Rasmus Villumsen

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Last photo of Alfred Wegener and Rasmus Villumsen (right) before the departure from Eismitte

Karl Ole Rasmus Willumsen (born November 17, 1907 in Upernavik Kujalleq ; † November 1930 in the ice sheet ) was a Greenlandic participant in Alfred Wegener's “3. German Greenland Expedition 1930/31 ".

Life

The Inuk Rasmus Villumsen was born in 1907 in Upernavik Kujalleq, the son of Hans Frederik Lars Willumsen (1865-after 1931) and his wife Johanne Juliane Judithe Møller (1882-1920). In the 1920s he moved to Ukkusissat . In 1930 Villumsen took part in the “3. German Greenland Expedition ”on the Greenland Ice Sheet. From the beginning it was faced with difficult circumstances. To supply the Eismitte research station , Wegener and the meteorologist Fritz Loewe met on September 21, 1930and 13 Greenlanders (including Villumsen) on a fourth and final transport trip before wintering. Because of the early snowstorms that year, the transport had to be abandoned. The Greenlanders turned back except for Villumsen. The only goal of those who were traveling on, Wegener, Loewe and Villumsen, was to relieve Johannes Georgi and Ernst Sorge for wintering in the middle of the ice. On October 30th, under the most difficult conditions, they reached the Eismitte research station (essentially a cave dug into the ice) with their dog sleds. On the way back, which Villumsen started with Wegener, he was probably killed around November 16, 1930. On May 12, 1931, Wegener's carefully laid grave was found in the ice. Heart failure as a result of overexertion was believed to be the cause of death. Rasmus Villumsen, who had buried him, remained missing and with him Wegener's diary. On August 9, 1931, he and his older brother Jakob Johan Gabriel, whose body had also disappeared a few weeks earlier after a kayak accident, were given a ceremonial goodbye.

A memorial plaque for Rasmus Villumsen in German and Greenlandic has been hanging on the new Ukkusissat school building since 1994. It goes back to a suggestion by Loewe and was initially attached to the old church house. Her text reads: "Rasmus Villumsen from Uvkusigssat, who, together with Alfred Wegener, succumbed to the cold and darkness of the inland ice in November 1930, in constant grateful memories."

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Church books Upernavik 1862-1913 (Born boys II p. 69)
  2. ^ Church books Upernavik 1891-1914 (married p. 117)
  3. ^ Fritz Loewe: Johannes Georgi (PDF; 393 kB). In: Polarforschung 42, 1972, pp. 155-158.
  4. ^ Page of the Alfred Wegener Institute on the 75th anniversary of the "German Greenland Expedition Alfred Wegener" , as of March 24, 2005.
  5. ↑ Church records Uummannaq (Died Men, p. 173)
  6. ↑ Ulrich Wutzke: Alfred Wegener. Annotated directory of the written documents of his life and work (PDF; 5.5 MB). Reports on polar research 288, 1998, ISSN  0176-5027 , p. 118 f.
personal data
SURNAME Villumsen, Rasmus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Willumsen, Karl Ole Rasmus (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greenlandic dog handler of the 3rd German Greenland Expedition 1930/31
DATE OF BIRTH 17th November 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Upernavik Kujalleq
DATE OF DEATH November 1930
Place of death Ice sheet