NORDIC EXPLORERS Danish Explorer Peter Freuchen Navigates the Cultural Divide By John Bechtel to dense darkness with only the sounds of the wolves pacing outside his door. Freelance culture and travel writer Later Peter learned a number of the others on the expedition, including the eter Freuchen was a child of leader Mylius, had not survived. Nor privilege from the village of could he have known at the time that Nykøbing, on the Danish island the loss of life was unnecessary and ofP Falster. His father, Lorentz Freuchen, could have been prevented with better was a Danish Jewish businessman who judgment and preparation. Peter was spent a lot of time in South America. learning how fragile life was in the When he came home it was an event. ; one moment you were talking He wanted his son to continue the to someone and the next moment they family tradition of learning, stability, were gone—forever. and financial success. By the time • he was eight years old, Peter knew Back to school he loved the sea and had his own Peter’s father was waiting for him, small boat. In adolescence he was and back to medical school he went, to expected to go to university, perhaps follow the career path expected of him. • But it was no use; the dean advised business or medicine or another of Village of Nykøbing, • his father that Peter needed to look in the professions held in high esteem in Freuchen’s boyhood different directions. With his head full his society. Unfortunately Peter found home on Falster Island. of recent memories of the uncharted the stories of sailors coming off their Falster Island Below: Peter Freuchen frozen deserts of , Peter went ships to be of far more interest, stories • Nykøbing at various seasons of to London to study surveying, a skill he of faraway places, strange people and his adventurous life. knew he would need when he returned unimaginable customs. to Greenland. stoker on a whaling ship. He arrived just Peter started college, but at the first years Peter’s solitary assignment was This time he hooked up with Knud in time to be accepted as an assistant opportunity he bolted. When he didn’t to man a tiny weather station 113 Rasmussen, and the two of them show up for breakfast one morning, meteorologist on the ill-fated Mylius- kilometers (70 miles) distant from his became fast and lifelong friends. At 6 ft. his mother found an empty bedroom. Erichsen expedition to northeast closest neighbor. The weather ranged 7 in. (2.04 meters) tall, Peter was a full Peter was on his way to Greenland as a Greenland. It was 1907, and for two from blinding whiteness and high winds foot taller than Rasmussen. (Continued on page 00)

Copenhagen’s June 24,1906 “Illustret Tidende” [Illustrated Journal] displaying members of the upcoming Mylius-Erichsen expedition. Left: Arctic expedition leader Mylius-Erichsen, who died in Greenland. Photo of young Peter Freuchen, on top row, second from right. Arctic explorer Knud Radmussen.

