With Greenland back in the headlines, it seems like a good time to tell the story of one of the most extraordinary men ever to cross its frozen wilderness. His name was Peter Freuchen. He stood 6'7", explored the Arctic by dogsled, lived among the Inuit, lost a foot to frostbite, escaped a death sentence, became a Hollywood celebrity and once saved himself from certain death with a knife made from his own frozen feces. Born in Denmark in 1886, Freuchen initially studied medicine at the University of Copenhagen. But the conventional life wasn't for him. At 20, he joined an expedition to Greenland, working as a coal shoveler for the opportunity to go north. He fell in love with the Arctic. In 1910, Freuchen and fellow explorer Knud Rasmussen established the Thule trading station in northwestern Greenland, which became a base for expeditions into some of the most unforgiving territory on Earth. Freuchen didn't just visit Greenland. He made a life there. He learned the language and customs of the Inuit, hunted and traveled alongside them, and married an Inuit woman with whom he had two children. The Arctic nearly killed him more than once. During one expedition, Freuchen became trapped beneath hardened snow and ice. Unable to reach his tools, he later claimed that he fashioned a crude chisel from his frozen feces and used it to dig himself free. Years later, severe frostbite attacked his left foot. He amputated several of his own toes before eventually losing the foot entirely. Freuchen simply kept going. He became a journalist and author, and his knowledge of Greenland eventually brought him to Hollywood. MGM adapted one of his books into the 1933 film Eskimo, and Freuchen worked as a consultant and writer. Imagine the sight of him. A 6'7" Danish Arctic explorer with an enormous beard and a wooden leg walking around Hollywood in the 1930s. Maybe the most amazing chapter of his life came during WW II. Freuchen despised fascism and became involved with the Danish resistance after Germany occupied Denmark. The Germans eventually arrested him. Freuchen was sentenced to death, but he escaped and made his way to Sweden. In 1945, Freuchen married his third wife, Dagmar Cohn, a Danish fashion designer. The couple later settled in America. In one of the strangest final chapters imaginable for the Arctic explorer, he appeared on the television quiz show The $64,000 Question. He won the grand prize. Peter Freuchen died of a heart attack in Alaska in 1957 at the age of 71. Part of Greenland now bears his name, Freuchen Land. Explorer. Author. Resistance fighter. Men like this once walked the earth.