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The Temptations of Copenhagen

The moon shimmered in the ice crystals, and the trembling arc of northern lights played over the edge of the wood… When I saw my sled disappear into the forest, I suddenly had a strange feeling that I at once was set centuries back in time and development. I was alone with the Lapps and I was now trying to live their lives.

—Knud Rasmussen, Lapland

In the fall of 1899, Knud Rasmussen was enrolled in the University of Copenhagen as a student of philosophy and languages. But instead of diligently pursuing his studies, he devoted himself to partying and all-night discussions with a bohemian crowd of artists, actors and writers. When his younger brother, Christian, began planning for university, the expense was too much for their parents. The elder Rasmussen called his two sons to his study for a meeting and informed them that he could not afford to send them both to school. Rasmussen’s father suggested the younger son should instead pursue a career in trade school, where the tuition was lower.

According to Freuchen’s recounting of Knud’s story, Knud spoke up. “No, Father. Christian is more gifted than I, and Christian is much better fitted for a disciplined study career. Let him choose a profession, for I’ll be able to take care of myself.” It was youthful boasting, but it may have been spurred by Knud’s knowledge of his unsuitability for academic life. He withdrew from the university, perhaps with a sigh of relief that the burden of pleasing his parents with academic achievement was ending. The responsibility was now off his shoulders, and he was free to pursue his less straightforward inclinations. He wanted to become an actor.

The theatre seemed a natural vocation for someone who was already a talented performer in social situations and comfortable with being the centre of attention. But Rasmussen would have to hone his skills and warm up to the idea of being on stage in a more formal venue. He was introduced to the idea through his friendship with Adam and Johannes Poulsen, sons of the famous Danish stage actor Emil Poulsen. Many years later, Rasmussen admitted that he always felt guilty about one aspect of his friendship with the two youths: they were vegetarians, and for a while he pretended to be vegetarian as well. His Greenlandic upbringing on prodigious quantities of meat, however, was too strong to shake. When he had a craving and a little spare money, he would sneak out to a cheap steakhouse and order a slab of beef smothered in onions and butter, leaving the potatoes untouched on the plate. His brief experiment with vegetarianism ended with a change in interest: it was opera that now captured his attention.

Blessed with a naturally powerful voice and with much practice in singing Greenlandic songs at parties, Rasmussen somehow convinced the noted singer and teacher Laurits Tørsleff to take him on as a student. Tørsleff had many paying students, but with Rasmussen he agreed to forgo his usual fee. Instead, they decided that Tørsleff would earn 1 percent of Rasmussen’s future income as an opera singer. Either Rasmussen charmed his way into this sweetheart deal or he had actual talent—perhaps a bit of both. But once again, he grew tired with the practice and his slow progress, and he decided to speed things up a little. Presenting his credentials as a student of Tørsleff, he persuaded the celebrated opera star Vilhelm Herold to attend a recital at a fine hotel. Somehow he was able to book a room without payment, and with his illustrious guest in attendance, he sang and performed. “This is not exactly a world-shaking baritone,” Herold sniffed, “but you do have material that can be developed.” Rasmussen had hoped to make a greater impression. His old school friend Johannes Poulsen wrote a letter urging him not to be disappointed: “As you have a good ear you won’t find it difficult to learn the different parts.” Rasmussen, however, wasn’t prepared to put in the years of training needed to perfect his voice. Thus ended his career in the opera.

Rasmussen had developed a pattern of moving on to new things when he realized they would not be the vehicle for his dreams and ambitions, or when progress didn’t occur quickly enough to keep him engaged. Sometimes he withdrew from people as well; both men and women noted that he could become distant or not fully engaged with them after a time, and when they expected more, perhaps a romantic relationship, this disengagement resulted in hurt feelings. But Rasmussen had so many ideas and ambitions, and knew so many people, that he regularly rushed off to the next opportunity as soon as it presented itself. He became a member of several informal social clubs where he mingled with artists, writers, journalists, social revolutionaries and other members of the intelligentsia. These iconoclastic thinkers had a disdain for business and societal convention: they were unusual, and Rasmussen was intrigued. He fit right in, with his outstanding ability in discussion and argument, and he was aided by his unusual heritage and exotic appearance.