O SPRING- 2018 | SCANDINAVIAN PRESS SCANDINAVIAN PRESS | SPRING 2018 O Left: Ummannaq, Greenland, home of the Thule Trading Station where In 1910, Rasmussen and friend Rasmussen and Fruechen were Peter Freuchen established the business partners. Thule Trading Station at Cape Peter, above right, managed the station York (Uummannaq), Greenland, from 1910 to 1919. as a trading base. From there, they launched a series of seven (Continued from page 00) gorgeous woman named Arnarak, expeditions, known as the Thule They became business partners so beautiful she had been painted by a Expeditions, beginning in 1912. in the Thule Trading Station (today famous Danish artist, and her portrait The First Expedition aimed to test called Ummannaq), the northernmost has since graced the walls of a German ’s claim that a channel human habitation on the planet. The museum. Arnarak had finally accepted divided from Greenland. word Thule derives from “ultima thule”, to go dancing with Peter, and she Freuchen and Rasmussen proved which means north of everywhere and invited him to her hut while she got this was not the case. everybody. Peter managed that station ready. He describes how she removed , president until 1919, collecting items for Danish the ribbon that held her long black hair of the Royal Geographic Society, museums back home. in place, and how it fell down around called the journey the “finest ever From 1910 to 1924, Peter Fruechen her shoulder, and she told him in performed by dogs”. went on a series of expeditions, some sign language that she wanted to do a Freuchen wrote personal of them lasting for years. Peter was well Knud explained to Peter that mothers special job on her hair to go out with a accounts of this journey (and along in his education about crossing would nurse their sons until they got man such as him. His words: “She bent the cultural divide. He had learned others) in Vagrant Viking (1953) and married because to do so proves the forward and let her marvelous black from , who was half I Sailed with Rasmussen (1958). mothers are still young and vigorous. hair fall to the floor. I felt weak from Danish and half Inuit himself, and The moment she can no longer nurse love and my sailor’s heart was bursting from the other Inuit, how to survive in her son she is considered old. with pride—all this beauty was for me.” the harsh environment, and the tough An obsession with maintaining a Sex or sewing? rarely gave permission for his choices that would make softer men Arnarak then followed an old youthful appearance is certainly not Greenland custom, went to her bed A hundred years ago, there wife to sew for another man. cringe. He had learned how to hunt and limited to the Inuit. We simply have was a strict sexual code among Sex was to give pleasure, but eat seal meat, how to clothe himself and pulled out from under it a pail different ways of expressing similar the Inuit; but there was no moral footwear in the Arctic was with animal skins to survive the sub- filled to the brim with human urine, desires. offense in a man letting his wife closely tied to survival. zero climate, and how to outwit fellow which the Inuit use for tanning hides Peter learned to first ask predators trying to survive. You loved and for cleaning. She carefully let her give sexual pleasure to other your dogs but you would eat your dog Everything gets cleaner dark long hair into the pail and gave it men, as long as the husband permission of the husband if survival depended on it. with ammonia a good shampooing, and then wrung grants permission. In fact it was for his wife to sew his In time, Peter gained great it out, “with my love ebbing faster considered flattering if others kamik, and when granted, Staying young acceptance with the Inuit, even being than the tide in the English Channel. found a wife desirable. But to reward him. The husband One day when he was in mixed given the respect of a medicine man. All that was left, as we set off for the sewing a man’s shoes or socks— would always respond company in a small boat, a 14-year old Like his friend Knud, he had a great dance, were my self-control, my good well that was entirely different. indirectly, in a passive boy pulled alongside in his kayak, and sense of humor and an openness to manners, and the odors from her It was considered worse for a voice: “A straight piece of leaned toward his mother in Peter’s the that often got him proud coiffure.” He then phlegmatically woman to sew for another man wood might be used for a boat. She immediately pulled up her special treatment. In his autobiography, concluded “In the end the ammonia than to sleep with him without harpoon.” anorak and began breast feeding him. Vagrant Viking, he describes this proved stronger than love.” her husband’s consent. A man (Continued on page 00)

O SPRING- 2018 | SCANDINAVIAN PRESS SCANDINAVIAN PRESS | SPRING 2018 O (Continued from page 00)

