The People of the Polar North Book Reviews

The People of the Polar North by Knud Rasmussen & George Herring Book Summary

"Ethnologist Rasmussen journeyed widely across Greenland...in support of his theory that the Eskimo (Inuit) were descended from migratory Asian tribes." -The Mammoth Book of Polar Journeys (2011)

"The far northern world of paganism and magical incantation, as Rasmussen came to see, could be so cruel as to lead to unspeakable acts." - The Ice at the End of the World (2020)

"Few people who read Rasmussen's...People of the Polar North will fail to be moved by his sensitive descriptions of the lives of the people he met." -Literature of Travel and Exploration 2003

"Rasmussen decided they must go on, leaving behind food, clothing, and maps in the faint hope that Olsen might still be alive." - Exploring Polar Frontiers (2003)

Never before has any narrative brought the joys and troubles of Polar travel, the real meaning of the Arctic night, the grim struggle for life in the Polar regions, more vividly and more intensely than Knut Rasmussen.

Born in Greenland, the son of a Danish missionary and an Inuit-Danish mother, Rasmussen spent his early years in Greenland among the Eskimo where he learned to hunt, drive dog sleds and live in harsh Arctic conditions before being educated in Denmark.

In 1902-1904, Rasmussen went on his first expedition, known as The Danish Literary Expedition, to examine Inuit tribes and their culture in Greenland. After returning to Denmark after the successful expedition 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.

The literature of polar exploration is of course full of references to the Eskimo, whose resourcefulness in contending against the most untoward circumstances of life can hardly fail to evoke the admiration of travelers who have profited by their ingenuity. But probably no one has come so close to mirroring the everyday activities of these people as Knud Rasmussen, the son of a Danish missionary in Greenland, himself possessed of a tincture of Eskimo blood and a master of the native tongue. His book on "The People of the Polar North" is a sympathetic and graphic account of Greenland society in its varied manifestations.

It is a wonderful book, which introduces us to the homes and to the souls of the Eskimos in the North of Greenland. For it is more than a travel book. It is full of the folk-lore, the legends, the fireside tales of a culture that was dying out. What life it is that Mr. Rasmussen reveals in his fascinating pages!

Above all, there is a wealth of legendary material and a full account of those odd beliefs in spirits, magic formulae, and traditional rules of conduct that constitute Eskimo religion. These outlandish folk, who know no God, but who fear the Evil One, whose only priests are magicians, are nevertheless intensely human. Far away in their snowy wilderness they are strangely like the rest of us who are not marooned in the Polar regions.

Knud   Rasmussen was born June 7, 1879 and died December 21, 1933. He was a Greenlandic-Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" and was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled. He remains well known in Greenland, Denmark and among Canadian Inuit.

He went on his first expedition in 1902-1904, known as The Danish Literary Expedition, with Jorgen Bronlund, 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.

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