Arnarulunnguaq

Arctic Explorer · 1896–1933

Who is Arnarulunnguaq?

Arnarulunnguaq was a Greenlandic Inuit woman born in 1896 in the Thule (Qaanaaq) district of northwest Greenland, the daughter of the hunter Uumaaq and his wife Aleqasersuaq. In 1921 she joined Knud Rasmussen's Fifth Thule Expedition alongside her husband Iggiannguaq and her cousin Qaavigarsuaq (Miteq), taking responsibility for food preparation and the care of skins, furs, and equipment through more than two years of travel by dog sled across the Canadian Arctic to Alaska. After Iggiannguaq died of pneumonia early in the journey, Arnarulunnguaq chose to continue rather than turn back, and went on to become the first woman known to have completed the full Northwest Passage crossing by dog sled alongside Rasmussen and Qaavigarsuaq. She later traveled with Rasmussen to Denmark and the United States, including New York City, where her reflections on encountering a modern metropolis for the first time were recorded in his published expedition account. She died in 1933, the same year as Rasmussen, and is remembered in Greenland as a pioneering figure of Arctic exploration in her own right.

Sources: Knud Rasmussen, Across Arctic America (1927) · Royal Geographical Society, "Arnarulunnguaq and exploring the Arctic" · Visit Greenland, "Arnarulunnguaq"

Quotes by Arnarulunnguaq

“Nature is great; but are not men greater?”

Human endurance and the works people build are, in their own way, as remarkable as the vastness of nature itself.

Arnarulunnguaq

Source: Arnarulunnguaq, remark on first seeing New York City, quoted in Knud Rasmussen, Across Arctic America (1927)

“Before it was you who needed me, now it's me who needs you.”

In hardship, dependence shifts between companions, and loyalty holds even when the roles reverse.

Arnarulunnguaq

Source: Arnarulunnguaq, spoken to Knud Rasmussen after the death of her husband Iggiannguaq during the Fifth Thule Expedition (1921-1924), as recorded in expedition accounts