In 1900, he decided that he would try his hand at writing, a skill for which he had already shown some talent. He would combine this latest career choice with travel, something else that his restless soul craved—new places, new experiences, new people. His decision to become a writer conveniently coincided with a Student Society trip to Iceland and other northern islands. The purpose of the expedition, funded by the Danish Tourist Association, was to foster closer relations between Denmark and Iceland. Rasmussen, through his father’s contacts and with his own enthusiasm, secured a position as a freelance correspondent of the Kristeligt Dagblad (Christian Daily), which covered his expenses for the trip.

The ship Botnia sailed from Copenhagen on June 18 for a four-week voyage. For the first time since he had arrived in Copenhagen as a boy, Rasmussen would be revisiting northern waters. The ship’s passengers included dozens of enthusiastic students on their first adventure to see something of the world. The expedition’s leader was the outspoken young journalist and social critic Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, with whom Rasmussen enjoyed a particular rapport. “Presently I am stretched out on the bottom of one of the ship-side dinghies, resting with some rope-ends as a pillow. And my impressions are those of the large, white clouds sailing in full flight over my head,” Rasmussen wrote, delighted with his current situation.

Rasmussen wrote many articles during the voyage, honing his evocative style with whimsical musings on the one hand and astute geopolitical observations on the other. He wrote that in his opinion, Iceland needed a bank to truly prosper, observing that Great Britain had recently rented an Icelandic waterfall from the state and was establishing a hydroelectric enterprise. His eyes were opened to the possibility that Greenland would fall under foreign influence if it wasn’t managed properly.

When the Botnia arrived in Reykjavik, it moored for many days and the students were able to stay ashore long enough to be hosted by local families. There Rasmussen met Euphemia, daughter of Indriði Einarsson, the country’s most celebrated playwright. He charmed her, and they apparently fell in love. Writing to Rasmussen after he had returned to Copenhagen, Euphemia claimed: “There is something so intoxicating about you, even if you are a teetotaller and not particularly fond of being intoxicated.” Perhaps wise to the impetuous and charming Greenlander, she declined to profess her undying love.

On the voyage, Rasmussen was particularly vocal about the merits of Greenland, though he hadn’t seen it for many years. Expedition leader Mylius-Erichsen became frustrated because Rasmussen continually spoke to anyone who would listen about the beauty of Greenland, and then tried to convince Mylius- Erichsen to change the Botnia’s course and steer farther west. He claimed they were so close to Greenland that they could follow in the path of Erik the Red. Mylius-Erichsen finally had to tell Rasmussen to stop agitating for a trip to Greenland. He knew very well that Greenland was near and that it had historical ties to Iceland, but he didn’t have the authorization for such an unplanned detour, nor did he have the finances. However, Mylius- Erichsen had apparently been considering the risky scheme, until the commander of a Danish navy ship advised against it: there was a high likelihood of encountering ice, and the Botnia was not reinforced to survive collisions with ice.

Nevertheless, Rasmussen remained determined to find some way to return to his homeland. Before the Botnia reached Copenhagen on the return trip, he had convinced Mylius-Erichsen that an expedition to Greenland should be their next project— although they had no idea how such a venture would be planned or financed.

Romantic relationships with women had been part of Rasmussen’s world since his teenage years. He was particularly sought after during his youth. His friend Erik Rindom wrote, “I know of no young man… who has met his match in this area. He was able to win them all so to speak. Not only was virtually any young woman in love with him, but I have very rarely met with young men who could resist his charm.” Peter Freuchen, who met him when Rasmussen was in his late twenties, wrote that “rarely has any more charming young man stepped on the streets. His sharp facial features, his black hair, his… gentle and wonderfully sharp look, took in the girls in an indiscriminate fashion, and won older and younger for him.” Emil Nolde, a Danish-born German painter who met Rasmussen in 1901 and who eventually married one of Rasmussen’s girlfriends, wrote that Rasmussen “was a man full of primordial force and a strange charm.” He had so many girlfriends during these years that he was bound to get into trouble eventually.

In the summer of 1898, when he was nineteen years old, Rasmussen had begun a tentative and sporadic relationship with his cousin Vilhelmine Clausen, who was two years older than he and a friend of his sister, Me. Vilhelmine’s letters to him reveal the ups and downs of a young woman irritated and hurt by the vacillating and unfaithful actions of her charming paramour. Rasmussen often romanticized about living in the present without looking to the future, but on those occasions when he failed to meet her as they’d agreed, he would offer flimsy excuses in a letter. At one time she referred to him as a “ruthless, vacillating ragged doll boy”; at another, she wrote, “I think so indescribably much of you, and I can no longer bear to live in the uncertainty of whether you also reciprocate my feelings.”

