Kutsikitsoq’s advice

The Danish Thule and Ellesmere Land Expedition of 1939-40 was a journey that is little known in the recent history of the Arctic.

It was also called the Van Hauen Expedition, after its leader James Van Hauen, but referring to it by that name is usually met with a blank stare. Almost no one has ever heard of it. Perhaps that is because it took place during the early days of the Second World War.

The expedition began in August 1939 when the participants established their winter quarters at Neqe, north of present-day Qaanaaq, in northwestern Greenland. It ended in 1940, some time after the Nazi invasion of Denmark in April of that year.

Many expedition accounts, written by white men (Qallunaat), have much to say about the Inuit who acted as their guides and other Inuit whom they encountered, but very little to say about what Inuit thought of the Qallunaat.

The account of this expedition, written by the well-known Danish zoologist Christian Vibe — who was a member of the expedition — is noteworthy for recording what the Inuit participants had to say about the white men.

Kutsikitsoq was one of the Inughuit who accompanied the expedition. Although he was the son of Uutaaq, a great leader and reputed shaman, Kutsikitsoq himself was never recognized as a leader.

French anthropologist Jean Malaurie, who travelled with him a decade after the Van Hauen expedition and referenced his “mocking smile” and “celebrated charm,” quoted another Inuk (without naming him) as sayin, about Kutsikitsoq: “He talks too much! He has no self-control; he brags like a child!”

Malaurie thought that, perversely, Kutsikitsoq’s lack of leadership among the Inughuit, his weakness “comes from the fear of a son who hopes to measure up to the greatness of his father.”

But Kutsikitsoq showed wisdom, if not leadership. While Malaurie was planning a difficult trip that he would make with Kutsikitsoq, the Inuk said, “And you have to understand that if anything happened to you … well, I’m the one who would be blamed by the white men down there. We’ve seen that happen, too.”

On the Van Hauen Expedition, Kutsikitsoq gave this word of caution to Christian Vibe about writing up the results of the expedition:

“Don’t write too much about us. White men keep on running around with notebook and pencil, as though they were incapable of remembering anything, and they write down a whole mass of trivialities; and when they go home, they feed the people with a lot of lies about us and have themselves been great heroes.

“You will perhaps do the same and give us all something to laugh about, till the stones come rolling down the mountains, when the priest tells us what you have written about us and about yourself.”

It may have come as an unexpected revelation to Vibe to learn that the Inughuit often knew what the chroniclers of previous expeditions had written about them.

But there had been priests of the Lutheran Church in the Thule District since 1909 — those priests were generally formally educated Greenlanders from farther down the Greenland coast, men who spoke Kalaallisut and learned the language of the north Greenlanders and communicated the ways of the outside world to the northern hunters.

Kutsikitsoq continued his good-natured admonition with a suggestion that Christian Vibe did not follow, but nonetheless reported: “Lend me your pencil and I will scratch it all out, for it is surely mostly lies.”

Hans Nielsen was the Danish manager of the colony at Thule, and he gave similar advice to the members of the expedition: “The less your work is publicized in the newspapers at home, the more will we think of it up here; for it has happened often that those who have come home with important results have been passed by in silence, while others have been received as great men.”

Another Inuk who participated in the expedition was Inuutersuaq, who was accompanied by his wife, Naduk. Christian Vibe explained to Inuutersuaq that he must not shoot muskoxen within Canada. The hunter responded with, “Yes, but… the Canadian police don’t understand about muskoxen.”

He explained to Vibe that wolves eat many muskoxen, and offered to even the odds.

“I will shoot two wolves for every muskox,” he suggested.

But Christian Vibe, and Canadian law, prevailed.

The account of this expedition is remarkable in presenting the Inuit point of view on many matters.

On the expedition’s return to Greenland from Ellesmere Island, they learned of the invasion of Denmark from an unlikely source. Someone had left them a message, in a prominent location that they would not miss, written in Greenlandic on an old and discarded pemmican can.

It read: “The Germans are robbing the Danes of all their meat, but the King is safe. There is no more kerosene in the store.”

The expedition ended shortly thereafter.

Taissumani is an occasional column that recalls events of historical interest. Kenn Harper is a historian and writer who lived in the Arctic for over 50 years. He is the author of Give Me Winter, Give Me Dogs: Knud Rasmussen and the Fifth Thule Expedition, and Thou Shalt Do No Murder, among other books. Feedback? Send your comments and questions to kennharper@hotmail.com.