Arnarulunnguaq

Arnarulunnguaq ( ; 1896 – 2 October 1933), a Native Greenlander, was a key member of Knud Rasmussen's Fifth Thule Expedition (1921–1924) which crossed the Northwest Passage by dog sled. She was one of the two who accompanied Rasmussen from the Hudson Bay to Alaska, preparing meals and keeping skins and furs in order throughout the two-year journey. As a result, she was the first woman to complete the long Arctic journey from Greenland to the Pacific.

Biography

Early life Born in Thule in 1896, Arnarulunnguaq (meaning "little girl") was the daughter of the Greenlandic hunter Uumaaq and his wife Aleqasersuaq. After her father died when she was only seven years old, as the youngest child she experienced a difficult childhood, helping to provide for the family.

According to Rasmussen, her family had initially decided to murder her, a practice among the Inuit when resources were insufficient to support everyone: she was required to put a rope around her own neck to show her acquiescence; but her brother Ajako began to cry and her mother decided not to go through with the killing.

Arnarulunnguaq saw this event as a kind of rebirth.

Summing up her positive influence, Rasmussen tells us that Arnarulunnguaq had "that good humour about her that only a woman can instil [and was as] entertaining and courageous as any man when we were out on our journey." . In 2026, a bacterium isolated from permafrost from the Kap København Formation in Northern Greenland was named after her.