Author born in Uummannaq (Greenland) in 1918 – died in Nykøbing Falster (Denmark) in 1999.
Pipaluk Freuchen, also known as Pipaluk Jette Tukuminguaq Kasaluk Palika Häger Freuchen, was born on March 15th, 1918 in Uummannaq (Greenland). Her father, Peter Freuchen, was a Danish explorer, writer, and longtime collaborator of Greenlandic explorer Knud Rasmussen. It was during one of Knud Rasmussen’s expeditions that Peter Freuchen met the Greenlandic woman who would become his wife and Pipaluk Freuchen’s mother, Navarana Mequpaluk. In his book Arctic Adventure: My Life in the Frozen North, Pipaluk Freuchen’s father recounts his life with his wife and children. Pipaluk Freuchen had an older brother, Mequsaq Avataq Igimaqssusuktoranguapaluk. At just a few months of age, Pipaluk Freuchen lost her mother to Spanish influenza during the 1918-1930 pandemic.
In 1930, at the age of twelve, Pipaluk Freuchen moved to Denmark with her father and brother. In 1944, at the age of twenty-six, she married the Swedish philanthropist and dance teacher Bengt Niels Richard Häger. Together, they had a daughter, Navarana Freuchen-Rooke. The couple separated in 1953.
In the literary world, Pipaluk Freuchen is known as the author of the children’s book Eskimo Boy. First published in Danish under the title Ivik den faderløse in 1944 by Skandinavisk Bogforlag, it appeared the same year in Swedish under the title Ivik den faderlöse. The book follows the story of Ivik, a young Inuk from Greenland, who lives according to the traditional Inuit way of life. Pipaluk Freuchen’s story was met with international success and was translated into thirteen other languages: German, French, Finnish, Norwegian, Spanish, English, Icelandic, Dutch, Czech, Hebrew, Croatian, Italian, and Japanese.
Pipaluk Freuchen is also the author of Inaluk, published in 1955, and of a biographical work about her father Peter Freuchen entitled Bogen om Peter Freuchen (literally: “The book about Peter Freuchen”), published by the Danish publishing house Forlaget Fremad in 1958.
Pipaluk Freuchen died on April 8, 1999, in Nykøbing Falster (Denmark), at the age of eighty-one.