Editing Knud Rasmussen (section)

==Career==
[[File:Knud Rasmussen 1924.jpg|thumb|Rasmussen, Mrs. [[Arnarulunnguaq]] and Mr. Meetek, 1924]]
He went on his first expedition in 1902–1904, known as The Danish Literary Expedition, with [[Jørgen Brønlund]], [[Harald Moltke]] and [[Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen]], to examine [[Inuit]] culture. After returning home, he went on a lecture circuit and wrote ''The People of the Polar North'' (1908), a combination travel journal and scholarly account of Inuit folklore. In 1908, he married Dagmar Andersen.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Forlag |first=Hans Reitzels |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D1C2AhTGUdsC&dq=Dagmar+Andersen+%221908%22&pg=PA163 |title=Mellem mennesker: en grundbog i antropologisk forskningsetik |date=2009 |publisher=Hans Reitzels Forlag |isbn=978-87-412-5329-9 |language=da}}</ref>

In 1910, Rasmussen and friend [[Peter Freuchen]] established Thule Trading Station in [[North Star Bay]] near [[Mount Dundas]] in Greenland as a trading base.<ref name=cruwys/><ref name="Freuchen 1960">{{cite book|last1=Freuchen|first1=Dagmar|title=Peter Freuchen's Adventures in the Arctic|year=1960 |publisher=Messner |location=New York|page=21}}</ref> The name "Thule" was chosen because it was the most northerly trading post in the world, literally the "[[Thule|Ultima Thule]]".<ref name="aaa">Knud Rasmussen, 1927, ''Across Arctic America'', Introduction.</ref> The station became the home base for a series of seven expeditions, known as the ''Thule Expeditions'', between 1912 and 1933.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Johnston |first1=Jay |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BaGUOm2SRngC&dq=Thule+Trading+Station+%22base%22&pg=PA279 |title=Animal Death |last2=Probyn-Rapsey |first2=Fiona |date=2013 |publisher=Sydney University Press |isbn=978-1-74332-023-5 |language=en}}</ref>

===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 {{convert|1000|km|mi}} journey across the inland ice that almost killed them.<ref name=cruwys/> [[Clements Markham]], president of the [[Royal Geographical Society]], called the journey the "finest ever performed by dogs."<ref>Clements Markham, 1921</ref> Freuchen wrote personal accounts of this journey (and others) in ''Vagrant Viking'' (1953) and ''I Sailed with Rasmussen'' (1958).<ref>{{Cite web|title=I sailed with Rasmussen by Freuchen, Peter: Hardcover (1958) Presumed first edition/first printing. {{!}} Ground Zero Books, Ltd.|url=https://www.abebooks.com/first-edition/sailed-Rasmussen-Freuchen-Peter-Julian-Messner/19567739044/bd|access-date=2 February 2022|website=www.abebooks.com|language=en}}</ref> In 1915, he translated Mathias Storch's novel {{lang|kl|[[Singnagtugaq]]}} into Danish (''The Dream'' in English; translated as {{lang|da|En grønlænders drøm}}), the first novel written in Greenlandic.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Thisted |first1=Kirsten |title=Arctic modernities: The environmental, the exotic, and the everyday |date=2018 |publisher=Cambridge |location=Newcastle upon Tyne, UK |isbn=9781527506916 |chapter="A place in the sun": Historical perspectives on the debate on development and modernity in Greenland |page=320}}</ref>

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,<ref name=cruwys/> namely [[Thorild Wulff]] and Hendrik Olsen. The Third Thule Expedition (1919) was depot-laying for [[Roald Amundsen]]'s polar drift in the ship ''Maud''.<ref name=cruwys/> The Fourth Thule Expedition (1919–1920) was in east Greenland where Rasmussen spent several months collecting ethnographic data near [[Tasiilaq|Angmagssalik]].<ref name=cruwys/>

Rasmussen's "greatest achievement"<ref name=cruwys/> was the massive Fifth Thule Expedition (1921–1924) which was designed to "attack the great primary problem of the origin of the Eskimo race."<ref name=aaa/> A ten volume account (''The Fifth Thule Expedition 1921–1924'' (1946)) of ethnographic, archaeological and biological data was collected, and many artifacts are still on display in museums in Denmark. The team of seven first went to eastern Arctic Canada where they began collecting specimens, taking interviews (including the shaman [[Aua (shaman)|Aua]], who told him of [[Uvavnuk]]), and excavating sites.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Knud Rasmussen {{!}} Biography, Expeditions, & Facts {{!}} Britannica|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Knud-Rasmussen|access-date=2 February 2022|website=www.britannica.com|language=en}}</ref>

[[File:Den danske polarforsker Knud Rasmussen modtager Charley P. Darby's guldmedalje af den amerikanske ambassadør i Danmark Mr. Prince.jpg|thumb|Knud Rasmussen receives Charley P. Darby's gold medal from US ambassador John Dyneley Prince.]]
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 (because of visa problems) to Russia, where he interviewed a few of the local Inuit, the Yupiks. He found they did indeed speak the same language as other Inuit.  (Bown, pp 257-259). He was the first European to cross the [[Northwest Passage]] via dog sled.<ref name=alley/> His journey is recounted in ''Across Arctic America'' (1927), considered today a classic of polar expedition literature.<ref name=cruwys/> This trip has also been called the "''Great Sled Journey''" and was dramatized in the Canadian film ''[[The Journals of Knud Rasmussen]]'' (2006).<ref>{{cite AV media |title=The Journals of Knud Rasmussen. |date=2006 |publisher=Alliance Atlantis |location=Montreal |url=http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1159768332 |access-date=11 August 2022}}</ref>

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 [[Erik the Red's Land|was contested by Norway]].<ref name=cruwys/>

The Seventh Thule Expedition (1933) was meant to continue the work of the sixth, but Rasmussen contracted pneumonia after an episode of food poisoning attributed to eating [[Kiviak|kiviaq]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Magazine |first=Smithsonian |title=Eating Narwhal |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/eating-narwhal-57237540/ |access-date=19 October 2022 |website=Smithsonian Magazine |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=16 February 2002 |title=Review: This Cold Heaven: Seven Seasons in Greenland by Gretel Ehrlich |url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/feb/16/travel.highereducation |access-date=19 October 2022 |website=the Guardian |language=en}}</ref> 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.''<ref>{{cite web
| url         = https://www.dfi.dk/viden-om-film/filmdatabasen/film/16094 
| title       = Palos Brudefærd 
| publisher   = Det Danske Filminstitut 
| language    =  da
| access-date  =  11 August 2020
}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last1 =  MacKenzie | first1 = Scott| last2 = Anna | first2 = Westerståhl Stenport | title =  Films on Ice: Cinemas of the Arctic | place = Edinburgh | publisher =  Edinburgh University Press  | year = 2015 | chapter = 'From Objects to Actors: Knud Rasmussen's Ethnographical Feature Film The Wedding of Palo' by Ebbe Volquardsen | chapter-url = https://www.academia.edu/9250305 | pages = 217–223 | isbn = 9780748694174 }}</ref>