For Rasmussen, it all seemed good fun, and he had other women friends during this time. Vilhelmine broke off their relationship in February 1899 with great dignity, waxing poetic about letting him fly free. But he wrote back to say how much he loved her, and they met again. “You were great,” he claimed. “I was only great in fickleness and capriciousness.” He won her back just before leaving for Iceland.

Their letters reveal a long and tortured relationship, in which Vilhelmine is subject to his erratic and fickle moods and desires. For the young man, experimenting and testing the limits of his power, it was clear that he was either unwilling or unable to acknowledge that he bore some responsibility for others. To a certain extent his behaviour could be dismissed as part of the typical drama of youthful love, but on at least one other occasion, his games had more serious consequences. In November 1900, a brief affair in Copenhagen with a young woman named Anna Olivia, a butcher’s daughter who was four years older than he, had a more lasting outcome.

When Rasmussen returned from Iceland and his voyage in the North Atlantic, his articles were well received and he seemed to have a future as a freelance journalist. Then another opportunity presented itself. He read about a new sporting event to be called the Nordic Games, modelled on the Olympic Games, that would be held in Stockholm, Sweden, in a few months. The first Nordic Games, scheduled for February 1901, would feature northern sports such as skiing, skating, ice sailing, bandy (similar to ice hockey), steeplechase (terrain riding) and even automobile racing on ice. Rasmussen was immediately enthusiastic, seeing the Nordic Games as a way to continue his travels and get out of Copenhagen, which was boring him even though he had been home for only a few months. He wrote a letter to the Swedish headquarters of the Nordic Games:

I was born and brought up in Greenland where the grand natural conditions gave me great love of all outdoor activities, but my enthusiasm was strongest when on a clear winter day I would be allowed to hunt on dogsled beyond the endless horizon: it was like going straight into eternity, I thought, and by my love of this healthy sport as well as in my youthful enthusiasm I gradually acquired the ability to manage dogs for sleds so that I could challenge, and even emerge victorious, over any Greenlander I came upon. I am Greenlander enough that my blood gets hot at the thought of again obtaining that flying speed, but conditions here in Denmark never allow such a thing: we lack both dogs and snow.

After the lengthy preamble he at last came to the point of his letter: “It hit me the other day after the announcement on the large sports event to be held in Stockholm in February that here was the long-overdue opportunity for me to go dogsledding.” He invited the organizers to introduce dogsled races as part of the Nordic Games and contacted the Copenhagen Zoo to inquire about the number and availability of their sled dogs. His enthusiasm was so infectious that the zoo’s director made the unprecedented offer of several Greenland dogs so that Rasmussen could give a dog-driving demonstration at the Nordic Games. Alas, these efforts bore no fruit: despite the enthusiasm of Rasmussen and the director, the organizers felt dogsledding would be inappropriate.

In the fall of 1900, Rasmussen left the Christian Daily and signed on as a freelancer with the Illustrated News, specifically for the chance to travel to Stockholm and cover the Nordic Games. He had to make a living somehow; he couldn’t just chase women and party with intellectuals, as pleasant a life as that undoubtedly was. He travelled to Stockholm and diligently wrote stories about the Nordic Games competitions and celebrations. His articles were well received but did not pay very much, and he had to use his own money to pay for some of the illustrations that accompanied the text. He was also having a difficult time meeting his living expenses. He wandered around Stockholm with a similarly impoverished fellow journalist searching for the cheapest restaurants while awaiting the additional funds he had requested from the Illustrated News. When the Illustrated News package arrived, he tore it open, only to find the enclosed sum insufficient to cover the cost of the illustrations he had purchased, let alone large enough to enable him to live in Stockholm. With a defiant flourish, Rasmussen ignored his desperate situation, placed the funds in a return envelope and sent it back to the Illustrated News. The enclosed note proclaimed, “From such a poverty-stricken publication I neither can nor will accept any payment.”

