greenland, and its people, the Inuit, to the Danish religious beliefs. Rasmussen’s father had been motivated to convert the Inuit.
Knud Rasmussen was educated in both cultures through his father, the missionary, and his mother with her half Inuit background. He was later formally educated in Denmark at Lynge, North Zealand.
Early Career
For a short time in 1900, he pursued a career as an actor and an opera singer.
He went on his first expedition, the Danish Literary Expedition, in 1902 to 1904 with Jørgen Brønlund, Harald Molke and Ludvig Mylius- Erichsen. Upon his return, he wrote “The People of the Polar North” in 1908. In that year he married Dagmar Andersen.
In 1910, Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen established the Thule Trading Station at Cape York (Uummannaq), Greenland. Thule was named as it was the most northerly trading post in the world. Thule became the location for seven expeditions.
Greenland Expeditions
The First Thule Expedition tested Robert Peary’s claim that a channel divided Peary Land from the rest of Greenland. Rasmussen proved that Peary was wrong in a 1,000 mile journey across the inland ice which nearly resulted in the death of the participants. His co- explorer, Feuchen, wrote accounts of the journey called the “Vagrant Viking” in 1953 and “I Sailed with Rasmussen” in 1958.
The Second Thule Expedition mapped Greenland’s north coast, previously unknown to the European world. Two men died on this trip which were the only fatalities experienced in Rasmussen’s career of exploration of the frozen, harsh terrain. The Third Thule Expedition established a depot for Roald Amundsen’s polar drift and the fourth expedition was spent in Eastern Greenland collecting ethnological data.
Rasmussen’s greatest expedition was the Fifth Thule Expedition which set as its goal the determination of the origin of the “Eskimo race.” A ten volume work consisting of biological, archeological and ethnological data resulted in 1946 entitled “The Fifth Thule Expedition 1921- 1924.” Many artifacts obtained on that expedition are still displayed in Danish museum collections.
Northwest Passage
Rasmussen was one of the earlier Europeans to cross the Northwest Passage by dog sled which resulted in a film called “The Journals of Knud Rasmussen” produced in 2006. The Northwest Passage dog sled journey crossed North America and concluded in Nome, Alaska, recounted in his book, “Across Arctic America” published in 1927.
The Seventh Thule Expedition (1933) lasted only a few weeks. Rasmussen contracted pneumonia and after suffering food poisoning, died in Copenhagen at the age of 54.
Honors for Knud Rasmussen
In his life, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the American Geographical Society in 1912 and its Daly Medal in 1924. He was made an honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen in 1924.
The Danish government calls their class of patrol boats the "Knud Rasmussen class."
A Danish biographical movie entitled "The Journals of Knud Rasmussen" was released in November of 2006.
Sources:
"The Journals of Knud Rasmussen" released Nov. 2006 in Denmark
"Eskimo Folk Tales," Knud Rasmussen, published 1921
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