The explorer Peter Freuchen, who stood at about six and a half feet, and his third wife, the fashion illustrator Dagmar Cohn, photographed by Irving Penn.

From the Arctic to Hollywood, with Stops Along the Way

In 1932, MGM set out to adapt a book by Peter Freuchen for the screen. The result was more chaotic than any of the Arctic explorer’s expeditions

By Reid Mitenbuler

The Danish explorer Peter Freuchen was a character in every sense of the word, a man whose life would have made even Don Quixote jealous. While researching my new book about him, Wanderlust: An Eccentric Explorer, an Epic Journey, a Lost Age, I marveled at how much could be packed into just one life span—and how wide-ranging those adventures could be.

Born in 1886 and about six-and-a-half-feet tall, Freuchen began his career as an Arctic explorer, and I quickly lost count of how many times he almost died while facing down some extreme peril. Then there were his marriages, which tended to be open and eclectic: the first to an Inuit woman, the second to a margarine heiress, the third to a fashion illustrator for Vogue.