Polygamy, sharing, and jealousy On one of Peter’s expeditions, he came across an friend who was just returning from a hunt with his two wives. He asked Peter and his group to stay overnight in his igloo, and he generously offered Peter one of his women for the night. That was a gesture of hospitality that could not be turned down, but it did cause trouble. During the night the man woke Peter Greenland Inuit family relax during a reindeer hunt. up and said the other wife was insulted They began this expedition because she had not also been offered, on April 19, 1912, with 54 and so Peter was obliged to extend his dogs to return 5 months stay another night. later with only 8 dogs. There is a semi-celebrity buried at Their 1,000 kilometer (621 Cemetery in Greenland. Cuisine mile) journey across the Peter Freuchen’s wife Navarana, as Gestures of gratitude and friendship Greenland ice cap almost she was called, became ill and died were not to be taken lightly, and small killed both of them. Besides here. Since she was Inuit and not things could make survival differences. checking on Peary the two baptized in the Christian church the An Inuit guide named Kratalik was so Danes were also looking for local priest would not perform the a lost Danish expedition led grateful that Peter accepted his pleading funeral service or bury her. Peter then by Einar Mikkelsen, who in to turn back from a trek he feared created his own funeral service for his turn was looking to recover because of his superstitions, that he beloved wife, and she has a beautiful the bodies of two Danish insisted on creating a culinary specialty tomb at the top of the cemetery. for Peter. It consisted of caribou meat explorers of Independence Navarana and Peter’s family (daughter Pipaluk and son Mequsaq) in Denmark, 1920. which Kratalik chewed and spit out into Fjord, Ludvig Mylius- Navarana, Pipaluk, Peter and Mequsaq. a cup and then mixed with ptarmigan Erichsen and Niels Peter with Peter by her bedside. They had around her neck. She had never been and where there was no earth that dung and seal oil. Peter said it tasted a Hoegen-Hagen, referred to above, who had died nearby in 1907. been in a whispered conversation, baptized into the church, and the could be disturbed by wildlife. bit like ‘Roquefort cheese and wasn’t bad Peter had a gift for languages, spoke a number of European languages and she slipped away so quietly and minister told Peter she could not be Peter was a strong critic of the including English, and quickly picked up the Inuit dialects, which made him at all.’ Sounds a little like a line out of the quickly Peter didn’t even realize it. buried in the church graveyard, and she church sending out missionaries who a favorite with them. Possibly because of this, he was appointed the Resident movie Crocodile Dundee. Except this He felt incredible remorse at having would be denied any tolling of bells, or were insensitive or ignorant of the Governor of the Thule colony for seven years, from 1913-1920. During WWI isn’t fiction. taken her away from her people; she a sermon. Peter was outraged, not by traditions, history, and culture of the there was a German blockade and the usual supply ships no longer came to the was often separated from her own the denied rituals but concern about Inuit. Far North, so Peter quickly adapted and learned survival the Inuit way. Marriage and children children, and she had lived a restless, where to bury her where her grave In 1911, at the age of 25, Peter Navarana unhappy life for the previous few years. would be safe from wild animals. Peter The deadly Arctic married an Inuit woman, Mekupaluk, After WWI Peter and Navarana and their two children went to visit She had not been able to cross the had to pay for pallbearers, because Peter Freuchen learned the who later went by Navarana. They had and Peter’s roots. Peter was afflicted with the influenza and spent cultural divide, and had never really none of the villagers dared to challenge importance of footwear in a very a boy and a girl. Navarana sometimes four months in a hospital, and more weeks in a wheelchair. Knud said Peter understood the whites. For Peter, she the church, and one of the pallbearers painful way. On one of their joined Peter on his expeditions. The was too sick to ever return to Greenland, and Peter began to think about was a finer and better person than he smoked a cigar while carrying her expeditions, his team got caught, and next decade was filled with excitement, settling down with the family in Denmark. He bought a farm and almost had ever known, but the white people coffin, perhaps to demonstrate to all separated, in a blizzard with zero discovery, and danger. immediately was sued by a couple of his new neighbors, and Peter backed out with few exceptions had looked at her onlookers that this was a paid gig visibility. Peter attempted to take On the first Thule Expedition, Peter of his contract and fled back to his spiritual home, Greenland. When they got with condescension, as the poor little and he was not participating in the cover under his dogsled, but his refuge and Rasmussen corrected some of back to Thule, Peter couldn’t help but notice how much happier Navarana was, Eskimo girl. interment of a pagan. Peter with the quickly turned into a cave of ice. It was Peary’s cartography, who had been ‘laughing and dancing and singing’ all day. Navarana had died a pagan, with help of a few others built a mausoleum 54 degrees below zero in a howling to the North Pole the year before. Then Navarana got sick with the influenza and in three days she was gone, both a Christian crucifix and an amulet on top of a cliff overlooking the colony, (Continued on page 00)

O SPRING- 2018 | SCANDINAVIAN PRESS SCANDINAVIAN PRESS | SPRING 2018 O “Perhaps one could get used to cutting off toes, but there were not enough of them to get sufficient practice.” — Peter Freuchen

