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| 100 Kroner Greenlandic banknote |
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| Greenland - 100 krone |
Greenland banknotes - Danish currency for Greenland 100 kroner banknote 1953, issued by the Royal Greenlandic Trade - Kongelige Grønlandske Handel.
Greenlandic currency, Greenland banknotes, Greenland paper money, Greenland bank notes, Greenlandic Krone.
Obverse: Portrait of
Knud Rasmussen (
Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen 1879 – 1933), Greenlandic polar explorer and anthropologist, dog sled lake and hill at lower right.
Reverse: Map of Greenland
Greenland banknotes - Greenland paper money
Royal Greenland Trading Department - Den Kongelige Grønlandske Handel
ND 1953-1967 issue
Credit Notes - Kreditseddel
1953 issue
100 Kroner
Knud Rasmussen
Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (7 June 1879 – 21 December 1933) was a Greenlandic/Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" and was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled. He remains well known in Greenland, Denmark and among Canadian Inuit.
Rasmussen was born in Jakobshavn (now Ilulissat), Greenland, the son of a Danish missionary, the vicar Christian Rasmussen, and an Inuit- Danish mother, Lovise Rasmussen (née Fleischer). He had two siblings, including a brother, Peter Lim. Rasmussen spent his early years in Greenland among the Kalaallit (Inuit) where he learned from an early age to speak the language (Kalaallisut), hunt, drive dog sleds and live in harsh Arctic conditions. "My playmates were native Greenlanders; from the earliest boyhood I played and worked with the hunters, so even the hardships of the most strenuous sledge-trips became pleasant routine for me." He was later educated in Lynge, North Zealand, Denmark. Between 1898 and 1900 he pursued an unsuccessful career as an actor and opera singer.
Career
He went on his first expedition in 1902–1904, known as The Danish Literary Expedition, with Jørgen Brønlund, Harald Moltke and Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, to examine Inuit culture. After returning home he went on a lecture circuit and wrote
The People of the Polar North (1908), a combination travel journal and scholarly account of Inuit folklore. In 1908, he married Dagmar Andersen.
In 1910, Rasmussen and friend Peter Freuchen established the Thule Trading Station at Cape York (
Uummannaq), Greenland, as a trading base. The name Thule was chosen because it was the most northerly trading post in the world, literally the "Ultima Thule". Thule Trading Station became the home base for a series of seven expeditions, known as the
Thule Expeditions, between 1912 and 1933.
The First Thule Expedition (1912, Rasmussen and Freuchen) aimed to test Robert Peary's claim that a channel divided Peary Land from Greenland. They proved this was not the case in a remarkable 1,000-km journey across the inland ice that almost killed them. Clements Markham, president of the Royal Geographical Society, called the journey the "finest ever performed by dogs." Freuchen wrote personal accounts of this journey (and others) in
Vagrant Viking (1953) and
I Sailed with Rasmussen (1958).
The Second Thule Expedition (1916–1918) was larger with a team of seven men, which set out to map a little-known area of Greenland's north coast. This journey was documented in Rasmussen's account
Greenland by the Polar Sea (1921). The trip was beset with two fatalities, the only in Rasmussen's career, namely Thorild Wulff and Hendrik Olsen. The Third Thule Expedition (1919) was depot-laying for Roald Amundsen's polar drift in
Maud. The Fourth Thule Expedition (1919–1920) was in east Greenland where Rasmussen spent several months collecting ethnographic data near Angmagssalik.
Rasmussen's "greatest achievement" was the massive Fifth Thule Expedition (1921–1924) which was designed to "attack the great primary problem of the origin of the Eskimo race." A ten volume account (
The Fifth Thule Expedition 1921-1924 (1946)) of ethnographic, archaeological and biological data was collected, and many artifacts are still on display in museums in Denmark. The team of seven first went to eastern Arctic Canada where they began collecting specimens, taking interviews (including the shaman Aua, who told him of Uvavnuk), and excavating sites. Rasmussen left the team and traveled for 16 months with two Inuit hunters by dog-sled across North America to Nome, Alaska - he tried to continue to Russia but his visa was refused. He was the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled. His journey is recounted in
Across Arctic America (1927), considered today a classic of polar expedition literature. This trip has also been called the "
Great Sled Journey" and was dramatized in the Canadian film
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen (2006).
