Malaurie, Jean

Jean Malaurie (22 December 1922 – 5 February 2024) was a French cultural anthropologist, explorer, geographer, physicist, and writer. He and Kutsikitsoq, an Inuk, were the first two men to reach the North Geomagnetic Pole on 29 May 1951. Malaurie was a director of studies at the School for advanced studies in social sciences (EHESS) and director and founder of the Terre Humaine collection published by Plon in which features his Last Kings of Thule (1955), translated into twenty-three languages and remaining the most widely distributed work on the Inuit. A defender of the rights of Arctic minorities, threatened by the industrial development of the Far North, Jean Malaurie became a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Arctic polar issues.