(Continued from page 00) his knowledge of the Arctic and the storm. With the ice roof of his shelter- indigenous people, he was already turned-coffin just a few inches above drawing the attention of the nascent his head and chest, he took a piece of Danish film industry, and getting frozen bear skin, chewed the edges of it requests for his consulting. smooth, let it freeze again, and began to After two decades mostly spent in scrape a small window above his face. the Arctic, Peter Freuchen married He repeated this process over and over, his childhood sweetheart, the Danish freezing his lips and his tongue, but Pincers used by Peter Freuchen to Jewish actress Magdalene (Magda) in the end survival trumps pain, just amputate his gangreneous toes— Vang Lauridsen. Magda was the like animals that gnaw off a foot to free without anesthesia or any other kind of daughter of Johannes Lauridsen, the themselves from a trap. Agonizingly, kind of assistance. founder of the Alfa margarine empire Peter freed an opening in the snow and in Denmark, who also became the ice and saw sunlight. was horrible to look at, and smelled Director of Danmarks Nationalbank. He knew he had fallen asleep, and worse if it thawed. He was going to Magda had been in two silent films. he knew his legs were frozen, because have to go a considerable distance, to he couldn’t feel pain in them anymore. Hudson Bay, to get a surgeon, and he Back in modernity, Peter But in his haste, he made a tragic couldn’t walk even with assistance. So a encountered new and different miscalculation. He shoved his head into few days later he amputated the toes of challenges. He didn’t have to hunt his the hole he had made, and he got his his left foot with a pair of pincers and a food anymore, or incessantly fight head out far enough to expose his face heavy hammer. Without anesthesia, not the elements, but in a modern world to the drifting snow. His long beard even whisky. Peter was a teetotaler. He with a specialization of labor, he had to figure out what to do about money. was moist from his breathing and from distinctly remembered that amputating Peter with son Mequsaq (on shoulder) and Danish wife. Poster for movie Eskimo, filmed in 1932-1933 in Alaska. saliva that had drooled, and when his the second toe did not hurt as much as In the beginning the Lauridsens had beard came in contact with the runners doubts about whether Peter would be the first, and he drily added “Perhaps got himself agents and started on the 42 cameramen and technicians, six for Denmark to boycott the 1936 of the sled above him, they instantly able to support their daughter in the one could get used to cutting off toes, airplane pilots, and Emil Ottinger — a Olympics to be held in Berlin. In 1938, froze to them. Now he couldn’t get out, manner to which she was accustomed, lecture circuit, all over Europe and but there were not enough of them to he visited . His books were and he couldn’t get his head and face and they wanted Peter to enter the North America. He was the world chef from the Roosevelt Hotel. Peter get sufficient practice.” Later Peter’s leg banned by the Nazis which affected to retreat back into his coffin again. He family margarine business. expert on the Eskimo. He had to get worked as a consultant on the set, but was amputated and he got a wooden his income, and he joined the Danish made repeated desperate efforts to free But the Arctic was a hot topic used to chasing his money, and people he also played a character in the story. replacement. He had yet to celebrate underground resistance. He got into his head, and his beard and shreds of didn’t always do what they promised to Eskimo won the first ever Academy his 38th birthday. and everyone was curious, so Peter a public argument with a German skin ripped from his face. Hours passed do. He went back to the university and Award for Best Film Editing. Eskimo media official about whether there were without him making another move. finished his degree, and he wrote for a is the first feature film shot in a Native Second marriage to childhood concentration camps in Germany. Then he got new inspiration. He had couple newspapers and magazines. He American language and does such a ______often noticed dog dung in the tracks sweetheart got a job as Editor-in-Chief of Ude og good job portraying Eskimo hunting At Hitler’s insistence, there was a of the sled, where it froze hard as a When Navarana died, the grief- Hjemme magazine, owned by his new and cultural practices that the movie warrant for his arrest and he was rock. What if . . . ? Would the cold have stricken Peter was quite certain that his wife’s family. seems to be a hybrid documentary. captured and sentenced to death. He the same effect on his own waste? He place and future were in Greenland, The wolf attack is real and not staged! escaped over a barbed wire fence moved his bowels and fashioned his his spiritual home. It was, and it wasn’t. Eskimo—the movie This movie is unrated, with English and with the help of friends made his excrement into the form of a chisel and In the Arctic there was a short and In 1926, Peter bought a small island intertitles, and is entertaining, way to Sweden in a fishing boat, and waited for it to freeze. He knew if he direct connection between his efforts Enehoje in Nakskov Fjord, where he educational, and available on DVD. from there to the U.S. All this with a tried his new tool prematurely and it and good judgment and his own wrote books, articles, and entertained In 1933, Peter’s lifelong friend Knud Rasmussen died at the age of 54. wooden leg. broke, he was dead. So he waited some survival. He lived off the land and the and networked. He went to Hollywood ______more. Hours of scraping, and emerging sea, and survived with the assistance with two novels he had written, based from his frozen grave an inch at a time, and collaboration of the Inuit, his new on his Arctic experiences, and asked Freuchen and the Nazis In 1944, his marriage to Magdalene he got out, only to find he could not tribe. He had learned from them how MGM if they’d like to make a movie In 1934, Peter was temporarily Vang Lauridsen was dissolved. walk. The snow had stopped, and he to survive in their world, their side out of it. The movie was named at arrested by the Nazis when he was crawled three hours back to the camp. of the cultural divide. But Peter also various times Mala the Magnificent and traveling from Denmark to the The last decade Back in shelter, Peter stayed alive jumped back and forth repeatedly Eskimo Wife-Traders but ended up as Balkans for a lecture engagement. In 1945, Peter married his third by keeping the toes frozen where between cultures and he was loved on Peter and Pipaluk, age 6, on trip to simply Eskimo. It was filmed in 1932- In 1935, he visited South Africa, wife, Dagmar Cohn, a Danish-Jewish gangrene had already set in. His foot both sides. Because of the depth of Denmark in 1924. 1933, in Alaska, and the crew included and in 1936, he was publicly calling (Continued on page 00)

