Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen

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Knud Rasmussen, 1928.
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Knud Rasmussen, 1928.

Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (June 7, 1879December 21, 1933) was a Greenlandic polar explorer and anthropologist.

Rasmussen was born in Jakobshavn, Greenland. He went on his first expedition in 19021904, "The Literature Expedition", with Jørgen Brønlund, Harald Moltke and Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, to examine Inuit culture. In 1910 he and freind Peter Freuchen established the Thule Trading Station at Cape York (Uummannaq), Greenland as a base. He went on several expeditions between 1912 and 1919, travelling over the Viscount Melville Sound and crossing the Northwest Passage by dogsled.

From 1921 to 1924 he went on his famous "Great Sled Journey" to collect and describe Inuit songs and legends. For that effort he gained a post at the University of Copenhagen. This trip was dramatized in the 2006 Canadian film The Journals of Knud Rasmussen.

He was also patron of the first long polar movie "SOS Iceberg" (starring Leni Riefenstahl).

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