Afterward, he spent the day strolling around the Swedish capital, no doubt pondering his fate and his next move, as well as the source of his next meal. He knew that a banquet was being held for members of the foreign press that very evening. It was a formal affair, with many courses, wine, speeches and the mingling of important journalists, politicians and cultural figures. Naturally, he wasn’t invited. And equally naturally, this did not deter him from arriving at the doors expecting to be admitted. As he approached, the doorman stepped up and asked for his invitation—Rasmussen didn’t look like he belonged, dressed as he was in a workaday suit rather than the tie and coattails of the other guests. He affected a frown and proclaimed, “I am a foreign journalist.” When the shabbiness of his dress was pointed out, he loudly protested how insulted he felt and how offended other Danish journalists would be—after all, they were in Stockholm solely to publicize the Nordic Games, and there would be a scandal when it became known that he had been denied access to the dinner merely because he was travelling light. Hearing the commotion, several Swedish journalists came over and ushered him past the gatekeepers.

Rasmussen was now in his element: a large social gathering of educated and intelligent people in a festive mood. Seated at his side at the magnificent dining table was a distinguished older gentleman with whom Rasmussen quickly established a rapport by telling amusing tales and asking insightful questions. When Rasmussen heard that the gentleman was the head of the Swedish National Railway, he told him of his desire to one day visit Lapland by rail—if only he could afford the journey. He suspected that he might feel some kinship with the Lapps, or Sami, the indigenous people of northern Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as Russia’s Kola Peninsula. Perhaps they would remind him of Greenlanders and his homeland. Later on during the dinner—and this was not entirely a surprise to the charming young writer—the railway magnate invited him to make the trip as a guest of the Swedish National Railway.

Later in the evening, Rasmussen became bored with the string of speeches. At a pause in the agenda, he bounded up to the front of the room to make his own, unscheduled, speech. It was initially met with polite reserve and some indignation—after all, who was this young underdressed upstart? By the end of his rousing speech, however, Rasmussen had won over the entire room with a lively toast to sport and to life. One of the men he impressed was the famous Swedish artist and writer Albert Engström, who took an instant liking to Rasmussen and agreed to pay his hotel bill if he would write an article for Engström’s magazine, Strix.

Briefly freed from financial pressures, Rasmussen used the opportunity to begin planning his trip to Lapland. He negotiated an advance from the magazine Berlingske Tidende for a series of articles based on his travels. He then set off to the far north, to the outer edge of Scandinavia on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. This was way beyond where the railroad penetrated, past the large, dense forests and into the plains of stunted trees where travel was possible only by skis or horse- or reindeer-drawn sleighs. Over the months of his journey, he was stuck in blizzards, crammed into small sleeping huts ripe with the smell of unwashed bodies and the sounds of snoring. He ate reindeer meat roasted over an open fire and revelled in the hardships of the trail and the people who lived on the edge of civilization.

During his travels to Lapland, Rasmussen met many Swedes, Finns and Norwegians, as well as Sami. Although Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are similar written languages, the only spoken language Rasmussen had in common with all the people he met was English, which was used by quite a few northerners as a sort of lingua franca. The Sami reminded him of his beloved Greenlanders and made a deep impression on him. One man in particular features in Rasmussen’s account of the early part of his journey: Silok, a young man on his way to seek work at an ore quarry that Rasmussen would also be visiting. Striking up a friendship, they discovered they were both avid skiers and decided on a short expedition. Rasmussen described their shared joy of launching themselves off ridges and curving down the pristine slopes, making tracks around each other and winding through the fresh snow of a sparse pine forest. Silok was an exuberant skier who also revelled in the wilderness and the sheer joy of exploring. “When he stood and looked down over the steepest slope, and raised his head and arms,” Rasmussen wrote, “he looked like a bird who sailed with the wind. Across the plains, he flew until he collapsed in the snow and laughed uncontrollably with joy at the excellent lead.”

Reaching the bottom of a hill, Silok stopped, cocked his ear and asked Rasmussen if he heard anything. “No,” Rasmussen replied. They listened again and heard what at first seemed like thunder but was actually the sound of dynamite and machinery. The two youths skied over the hill, and their adventure ended. Before them lay a profusion of rail lines and welding machinery, incandescent lamps and trucks. Loud explosions shook the air. In an instant the skiers were taken from one world to another, from a wilderness offering fun and adventure to a harsh industrial reality. A few days later, Rasmussen, walking the streets of the nearby town, found Silok collapsed in a snowbank, in a drunken stupor, with vomit staining his coat. Apparently the young Sami had spent his wages on liquor, which though illegal was readily available.