O SPRING- 2018 | SCANDINAVIAN PRESS SCANDINAVIAN PRESS | SPRING 2018 O Journalist, novelist, explorer, anthropologist, actor, lecturer, with about 30 books to his name.

or watch the documentaries and movies made from their exploits and to marvel at tales of people so different from themselves. These explorers gave immense gifts to posterity by documenting lifestyles, cultures, and beliefs of disappearing civilizations. Back in the Arctic, the indigenous Inuit for hundreds of years gathered around their fires to talk about the strange ways of the white man, so helpless without his toys and guns, always getting lost or losing their ships or dying of starvation. And from the Inuit perspective, often so driven and unhappy. These people developed strong bonds of affection and respect for the few like Peter Freuchen and Knud Rasmussen, who came with genuine interest, and totally without condescension or airs of superiority. The Inuit did not think these explorers were so different from themselves in their willingness to endure long separations from their loved ones, because for the Inuit it often took months or years to travel anywhere. Hardship was the Peter dwarfs third wife, fashion illustrator Dagmar Cohn. norm and they had heroes of their own. Whenever we cross a cultural divide with curiosity and (Continued from page 00) openness, and not a desire for control or submission or fashion illustrator based in . Ten years later, barely concealed superiority, we are enriched by the travel in 1955, he visited Thule for the last time. So much had experience. It is noteworthy that the explorers known for changed; the streets were paved and the igloos had been their sense of humor and acceptance of differences were replaced with regular housing. The following year, 1956, wildly popular wherever they went. They had a capacity Peter became the fifth person to win $64,000 in the show for joy in the immersion experience that muted the impact by that name. Peter was a favorite of Hollywood celebrities, of the hardships endured. including Mae West and Jean Harlow. He was known on occasion to pick up a pretty woman and twirl her above his head. Jean Harlow for one, loved the attention. Peter was a journalist, novelist, explorer, anthropologist, actor, lecturer, with about 30 books to his name. In John Bechtel is September 1957, he was invited by a production company a professional to join a group of polar explorers who were to be filmed in freelance a staged reunion in Anchorage, Alaska. He died of a heart writer for the attack carrying heavy luggage to his plane. He was 71 years food, wine, old. His ashes were scattered over Thule, Greenland. and tourism industries; We are all storytellers ghostwriting The motivations of explorers can be complicated, and they include curiosity about the unknown, a desire for fame non-fiction and record-setting, scientific inquiry, ego or restlessness. books; and Some of them were in the paid service of distant monarchs web content who sought control of peoples and resources for personal strategist for enrichment. But for the fortunate, like anthropologist businesses. Peter Freuchen and ethnologist Knud Rasmussen and Roald Amundsen, when they returned “home” they achieved celebrity status because of their stories. They Follow him on his website: www.johnbechtelwriter. funded their expeditions, and achieved sometimes envious com lifestyles because their publics paid to hear their lectures

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