The Mission
The mission was to erect a radio and weather station in Thule. It was built from wooden barracks on the Pittufik, a Greenlandish word for "the place where we tie the dogs", in a large glacier valley about two miles from the trade station North Star Bay, which the Polar explorer Knud Rasmussen built.
The station was to be operated as joint Danish/American operation, under the Danish colours and Danish supervision by a crew of twenty men, ten from each nation.
Regular weather observations were maintained as Synopsies, Pibal and Radiosonde.
The station was kept in operation until 1951 when Thule Air Base was built in the valley; the weather station was then moved to the Greenlandish settlement at North Star Bay, and renamed "Dundas", until the population was moved to Qaanaaq further north in 1953.
Read more about this topic: Operation Nanook (1946)
Famous quotes containing the word mission:
“The mission of men there seems to be, like so many busy demons, to drive the forest all out of the country, from every solitary beaver swamp and mountain-side, as soon as possible.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“When you’re dealing with monkeys, you’ve got to expect some wrenches.”
—Alvah Bessie, Ranald MacDougall, and Lester Cole. Raoul Walsh. Captain Nelson, Objective Burma, giving a subaltern a mission (1945)