Profile: Knud Rasmussen, 1879–1933

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Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen, who died just over 50 years ago on 21 December 1933, is known both for his Arctic exploration and for his interest in Eskimos, especially Greenlanders and their way of life.

His parents, Sofie Louise Susanne Fleischer (1842–1917) and Christian Vilhelm Rasmussen (1846–1918), married in 1875 in the small West Greenland town of Ilulissat (Jacobshavn), where Christian was a missionary and head of the local teachers' training college. Sofie's family had settled in Greenland more than a hundred years earlier, and several of her kin gained high positions in the administrative service. Knud, who was born on 7 June 1879, was the first of three children. His Eskimo heritage came from his great-grandmother, who was a native of West Greenland, and an early taste of Eskimo culture passed to him from his maternal grandmother, Iteraluk (1816–99). Knud's Eskimo name was Kunnnguaq. As a boy in Greenland he grew up with his own sled and dog team, learning to drive well. Though he attended school in Denmark from the age of 12, he remembered his Eskimo training; travels with dog sleds were to become an important feature of his expeditions in later years.