Peter Schmidt Mikkelsen

Came to Greenland in 1977 and spent the years 1977-1979 in Nord-East Greenland as member - no. 135 - of the celebrated military Sirius Dog Sledge Patrol (Slædepatruljen Sirius). The primary task of the patrol is to the maintain sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark over the most desolate part of Greenland, that is North- and North-East Greenland, a region completely without any native population. On the map of Greenland it's seen as the large coastal area between Qaanaaq (Thule) in North-West Greenland and Ittoqqortoormiit (Scoresbysund) in East Greenland. Patrolling is still today carried out by means of dogs and sledges. An adventures job!

After ten years he returned to North-East Greenland in the summer of 1989 together with three friends at the "Danish-Swedish Kayak-Expedition North-East Greenland 1989". It became a kayak trip for more than 700 km in the area between Daneborg and Mestersvig. In 1992 he was a co-founder of North-East Greenland Company NANOK (Nordøstgrønlandsk Kompagni NANOK), and he is since 1999 the managing director of NANOK.

He has all together lived in Greenland for about ten years, including more than four years in North- and North-East Greenland, and he has travelled thousands of kilometers along the coast, fiords and valleys of this region with dog sled, kayak, boat, ship - and on foot. From the middle of the 1980's he held management positions in various major Danish electronics manufacturing companies. Beside these full time occupations he is the author of several books about Greenland.

In 2009 he left the industry career to go back to the North, and in 2009-2014 he was as deputy head taking part in establishing the Greenland Climate Research Centre, at that period living fulltime in Nuuk in Greenland. Today he is back in Denmark, and affiliated with a number of leading Arctic research centres and initiatives, such as Greenland Integrated Observing System, Arctic Science Partnership, Arctic Research Centre at Aarhus University, Greenland institute of Natural Resources in Nuuk, and the Isaaffik Arctic Gateway. Link to Curriculum Vitae.