The World's Most Interesting Explorer, Peter Freuchen

Peter Freuchen was an explorer, novelist, journalist, and anthropologist from Denmark. He is well known for his work in Arctic exploration, specifically the Thule Expeditions.

Peter Freuchen's feats include escaping an ice cave armed only with his bare hands and frozen feces, evading a death order issued by Third Reich officers, and becoming the fifth person to win the $64,000 Question jackpot game show.

The life of adventurer/explorer/author/anthropologist Peter Freuchen, on the other hand, cannot be summarized with a small list.

Early Life of The Explorer

In 1886, Freuchen was born in Denmark. His father was a businessman who desired nothing more for his son than a decent future.

So, at the request of his father, Freuchen enrolled at the University of Copenhagen and began studying medicine. However, Freuchen soon understood that an indoor life was not for him. Whereas his father desired order and stability, Freuchen desired adventure and risk.

As a result, he dropped out of the University of Copenhagen and embarked on a life of adventure.

The Beginning Of His Expedition

He led his first expedition to Greenland in 1906. He and his companion, Knud Rasmussen sailed from Denmark as far north as they could before abandoning their ship and traveling nearly 600 miles by dogsled. They met and traded with the Inuit while learning their language and joining them on hunting expeditions.

The Inuit hunted walruses, whales, seals, and even polar bears, but Freuchen fit right in. After all, his 6'7 stature made him especially prepared to handle a polar bear hunt, and before long, he'd constructed himself a coat out of a polar bear he'd slain himself.

Peter Freuchen and Rasmussen named their trade port Thule in Cape York, Greenland, in 1910. The name was derived from the term "Ultima Thule," which signified "beyond the known globe" to a medieval cartographer.

Between 1912 and 1933, the post would serve as a base for seven expeditions known as the Thule Expeditions.

The Tragedy That Made Him Lose His Toes

Between 1910 to 1924, Freuchen taught Inuit culture to visitors to Thule and journeyed around Greenland, visiting previously undiscovered Arctic territory. One of his earliest missions, as part of the Thule Expeditions, was to verify a belief that a waterway separated Greenland and Peary Land.

The mission included a 620-mile trek over Greenland's freezing wastelands, culminating in Freuchen's famed ice cave escape.

The crew was caught in a storm during the journey.

Freuchen attempted to hide behind a dogsled, but ended up fully buried in snow that quickly turned into ice. He hadn't been carrying his regular arsenal of daggers and spears at the time, so he had to improvise - he fashioned a dagger out of his own feces and dug himself out of the cave.

When he returned to camp, he discovered that his toes had grown gangrenous and that frostbite had taken over his leg. He did what any seasoned adventurer would do: he severed his gangrenous toes without anaesthetic and got his leg replaced with a peg.

Life Outside Arctic Exploration.

Freuchen would occasionally go back to his native Denmark. He joined the Social Democrats in the late 1920s, and afterwards contributed often to the political daily Politiken.

He even got into the movie business, working on the Oscar-winning movie Eskimo/Mala the Magnificent, which was based on one of his books.

Peter Freuchen became embroiled in political drama during World War II. When Freuchen heard someone express anti-Semitic sentiment, he would approach them and, in all his 6' 7" grandeur, claim to be Jewish. He never allowed discrimination of any kind.

He was so outspokenly anti-Nazi that even Hitler ordered his arrest and execution because he posed a threat. Freuchen was detained in France but ultimately managed to flee to Sweden to avoid the Nazis.