Knut Rasmussen – The do-gooder from Greenland
The exploration of the polar regions has produced heroes whose achievements we remember with reverence. Men who endured superhuman hardships to fill in the blank spaces on the map.
What exactly drove them to such extraordinary feats is a secret they took with them to their graves. Some surely set out for personal glory and honor, determined at all costs to be the first to set foot on terra incognita. Others ventured into the unknown for the benefit and glory of king and fatherland, and perhaps a few daredevils did so to escape the narrowness of their homeland, or even a nagging wife. Rarely, however, were their motives entirely selfless.
A great exception was Knut Rasmussen. He lived from 1879 to 1931. In Greenland he is revered almost cultishly, while outside the world’s largest island hardly anyone knows his name. I myself had to travel to Ilulissat, Rasmussen’s hometown in western Greenland, to learn about this remarkable polar explorer. His life story, and especially his end, testifies to a genuine goodness that is rare in history and deeply moves my heart.
Knut was the son of Pastor Vilhelm Rasmussen and Sofie Louise, née Fleischer, a Greenlander of Danish and Inuit descent. She introduced the boy early on to his Inuit heritage, and even as a child little Knut was an excellent dogsled driver and kayaker. At bedtime, she told him the fairy tales of his ancestors. When the young Rasmussen later ventured onto the inland ice, he did so with dogs and sleds. One of his well-known quotations reads: “Give me snow, give me dogs, and you can keep the rest.”
At nearly thirty years of age, he founded the trading post of Thule. There he effectively established one of the first fair-trade systems, ensuring that the Inuit were not cheated and were properly paid for their furs. He also saw to it that Thule received its first hospital.
On his ten expeditions, he studied Inuit culture, writing down their legends, songs, and shamanistic rituals so they would not be forgotten and so the world could learn about this rich culture. His books, still published today, reflect the deep respect Rasmussen held for the Inuit. Rather than arriving as a conqueror and exploiting the local people, as many others did, Rasmussen lived and worked alongside them.
He was also the first to suggest that the waters around the Pole circulate, a fact now known as the circumpolar current. Yet his name as a discoverer is rarely mentioned in current discussions about global warming.
Just as Rasmussen lived as a humanitarian, so too did he meet his end. During one of his countless visits to an Inuit tribe, they prepared a festive meal in honor of their great benefactor. Served was an Eskimo specialty: a seal stuffed with birds and buried in the summer. The seal’s fat layer melts and mingles with the birds, and in winter, when the seal is frozen solid once more, the delicacy is dug up, chopped into pieces, cooked, and served.
Whether Rasmussen ate the dish out of pure politeness toward his hosts or whether he actually enjoyed it, we do not know. What is known is that it did not agree with him. He fell ill with food poisoning from which he never recovered and died at the age of 54.
I would very much like to grow a little older and travel to Greenland many more times. With Rasmussen in mind, I stuck to freshly caught salmon and tender reindeer during my journey and, for once, refrained from ordering local specialties.
Author: Greta Paulsdottir
