Knud Rasmussen

Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (; 7 June 1879 – 21 December 1933) was a Greenlandic-Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" (now often known as Inuit Studies or Greenlandic and Arctic Studies) and was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled. He remains well known in Greenland, Denmark and among Canadian Inuit.

Early years

Rasmussen was born in Jacobshavn (now called Ilulissat), Greenland, the son of a Danish missionary, the vicar Christian Rasmussen, and an Inuk–Danish mother, Lovise Rasmussen (née Fleischer). He had two siblings.

Rasmussen spent his early years in Greenland among the Kalaallit where he learnt to speak Kalaallisut, hunt, drive dog sleds and live in harsh Arctic conditions. "My playmates were native Greenlanders; from the earliest boyhood I played and worked with the hunters, so even the hardships of the most strenuous sledge-trips became pleasant routine for me."

In 1910, Rasmussen and friend Peter Freuchen established Thule Trading Station in North Star Bay near Mount Dundas in Greenland as a trading base. The name "Thule" was chosen because it was the most northerly trading post in the world, literally the "Ultima Thule". The station became the home base for a series of seven expeditions, known as the Thule Expeditions, between 1912 and 1933.

The Thule expeditions The First Thule Expedition (1912, Rasmussen and Freuchen) aimed to test Robert Peary's claim that a channel divided Peary Land from Greenland. They proved this was not the case in a remarkable journey across the inland ice that almost killed them. Freuchen wrote personal accounts of this journey (and others) in Vagrant Viking (1953) and I Sailed with Rasmussen (1958). In 1915, he translated Mathias Storch's novel into Danish (The Dream in English; translated as ), the first novel written in Greenlandic.

The Second Thule Expedition (1916–1918) was larger with a team of seven men, which set out to map a little-known area of Greenland's north coast. This journey was documented in Rasmussen's account Greenland by the Polar Sea (1921). The trip was beset with two fatalities, the only in Rasmussen's career,

For the next seven years, Rasmussen traveled between Greenland and Denmark giving lectures and writing. In 1931, he went on the Sixth Thule Expedition, designed to consolidate Denmark's claim on a portion of eastern Greenland that was contested by Norway. dying a few weeks later in Copenhagen at the age of 54. During this expedition Rasmussen worked on the film The Wedding of Palo, which Rasmussen wrote the screenplay for. The film was directed by Friedrich Dalsheim and completed in 1934 under the Danish title Palos brudefærd.

Honours

In addition to several capes and glaciers, Knud Rasmussen Range in Greenland is named after him, as is the Knud Rasmussen-class patrol vessel and its lead ship, the HDMS Knud Rasmussen.

He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the American Geographical Society in 1912, and its Daly Medal in 1924. The Royal Geographical Society awarded him their Founder's Medal in 1923 and the Royal Danish Geographical Society their Hans Egede Medal in 1924. He was made honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen in 1924, and the University of St Andrews in 1927.