Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen was born on 7th June 1879 in Greenland, and he died on 21st December 1933 (aged 54 years) in Copenhagen, Denmark. An anthropologist, Knud was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage on a dog-sled and mapped the North Coast of Greenland. He took on a journey of 1,000 km across inland ice to negate Peary’s claim that a channel divided Pearyland from Greenland. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the American Geographical Society in 1912, and its Daly Medal in 1924. Knud Johan was made honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen in 1924.
Do you know: Knud Rasmussen’s biggest project was to find the origin of the Eskimo race for which he collected ethnographic, archaeological and biological data.
