The Invisible Woman in the Snow

There have in recent years there has been a real wave of interest in Arnarulúnguaq.

Exhibitions, podcasts, articles and portraits have given new life to the young woman from Thule who went out on Den in the early 1920s fifth Thule expedition with, among others, Knud Rasmussen and the photographer Leo Hansen. So why another book? What new can professor emeritus in anthropology Kirsten Hastrup adds the story of the woman who neither wrote a diary, left letters or notes – and which only appears in Rasmussen's extensive works like a silent echo?

There have in recent years there has been a real wave of interest in Arnarulúnguaq.

Exhibitions, podcasts, articles and portraits have given new life to the young woman from Thule who went out on Den in the early 1920s fifth Thule expedition with, among others, Knud Rasmussen and the photographer Leo Hansen. So why another book? What new can professor emeritus in anthropology Kirsten Hastrup adds the story of the woman who neither wrote a diary, left letters or notes – and which only appears in Rasmussen's extensive works like a silent echo?

- She left herself nothing, says Kirsten Hastrup, there right now is current with the book "The little woman - Arnarulúnguaq and Den great sleigh journey” – and continues:

- Everything we know comes from the men around her. Mon must read Knud Rasmussen very closely to find the small clues - a note here, a glimpse there. She quickly disappears again in the heavy descriptions of what they did.

The invisible women of Thule

In the Thule area at the beginning of the 20th century, the women were almost always without a voice. They didn't write diaries, they didn't write letters—they kept the everyday going. They sewed clothes, looked after the children and made the cooking fires, cooked food.

- They were constantly in motion, but at the same time invisible, explains Kirsten Hastrup, who has been doing research in the Arctic for decades - among other things with the critically acclaimed publication Knud Rasmussen – Vinterens hjerte.

According to the experienced professor emerita, there are almost none female testimonies from that time.

- They are a function in everyday life – indispensable, but silent, she says.

Writing a book about a woman like Arnarulúnguaq required therefore both patience, endurance and imagination. The author has read Knud Rasmussen and Leo Hansen with a magnifying glass to find the smallest hints of Personality of Arnarulúnguaq.

- You can feel her, says Hastrup.

- She is not just the one who sews. She helps to build houses, pitch tents, cook - and she will be absolutely indispensable to Knud Rasmussen. The two have been together for a year and a half traveling alone. They become one unit.

Grief, strength and determination

By the time she left, Arnarulúnguaq had lost both her brother and her husband. For Hastrup, the expedition is also a tale of grief and survival and maybe healing.

- Knud Rasmussen thought that she should return home, but she refused. She didn't want to go back. That says something about her strength, says she continues:

- She grew along the way, listened, learned. When she said something, it was gifted and precise - and the others appreciated her. Knud Rasmussen saw her as an equal.

She came forward not through big words, but through action. Her authority lay in what she did – and that makes her, according to Hastrup, surprisingly modern.

An encounter with the world

When I read about Arnarulúnguaq's trip to the USA and Europe in Hastrup's book, I imagine that the experience must have been like something taken out of Crocodile Dundee – the old Hollywood classic where a bushman from Australia is thrown into the bustling metropolis of New York. The same mix of curiosity and wonder must have marked Arnarulúnguaq when she suddenly stood in the middle of western civilization – surrounded by skyscrapers, cars and people i suit.

Kirsten Hastrup acknowledges the comparison, but emphasizes that her interpretation is based on concrete evidence in the texts:

- There is a place with Knud Rasmussen where he describes Arnarulúnguaq's experience from a high skyscraper in New York, says Hastrup.

- She stood there in European clothes, which she was not used to, and looked up at a world so different it could hardly be understood. But she doesn't lose her footing - she takes it all in, curious, calmly.

Subsequently, she and Knud Rasmussen were in Copenhagen in longer time, but she fell ill and had to spend almost a year in hospital before she could return to North Greenland.

- You sense that she was on her way to somewhere else - boats physically and mentally. She had experienced something that changed her forever. She had become part of a global story - and yet not.

Trapped in time

Knud Rasmussen described Arnarulúnguaq as a "persistent and wise woman”. In his books, you sense the respect, but also a distance. He not writing how she felt, only what she did. Hastrup has tried to read between the lines: to find the moments when she stepped out of the shadows.

- There is something touching about the way she participates the community on, says Hastrup.

- She had no children and no husband anymore - she had the time and effort to go along. She was curious and brave. And she could all the practical things that allowed them to survive.

For Hastrup, she represents the tacit knowledge that many of Arctic women carried within them: the ability to observe, work, keep silent and act.

- There is so much we don't see because they don't say it loud, she says and concludes:

- But you feel their presence.

Famous in the long sled run

A hundred years later, Arnarulúnguaq has become a symbol of strength. Exhibitions were held on the anniversary of the Fifth Thule Expedition about her, and in 2028 she will adorn a new Greenlandic banknote.

- It's fantastic, says Kirsten Hastrup.

- But it is also thought-provoking that she becomes a cult figure precisely because she was silent. She represents all the women who bore life further, without writing himself into history. This is probably what we reflect in today - the strength in silence.

Arnarulúnguaq said almost nothing. She sewed, traveled tents, kept the fire alive. And yet she is the one we remember. Maybe because the silence became her testimony. She became famous in the long run – or put differently: in the long sled track.

Kirsten Hastrup agrees and adds:

- There is something timeless about her. She is both part of one old world and of our own. She is a small person in the big world, but she stands firm. And maybe that's why she still speaks to us.