Rasmussen, Knud Johan Victor (1879–1933)

Danish Arctic explorer and ethnologist, who travelled extensively in Greenland, Lapland, and Arctic North America. Among the expeditions he took part in were the Mylius-Erichsen expedition to study the Inuit of Kap York, Greenland in 1902–04, and his own ethnographical expeditions in 1905–08, 1909, and 1910. A champion of the Inuit people (his mother was of Inuit descent), Rasmussen established an Inuit settlement at Thule, northeast Greenland in 1910, with the aid of the Danish Missionary Society; he set up a code of laws for local government, and instituted social services.

He was born at Jakobshavn, Greenland, and educated at Copenhagen University. He visited Lapland in 1901. In 1912 he crossed from Inglefield Bay to Danmark Fjord and Independence Fjord, returning in 1914 to Wolstenholme Fjord, and in 1916–18 to northwest Greenland, with the second Thule expedition.

From 1921 to 1924 Rasmussen journeyed from Greenland across Arctic North America to the northeast corner of Siberia. In 1931 he reconnoitred southeast Greenland in a small motorboat, travelling over 4,000 km/2,480 mi, and was in Greenland again in 1933.

His works appear mainly in Danish, but the following have been translated: Across Arctic America (1927), Eskimo Folk Tales (1921), Greenland by the Polar Sea (1921), The Mackenzie Eskimos (1942), The People of the Polar North (1908).