13 Facts About Knud Rasmussen

Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen was a Greenlandic-Danish polar explorer and anthropologist.

Knud Rasmussen has been called the "father of Eskimology" and was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled.

Knud Rasmussen remains well known in Greenland, Denmark and among Canadian Inuit.

Knud 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.

Knud Rasmussen was later educated in Lynge, North Zealand, Denmark.

The Fourth Thule Expedition was in east Greenland where Knud Rasmussen spent several months collecting ethnographic data near Angmagssalik.

Knud Rasmussen left the team and traveled for 16 months with two Inuit hunters by dog sled across North America to Nome, Alaska, and for less than 48 hours to Russia, where he interviewed a few of the local Inuit, the Yupiks.

Knud Rasmussen found they did indeed speak the same language as other Inuit.

Knud Rasmussen was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled.

Knud Rasmussen's journey is recounted in Across Arctic America, considered today a classic of polar expedition literature.

The Seventh Thule Expedition was meant to continue the work of the sixth, but Knud Rasmussen contracted pneumonia after an episode of food poisoning attributed to eating kiviaq, dying a few weeks later in Copenhagen at the age of 54.

Knud Rasmussen was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the American Geographical Society in 1912, and its Daly Medal in 1924.

Knud Rasmussen was made honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen in 1924, and the University of St Andrews in 1927.