Peter Freuchen

Lorentz Peter Elfred Freuchen ( born February 20, 1886 in Nykøbing, Denmark, † September 2, 1957 in Anchorage, Alaska) was a Danish polar explorer and writer. Peter Freuchen founded together with Knud Rasmussen nordgrönländische Thule trading station and participated in several Arctic expeditions.

Life

Peter Freuchens parents were the merchant Lorentz Bentson Freuchen and his wife Friderikke, born Rasmussen. He was the eldest of six children. After school he began in 1904 to study medicine in Copenhagen. In 1906 he participated in the expedition led by Ludvig Mylius - Danmark - Erichsen to northeast Greenland as a heater and meteorological assistant. Meteorologist of the expedition was Alfred Wegener.

In 1909 he returned to Denmark and began working as a journalist for the left-liberal journal policies. He became friends with Knud Rasmussen, and they jointly held lectures on Greenland. Together they took the plan to establish a trading post in North Greenland, in order both to provide the Polar Eskimo needed merchandise at fair prices, as well as to explore the area and to be able to make Danish sovereignty claims. 1910, she traveled with her ​​first goods to North Greenland and built in North Star Bay their station, which was on Freuchens suggestion, the mythical Greek name Thule. 1911 married Freuchen Navarana, a member of the small tribe of the Polar Eskimo.

1912 took Freuchen Rasmussen and the first of seven so-called Thule expeditions. Together with two Inuit they crossed the ice to search in the East Greenland polar explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen believed to be lost (1880-1971) and the Peary Channel take a map. Mikkelsen was now already returned to civilization and the Peary Channel proved to be non-existent. 1913 returned Freuchen back for five weeks after Denmark, but spent the following years as station manager at Thule. 1916 his son Meqosaq ( 1916-1962 ) was born in 1918 his daughter Pipaluk ( 1918-1999 ).

In December 1919 Freuchen visited with his wife and children, his family in Denmark, where he worked as a traveling lecturer, but also seriously ill at the rampant sale of Spanish flu and had to spend weeks in the hospital.

In preparation for the long-planned by Knud Rasmussen fifth Thule expedition, he returned with his wife and son in the summer of 1920 to Thule back, but left in the fall, with stops in South Greenland to Denmark again. In May 1921, he again traveled to Greenland to meet there Knud Rasmussen and participate as a cartographer and scientist at the Thule expedition that would explore under Rasmussen's line of Hudson Bay from the Inuit in Canada and Alaska. His wife Navarana should accompany him and work for the expedition as a seamstress, but died on the way in Upernavik from the flu.

In the course of the expedition Freuchen undertook in 1921 and 1922, many trips in the area of ​​Hudson Bay and charted along with Therkel Mathiassen ( 1892 to 1967 ) Parts of Southampton Island, the east coast of the Melville Peninsula and large areas of northern Baffin inland. In January 1923 he froze his left foot at a temperature of -54 degrees Celsius. In the spring of 1924 he traveled by dogsled and boat on Baffin Island and Greenland to Denmark, where he married his childhood girlfriend Magdalene Vang Lauridsen ( 1881-1960 ) in November of the year.

In 1926 he acquired the small, located at Nakskov before Lolland island Enehøje. The farm was provided by an administrator with moderate success, while Freuchen operated as a journalist, traveling lecturer, filmmaker and writer. He wrote both novels - which play mainly in Greenland and Canada - as well as non-fiction, travel stories, biographies and autobiographies. All his works are very humorous and show his deep attachment to the Inuit as well as a critical stance on ecclesiastical and secular dignitaries.

1927 had his foot amputated after all, which made him unfit for further polar expeditions. 1932 and 1933 he worked in Hollywood and Alaska on the film adaptation of his novel Eskimo, among other things as an actor. The film received good reviews and an Oscar for the cut.

Since the mid- 1930s Freuchen took on its convenient island for refugees from Germany. After the occupation of Denmark in 1940 by German troops, he helped the refugees to Sweden. Due to its resistance activities Freuchen was arrested and convicted. However, he managed to escape to Sweden. His books have not been launched in Germany since 1933 and appeared only after the war. 1944 his marriage was dissolved, and a year later he married the fashion designer Dagmar Cohn ( 1907-1991 ).

After the war lived Freuchen in New York - in the middle of Manhattan - and had a summer home in Connecticut. He worked mainly as a UN correspondent for policies and Danish magazines in the U.S., but also wrote further books. In 1956, he won a fortune in the first major U.S. game show " The $ 64,000 Question " with the correct answer of 17 Arctic - related issues.

In September 1957, he died during a journey which, together with the Norwegian- American aviator Bernt Balchen, the Australian polar explorer Sir Hubert Wilkins and the American Admiral Donald MacMillan ( 1874-1970 ) him - all Arctic veterans - by plane from Alaska over the North Pole should lead to Thule, of a stroke. His ashes were scattered on the Thulefjell.

Works by Peter Freuchen (selection)

• The Eskimo. 1928
• The right whales. 1930
• Ivalu. 1931
• My Greenlandic youth. 1937
• Life goes on. 1941
• The Book of the Seven Seas. 1958

Memorabilia from Peter Freuchen are in Thule Museum in Qaanaaq.