Rasmussen’s interpretation of his experience in Lapland took a broad view; in his estimation, life should embrace personal freedom and aspects of the natural world as well as its unexplained phenomena. He drew a comparison between the mythical past, where magic reigned and strange supernatural occurrences were common, and the clear and rational present, where machines blasted mountains and tore down forests. “There is war now in Lapland, and the combatants are two cultures. And the new must prevail, because it carries with it the future. But any victory causes death. The Lapps will be conquered in their own land and depart with the quiet resignation of the condemned, leaving the new people forging ahead with railways and dynamite. And they will die just as quietly and unobtrusively as they have always lived up there.”

Rasmussen’s stories of his time with the Sami are entertaining and lively, but they can also be viewed as a subtle defence of the lives and culture of a quiet and simple people, against a history of exploitation and contempt. Rasmussen instinctively felt a kinship with the Sami, a feeling apparently absent in many of the Scandinavian travellers he met. Perhaps he perceived something of the Greenlander in them, as he claimed, or perhaps it was his inborn sense for sniffing out injustice. Whatever the case, Rasmussen detailed the historical abuses of the Sami by the southerners, including Christian missionaries calling their shamans devils and working to destroy their religion. He also discussed the condescension and prejudice that he witnessed throughout the region. Rasmussen had a great respect for the Sami way of life, for their resigned attitude toward the vagaries of fate, toward the way fortune could turn from good to bad and back again, for their pleasure in the smallest of kindnesses. He described their folklore, religion and contemporary practices as well as their songs, stories and poetry. He portrayed the venerable culture of reindeer herding, as well as their present situation: how some Sami were settling down, intermarrying with southerners and farming or raising cattle, while others were continuing with a nomadic lifestyle, following the reindeer herds. In recounting his trip, he tried to give a rounded portrait of the Sami culture, blended with his own travelogue as he toured their land. It was a novel and intriguing literary style, an approach he would perfect in later years.

Although he did not formalize his thoughts then, Rasmussen began thinking broadly and critically about the world and its people. He lamented the passing of the old ways as traditional culture gave way to the juggernaut of modernity, as tradition and myth were replaced by the soullessness of the market economy. As he toured northern Scandinavia, Rasmussen developed the themes that would prevail throughout his many future literary works. In the end, he was convinced that to achieve understanding and acceptance, people needed to overlook the Sami’s apparent material poverty and see their rich inner life. It was the first expression of an idea that would so powerfully inform his own life—that social culture, not its architecture or mode of locomotion or diet or clothing, was the true mark of a society’s soul. “There was once a time here on earth,” Rasmussen wrote, “when there was less wisdom and more happiness. Men were more simple and more reasonable than now, and we are told that they lived life for life’s sake.” Here he expressed a philosophy that would accompany him all his life, a vision that led him to his great interest in the mythical world of the Arctic’s native peoples.

If the Sami reminded Rasmussen of the Inuit of his native Greenland, then surely the battle between the modern, industrial world and the ancient, mythological and natural world would be coming to Greenland as well. Rasmussen saw the destruction and the loss of ancient culture; most important, he saw a great loss of freedom in the new world order, in the progression from traditional societies to market societies, and perhaps a crushing of the spirit. The Sami’s former freedom, just like the freedom of the Greenlanders, came with a price: the hardship of living on the harsh fringes of the world. But what would happen when there was nowhere left to escape, when even the fringes were overtaken by civilization?

Balancing out his philosophical musings about culture, technological change and the meaning of life, Rasmussen had some more earthy adventures as he rode the rails around Lapland. Once, he shared a railcar with a crowd of railway labourers who broke out their potent bootleg “dynamite” liquor and began swigging. When Rasmussen declined to accept an offered bottle, the labourers became enraged, goading him until he took a big gulp of the fiery liquid. Not accustomed to alcohol, he became so intoxicated that he passed out, later waking up on a railway platform. Luckily, the labourers had put him off at his destination. On another occasion, he was travelling from northern Sweden to the Norwegian city of Narvik by reindeer sled. Although his Sami companion was experienced at managing the notoriously unpredictable animals, one of the larger reindeer went berserk, turned around and charged the sled, and attacked the passengers— apparently a not-uncommon occurrence. Rasmussen and his friend quickly turned the sled over and crawled underneath it while the bad-tempered beast vented its frustration by stomping its hooves and bashing the sled’s runners with its antlers until its tantrum subsided. The crisis over, the travellers continued on their way.

