Knud Rasmussen
Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen ( born June 7, 1879 in Ilulissat, West Greenland, † December 21, 1933 in Copenhagen, Denmark ) was a Danish - Greenlandic polar explorer and anthropologist.
Life and work
Rasmussen was the son of a missionary and linguist Christian Rasmussen (1846-1918) and his wife Sofie Louise Rasmussen (1842-1917), nee Fleischer, a Greenlander with Norwegian and Inuit ancestors. Even as a small boy, he was an excellent conditions for Greenland dog sled driver. A well-known quote from him is: "Give me snow, give me dogs, and the rest you can keep ." His nickname was Greenlandic Kunuunguak ( "little Knud ").
In 1891 he attended the Latin and junior high school in Nørrebro, a district of Copenhagen. He then studied for a semester at the University of Copenhagen, took off the Philosophicum, but could not decide on course of study. In 1901 he went as a correspondent to Stockholm report of the Nordic Games, and then traveled through Lapland and northern Norway.
1902-1904 he took with his friend, the painter and draftsman Harald Moltke, to the Literary Expedition to Northwest Greenland part, which was led by Ludvig Mylius - Erichsen, had been visited by Rasmussen in 1900, Iceland. The focus of the expedition was to record the songs and legends of the Polar Eskimos. In the following years, Rasmussen came again and again, partly in official matters, to Greenland.
On November 11, 1908 Knud Rasmussen Dagmar Theresa married Andersen ( 1882-1965 ).
In 1909 he was present at the founding of the mission station in northern Greenland.
In 1910 he founded together with his partner Peter Freuchen at the same place the trade, and research station Thule, which was the starting point of his expeditions. The profit of the trading station put Rasmussen in his expeditions and the development of a local infrastructure with shops, hospital, free medical care and a church. In international law and legal no man's land Rasmussen had the supreme authority, however, which he used in favor of the Polar Eskimo. Today is located in the immediate vicinity of the Thule Air Base. In 1953, the inhabitants were forcibly relocated under pressure from the Americans. Rasmussen's house was broken into its component parts and 1986 brought to Qaanaaq, where it was rebuilt and since then as a local history museum ( Museum Thule ) is used.
Rasmussen led 1912-1933 by seven expeditions ( the so-called " Thule Expeditions" ) to northern Greenland and the Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska. The aim was next to the geographical research, especially the research and preservation of Inuit culture, the Inuit language Inuit legends and stories. Of particular importance was the 5th Thule Expedition 1921-1924, which served the purpose to elucidate the origin of the Inuit. The expedition struck camp initially on an island in the eastern Arctic Canada and attended the Inuit settlements in the larger radius. In the spring of 1923, Rasmussen began, accompanied by two Inuit the longest dog sled trip in the history of Arctic research that led him on the north coast of the North American mainland within sixteen months up to Nome in Alaska.
In 1925 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Copenhagen.
Also wrote film history Knud Rasmussen. In his last expedition of the feature film " Palos Brautfahrt " showing the traditional Inuit life arose. Rasmussen had written the script and chose the main characters from. He was also the patron of the Arnold Fanck film "SOS Iceberg " (with Ernst Udet and Leni Riefenstahl ), who was the first to film the special beauty of the icy landscapes of Greenland.
In October 1933 ill Rasmussen in East Greenland at a meat poisoning, and died on December 21 in a Copenhagen hospital.
In Knud Rasmussen's birthplace is now the Ilulissat Museum, which is also reminiscent of this most famous of all Greenlanders in particular. Other mementos are located in the Thule Museum in Qaanaaq. The last expedition ship of Knud Rasmussen, who built 1933 " Kivioq ", is now privately owned by Jutta Carstensen and Uwe Käding and is located in the harbor of Aabenraa in southern Denmark.
Publications
Even as a writer was Rasmussen significant. Some of his books are
- Nye mennesker ( New People ), 1905
- Min rejsedagbog ( My diary - About the Greenland ice after the Peary Land ), 1915
- The singer war - Eskimo legends of Greenland, 1922
- Myter og fra sagn Grønland ( myths and legends of Greenland), Sansoni, Nordisk forlag, 1925
- Fra Grønland til Stillehavet ( From Greenland to the Pacific Ocean)., 1925-26
- Den store slæderejse ( The great sledge journey ), 1932
Rasmussen 1915 translated the first novel Greenland Sinnattugaq by Mathias Storch under the title En Grønlænders Drøm ( A Greenlandic dream ) into Danish.