The very last of the few - Wegenercom

Under the Pole Star
Already as a young geophysicist in Northern Greenland,
the Arctic nature and its people captured me. Just imagine!
Right outside my windows, I was able to see schools of fin
whales gambolling between towering icebergs, and flights
of eider hurrying by in endless numbers. I was captured.
I simply had to get out there and become a part of it all.
Out in the crystal clear air, become intoxicated by oxygen,
and fly on skis or dog sled through a landscape more
beautiful than even Hans Christian Andersen could have
conceived it.
Along the way, I discovered the thrill of hunting, the
deep feeling of satisfaction that it gave me to be filling the
cooking pots myself. I shot a few ptarmigans and many
more guillemots from a dinghy. Wonderful trips in heavy
seas and rolling mists.
However, it was not until the following year when I visited
the Polar Inuit in Thule, the northernmost people in the
world, that I became totally engulfed.
Still as a geophysicist at the time.
From my observatory, I was able to watch as the Inuit
hunters returned through the driving snow with their dog
sleds heavily laden with walrus heads and polar bear skins.
Stocky men, all dressed in fur, in an aura of icy crystals.
That was enough, the urge to get out there and become
a part of it all suppressed my sense of duty. The 16th of
February 1967, precisely on the day that the sun appears
in the horizon for the first time after a four-months long
polar night, I gave up my climatic charts, loaded up my
dog sled with fur clothing, harpoons, rifles, and my entire
36
library – two books in all, and yelled HAC! Pull! Kamik,
Qajok, Igor (named after Stravinsky, the only dog that
did not run away when I started singing), and all of my
other 14 dogs, launched forward in their harnesses and
away into the wilderness we flew.
Ever since that day, I have been on the move. To begin
with as an adventurer and hunter, later as a scientific
explorer specialising in zoogeographical studies.
I wanted to develop a better understanding of the
interaction in nature and the fluctuations of the Inuit’s
quarry animals. Eventually creativity got the better of
me. I became a writer, photographer, and film producer
− in short, an image-maker.
Insight and commitment
My fascination of hunting has remained unabated, and
thinking back, episodes keep popping up in my memory
like seal heads along the ice edge.
There are plenty of episodes. I could fill books with my
stories − which, in fact, I have already done. So far, I
am the author of 14 books, and more are on the way.
In addition to the Pole Star, my guiding star has always
been insight and commitment.
No matter what I have been doing as an explorer or an
image-maker, I continue to build on the insight that I
achieved in my Greenland youth.
My foster father, Kaagunnaq, and other great bear
hunters from Thule, were always willing to teach me.