Mapping Ultima Thule. Agata Lubowicka

(Roskilde: Roskilde Universitetsforlag, 1998), pp. 156–158.

42 In her master’s dissertation En anden verden – forestillinger om Inuit. Repræsentation og selvrepræsentation af Inuit i nyere tid (2006) Lill Rastad Bjørst presents the mechanisms of discourse formation regarding Greenland and Greenlanders in 19th and 20th century. Lill Rastad Bjørst, En anden verden – forestillinger om Inuit. Repræsentation og selvrepræsentation af Inuit i nyere tid (Odense: Syddansk Universitet, 2005), pp. 14–28.

43 Kirsten Hastrup, Vinterens hjerte: Knud Rasmussen og hans tid (København: Gad, 2010), p. 44.

44 Fienup-Riordan, Freeze Frame, p. 15.

45 In the light of the universal concept of man, this also meant that Greenlanders could become civilised over the course of time as Europeans had before them. Ole Høiris, Antropologien i Danmark. Museal etnografi og etnologi 1860–1960 (København: Nationalmuseets Forlag, 1986), p. 167.

46 Hastrup, Vinterens hjerte, p. 52.

47 Bjørst, En anden verden, pp. 24–28. This is to be found, for example, in accounts by the American Robert Peary and in Blandt nordpolens naboer (1895, English edition: With Peary near the Pole, 1898) by Norwegian Eivind Astrup, a member of Peary’s expeditions in 1891–1892 and in 1893, a book which first ushered the Inughuit onto the Nordic literary scene.

48 Chauncey C. Loomis, “The Arctic Sublime,” in: Nature and the Victorian Imagination, eds. U. C. Knoepflmacher and G. B. Tennyson (Berkeley, Los Angeles & London: California Press, 1977), p. 95.

49 This English rendering of the term is offered by Frederik Brøgger, who remarks at the same time that the notion “primitive races” was widely used in the English-speaking world. The term Naturfolk was commonly applied in Danish anthropology at the turn of the 19th century. This concept triggered further divisions of the peoples, which hinged on their stage of civilisational development. Within this framework, the Inuit were described as representing “higher hunting culture” [Danish: højere jægerfolk]. Fredrik Chr. Brøgger, “The Culture of Nature: The View of the Arctic Environment in Knud Rasmussen’s Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition,” in: Arctic Discourses, eds. Anka Ryall et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), p. 85.

50 Kirsten Thisted argues that this romanticised image is also consolidated by Greenlanders, whom it helps obtain distinction and respect as well as lobby successfully for advantageous decisions in several international contexts. Thisted, “Danske grønlandsfiktioner,” p. 33. For a discussion of the stereotypical and romantic image of Greenlanders in Denmark, see also Niels Højlund, Krise uden alternativ. En analyse af dansk Grønlandsdebat (København: Gyldendal, 1972); Susanne Dybbroe, “Danske horisonter – og grønlandske: Advokater, eksperter, og den ‘indfødte’ befolkning efter hjemmestyret,” in: Dansk mental geografi. Danskernes syn på verden – og på sig selv, ed. Ole Høiris (Århus: Århus Universitetsforlag, 1989), pp. 149–161.

51 Thisted, “Danske grønlandsfiktioner,” p. 33; Ole Høiris, “Dansk antropologis vilde og eksotiske folk,” in: Dansk mental geografi. Danskernes syn på verden – og på sig selv, ed. Ole Høiris (Århus: Århus Universitetsforlag, 1989), p. 61; Kirsten Hastrup, Menneskesyn: kultur, race og Knud Rasmussen, 2000, p. 3, at www.hum.au.dk/ckulturf/pages/publications/kh/mkr.pdf (Accessed 2 Mar. 2012).

52 As Olof Lagercrantz observes in his reading of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, all boys wanted to be discoverers in those days, and natural scientists were hailed as heroes of their times. Olof Lagercrantz, Rejse med mørkets hjerte: en bog om Joseph Conrads roman, trans. Karsten Sand Iversen (København: Nansensgade Antikvariat, 1989), p. 19. For young Knud Rasmussen, Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen was such a hero. Kirsten Thisted, “Knud Rasmussen,” in: Grønland – en refleksiv udfordring. Mission, kolonisation og udforskning, ed. Ole Høiris (Århus: Århus Universitetsforlag, 2009), p. 247.

53 Rasmussen’s maternal grandfather was a Greenland-born Norwegian and his grandmother was a Greenlander.

54 In Across Arctic America (Danish: Fra Grønland til Stillehavet, 1925), the dual origin of Knud Rasmussen is cited as an salient factor behind the success of his Arctic expeditions: “From the very nature of things, I was endowed with attributes for Polar work which outlanders have to acquire through painful experience. My playmates were native Greenlanders; from the earliest boyhood I played and worked with the hunters, so that even the hardships of the most strenuous sledge-trips became pleasant routine for me.” Knud Rasmussen, Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition (New York & London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1927), p. vi.

55 Karen Langgård, “Hvad skrev Knud Rasmussen når han skrev på grønlandsk?,” Grønlandsk kultur- og samfundsforskning (2008), p. 132; Thisted, “Knud Rasmussen,” p. 247.

56 According to Rasmussen’s great-nephew Knud Michelsen, the plan to cross Melville Bay and to reach North Greenland originated with Knud Rasmussen’s father, Christian, who already in 1900 discussed with the representatives of the Church of Denmark the issue of establishing a mission post in the territory. Knud Michelsen, Den unge Knud Rasmussen belyst gennem breve og andre kilder 1893–1902 (København: Forlaget Falcon, 2011), p. 126.

57 I discuss the founding of a trading station at Thule and the colonisation of North Greenland in detail in my article “Duńska ekspansja na terytorium Grenlandii Północnej jako następstwo zjawiska ‘imperializmu małych państw’ – postkolonialne odczytanie ‘Wstępu’ do Grenlandii nad Oceanem Arktycznym autorstwa polarnika Knuda Rasmussena,” in: Nowocześni i postępowi? Cywilizacyjny wymiar Skandynawii z polskiej perspektywy. Studia Północnoeuropejskie, eds. Kazimierz Musiał and Maja Chacińska, Vol. 3 (Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego, 2013), pp. 81–97.

58 Thisted, “Knud Rasmussen,” p. 243.

59 Anthropologist Kennet Pedersen calls this expedition a “culmination of Danish polar enterprise.” Pedersen, “Is-interferenser,” p. 149.

60 Hastrup, Vinterens hjerte, p. 15.

61 Pratt, Imperial Eyes, p. 90.

62 Erik Gant, Eskimotid. Analyser af filmiske fremstillinger af eskimoer med udgangspunkt i postkolonialistisk teori og med særlig vægtning af danske grønlandsfilm (Århus: Århus Universitet, 2004), p. 128.