From Greenland to the Pacific: New International Program for the Centennial of the 5th Thule Expedition, 1921-1924

Abstract

In 2018, the Smithsonian Institution's Arctic Studies Center in Washington, D.C., together with partners from Canada, USA, Denmark, Greenland, and Russia began preparations for an international program dedicated to the centennial of the 5th Thule Expedition (1921-1924). The Expedition led by Danish-Greenlandic researcher, novelist and folklorist, Knud Rasmussen (1879-1933) lasted for over three years. Its participants worked in several small groups and traveled on dog sleds and in small boats across the North American Arctic, from Greenland to Alaska and the northeast tip of Asia. They visited almost all groups of the American Eskimo (Inuit) people and collected unique Ethnographic, archaeological, folklore, and linguistic materials associated with the aboriginal people of the American North