Peter Freuchen
| Peter Freuchen | |
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Freuchen in 1921
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| Born | Lorenz Peter Elfred Freuchen February 2, 1886 Nykøbing Falster, Denmark |
| Died | September 2, 1957 (aged 71) Anchorage, Alaska, USA Heart attack |
| Nationality | Danish |
| Fields | Anthropologist |
| Known for | Arctic explorer, author, journalist, anthropologist. |
| Spouse | Navarana Mequpaluk Magda Vang Lauridsen Dagmar Cohn |
Lorenz Peter Elfred Freuchen (February 2, 1886 – September 2, 1957) was a Danish explorer, author, journalist and anthropologist. He is notable for his role in Arctic exploration, especially the Thule Expeditions.
Freuchen was born in Nykøbing Falster, Denmark, the son of Anne Petrine Frederikke (née Rasmussen; 1862–1945) and Lorentz Benzon Freuchen (1859–1927). Freuchen married three times. First, in 1911, to Navarana Mequpaluk (d. 1921), an Inuit woman who died in the Spanish Flu epidemic after bearing two children (a boy named Mequsaq Avataq Igimaqssusuktoranguapaluk (1916 - c. 1962) and a girl named Pipaluk Jette Tukuminguaq Kasaluk Palika Hager (1918–1999)). His second marriage, in 1924, to Magdalene Vang Lauridsen (1881–1960) was dissolved in 1944. Lastly, in 1945, he married Dagmar Cohn (1907–1991). Freuchen's grandson, Peter Freuchen Ittinuar, was the first Inuk in Canada to be elected as an MP, and represented the electoral district of Nunatsiaq in the Canadian House of Commons from 1979 to 1984.
Freuchen's Danish island estate was named Enehoje.
He spent many years in Thule, Greenland, living with the Polar Inuit. He worked with Knud Rasmussen, crossing the Greenland icecap with him. In 1935, Freuchen visited South Africa, and by the end of the decade, he had travelled to Siberia.
In 1910, Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen established the Thule Trading Station at Cape York (Uummannaq), Greenland, as a trading base. The name Thule was chosen because it was the most northerly trading post in the world, literally the "Ultima Thule". Thule Trading Station became the home base for a series of seven expeditions, known as the Thule Expeditions, between 1912 and 1933.
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