Operation Nanook was an

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

expedition undertaken by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

in 1946. It consisted of , , USCGC ''Northwind'' (WAG-282), , , and . The mission is mostly documented as cartographic in nature. From 22 July to 5 August 1946, all activities in Operation Nanook centered on Thule; ''Norton Sound'' remained at anchor there, in North Star Bay, servicing her two PBM's. Meanwhile, ''Whitewood'' and ''Atule'' operated from North Star Bay as they conducted exercises and tests in the

Smith Sound Smith Sound (; ) is an Arctic sea passage between Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are ...

- Kane Basin area. On 5 August 1946, ''Norton Sound'' and ''Whitewood'' headed for Dundas Harbour, Nunavut and

Devon Island Devon Island (, ) is an island in Canada and the largest desert island, uninhabited island (no permanent residents) in the world. It is located in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is one of the largest members of the Arctic Ar ...

, in order to attempt air and surface operations there. Unfortunately, the ships found the harbor iced over, with a belt of pack ice extending out three miles down the coast. The ''Northwind'' broke ice in support of Operation Nanook.

The mission

The mission was to erect a radio and weather station in Thule. It was built from wooden barracks on the '' Pituffik'', a Greenlandish word for "the place where we tie the dogs", in a large

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains and typically containing a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over ...

about two miles from the trade station North Star Bay, which the Polar explorer

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" (now often known as Inuit Studies or Greenlandic and Arctic Studies) ...

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

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

ish settlement at North Star Bay, and renamed "Dundas", until the population was moved to Qaanaaq further north in 1953.

References

2. THULEAB.DK, The Ultimate Guide to Thule Air Base. https://web.archive.org/web/20040110185454/http://www.thuleab.dk/

The mission

References

Further reading