Sled dog team with Unnamed Musher | Photo: Galya Morrell - Greenland 
Great Explorers: Greenland Sled Dogs
The Eskimo dog, called Qimuttoq by Greenlanders, is one of the most unsung of all great explorers. It came to Greenland from distant Siberia almost 1,000 years ago, pulling heavy sleds with migrants and their belongings, a treacherous journey that few could repeat today.
The ancestors of modern Greenlanders gained their independence and ability to travel mainly because of the two revolutionary discoveries. The first was seal oil and the second was the dogsled. Both gave them the freedom to travel indefinitely across the drifting sea ice, even during long months of total darkness.
Seal oil and dogs
Seal oil and Qimuttoq explain how denizens of the Arctic thrived in the harshest climate on Earth. These ancient migrants did not depend on wood or government subsidies. They relied only on their dogs. That’s why the old Eskimos saw themselves as one being — with their dogs, tools, nature, and weather.
“We are called Inuit today because we are not independent anymore,” says Inuit elder Ole Jorgen Hammeken, a prominent Greenlandic explorer, dogsledder, and actor. He played the lead role in the Greenlandic film INUK, which depicts the rapid decline of Greenlandic dogsled culture.
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