For the next seven years Rasmussen traveled between Greenland and Denmark giving lectures and writing. In 1931, he went on the Sixth Thule Expedition, designed to consolidate Denmark's claim on a portion of eastern Greenland that was contested by Norway.
The Seventh Thule Expedition (1933) was meant to continue the work of the sixth, but Rasmussen contracted pneumonia after an episode of food poisoning attributed to eating kiviaq, dying a few weeks later in Copenhagen at the age of 54.
Honors
Knud Rasmussen Land, Cape Knud Rasmussen, Knud Rasmussen Land, Knud Rasmussen Glacier in far NW Greenland, Knud Rasmussen Glacier in SE Greenland, as well as the Knud Rasmussen Range in W Greenland are named after him. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the American Geographical Society in 1912, and its Daly Medal in 1924. The Royal Geographical Society awarded him their Founder's Gold Medal in 1923 and the Royal Danish Geographical Society their Hans Egede Medal in 1924.
He was made honorary doctor at the University of Copenhagen in 1924.
The Greenlandic krone (Greenlandic: koruuni) was a planned currency for Greenland. Currently, the Danish krone circulates. The Greenland krone was not intended to be an independent currency but a version of the Danish krone.
As in Denmark, the krone replaced the rigsdaler in 1874 at a rate of 2 kroner = 1 rigsdaler. All issues of the krone in Greenland have been equivalent in value to the Danish krone. During the last part of the 19th century, while still a Danish colony, several mining companies operating in Greenland issued their own currencies. Distinct zinc currency was also introduced in the newly founded colony of Amassalik. Between 1926 and 1964, the Danish government's trade monopoly, Kongelig Grønlandske Handel (Royal Greenlandic Trade) introduced a series of distinct coins for use on Greenland. In 1944, the colonial administration issued a 5 kroner coin, using a similar design as the then-circulating 1 krone piece but produced at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia. Although the colonies in Greenland were incorporated into Denmark by the 1953 change to the Danish constitution, the Greenlandic administration continued to issue its own banknotes until 1968.
Coins
In 1926, cupronickel 25 øre and aluminium-bronze 50 øre and 1 krone were issued. The coins were the same size and composition as the corresponding Danish coins. However, the 25 øre was not holed, although some were withdrawn from circulation, holed and then reissued. In 1944, brass 5 kroner coins, produced by the Philadelphia Mint in the United States, were issued. A second issue of aluminium-bronze 1 krone was made in 1957, followed by cupronickel versions in 1960 and 1964.
A related foreign issue was the 2 kroner issue that Denmark minted in 1953. To commemorate the start of an anti-tuberculosis campaign in Greenland 200,000 coins were struck. On the obverse are profiles of the Danish king and queen. The reverse shows a map of the island with the native name, Kalåtdlit Nunat, above it.
Banknotes
In 1874, Handelsstederne i Grønland issued 50 øre and 1 krone notes, followed by 25 øre notes the next year. In 1887, 5 kroner notes were introduced. The Handelsstederne continued to issue notes until 1905. In 1911, the Kongelige Grønlandske Handel began issuing paper money, with notes in denominations of 25 and 50 øre, 1 and 5 kroner.
In 1913, colonial notes (marked Styrelse af Kolonierne i Grønland) were introduced in denominations of 25 and 50 øre, 1 and 5 kroner. From 1926, colonial notes were marked Grønlands Styrelse, the denominations below 5 kroner ceased production and 10 and 50 kroner notes were introduced.
In 1953, the Kongelige Grønlandske Handel resumed note production with 5, 10 and 50 kroner notes, whilst credit notes (Kreditsedler) for 100 kroner were also issued. These notes were produced until 1967.