From the northernmost coast of Norway, Rasmussen took a steamer south to Tromsø, the northern Norwegian city in which a young Roald Amundsen was testing and refitting his newly purchased ship Gjøa, before launching it toward the Northwest Passage and embarking on a meteoric career as a polar explorer. Rasmussen had no real intention of staying any longer in Tromsø than the time it took his steamer to dock and refit for the southward journey. But apparently he was distracted, not for the first time, by a girl. Having gotten lost while wandering the outskirts of the city, he noticed the young woman approaching and crossed the street to talk to her. At first she was afraid because of his ragged appearance, but after he reassured her that he intended no harm, they became friends and she brought him down to the harbour. Rasmussen decided it would be more fun to remain with her in Tromsø than to board his ship. When the ship sailed, he was partying with his newfound friend in the town of Charlottenborg, near the mountains.

Rasmussen eventually returned from his travels in Lapland, but not to Copenhagen. He rented cheap accommodation in Stockholm and began writing articles for magazines. It was here, conveniently far from Copenhagen and his family, that he received word that he was to be a father. The child had been conceived with Anna Olivia, the butcher’s daughter, the previous November, before Rasmussen left Copenhagen to cover the Nordic Games in Stockholm.

The child, Oda Amalie, was born in the Copenhagen Birth Foundation, a discreet refuge where women could go for the later months of their pregnancies. She was given up for adoption, which was arranged by a local pastor on July 12, 1901. The parents remained anonymous, but the financial responsibility was probably borne by Rasmussen’s father because Knud was still in Sweden and had no money. There is no doubt that the now twenty-two-year-old Rasmussen knew of the child’s birth, yet he remained in Stockholm throughout the fall of 1901, writing to his parents, apologizing and admitting his failure and irresponsibility, but only alluding vaguely to the reason: “I have been so unhappy that it has been quite impossible to write and think… I have failed terribly, now I have penance to do the rest of my life.” He announced to his family that the best thing for him would be to keep travelling, and in fact a few months later he was planning his first expedition to Greenland with Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen. “Think of me, and do not forget that I am your unhappy son Knud.” It is not clear how many people were aware of his predicament. When Peter Freuchen wrote his biography of Rasmussen in the 1930s, he did not mention his friend’s secret child, either because Rasmussen, out of embarrassment or shame, never mentioned her during their long seasons of isolated travel, or because of an unwritten pact to keep the child a secret.

At some point while Rasmussen was ensconced in Stockholm, removed from the turbulent domestic events in Copenhagen, he decided to turn the events and ideas stemming from his experiences in Lapland into a book. He wanted not only to tell the tales of his travels but also to further explore his opinions of the Sami people and the clash of cultures. He had little money, so he lived cheaply in a garret, diligently plugging away at the manuscript day and night. Freuchen told the perhaps apocryphal story of how Rasmussen remained awake and alert throughout the night while toiling over his manuscript. Seeing an advertisement in a magazine proclaiming that “Sleep is Milk,” Rasmussen decided that “maybe that is so, but then maybe milk is also sleep!” When he needed to stay up he would go to a store, buy a bottle of skim milk and drink it, and then work all night. After many months of work, he had produced a neatly typed manuscript and sent it to a prominent publisher in Copenhagen. A letter arrived soon after: the company would be pleased to publish his manuscript on Lapland, if he would agree to cover part of the expense. After all, who would buy a book on the Sami, however well written?

Rasmussen, who had by now returned to Copenhagen and was living in another ratty garret, still had no money. When he approached his father to see if he would help with the publication, his father refused to pay, claiming that the work was too good for such poor treatment, and urged his son to be patient. Rasmussen was already working with Mylius-Erichsen on their upcoming Greenland expedition, which would surely last several years, so his father reasoned the book could wait: Rasmussen wouldn’t be in Denmark to see it in print anyway. He moved into his parents’ home in Lynge as the final preparations for the trip were being made.

With the problem of Knud’s unwanted child only months in the past, the elder Rasmussen was enthusiastic about his son’s Greenland plan. He had given up hope that Knud would take an interest in theology, study to become a priest, and return to Greenland as he himself had done. Perhaps he reasoned that removing the young man from the temptations of Copenhagen could only be a benefit. Moreover, in Greenland the vicar still had connections who might keep an eye on his son.