New special exhibition on the SIRIUS Dog Sledge Patrol

In icy snowstorms and temperatures as low as minus 50°C, patrol teams consisting of two men, a dog sledge and 13 sledge dogs cover thousands of kilometres as they enforce the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark in Northeast Greenland.

During their months-long patrols, the patrol leaders see no one but each other, their dogs and the harsh Greenlandic wilderness.

But what is it really like to work in such an extreme environment? And what role does the dog sledge patrol play today and in the future?

These are some of the questions explored in the Danish War Museum’s upcoming special exhibition, SIRIUS – patrolling the Arctic.

“There is growing public interest in the work of the SIRIUS Dog Sledge Patrol and, more broadly, in the Kingdom of Denmark’s military presence in the Arctic. Last year, the iconic dog sledge patrol also celebrated 75 years of continuous presence in Greenland,” says head of the Danish War Museum, David Høyer about the background to the exhibition, which opens on 8 October.

The Kingdom of Denmark’s Eyes and Ears

The most important task of the SIRIUS Dog Sledge Patrol is to enforce the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark by maintaining a physical presence in the uninhabited region of Northeast Greenland, with its 16,000-kilometre coastline.

SIRIUS also exercises police authority in ‘Northeast Greenland National Park’, the world’s largest national park; assists with search and rescue operations; operates its headquarters at Daneborg Station; and carries out a number of other tasks.

The SIRIUS Dog Sledge Patrol draws on knowledge and experience from Inuit culture and was established in the years following the Second World War, inspired by the ‘Northeast Greenland Sledge Patrol’ which was established by the Danish authorities in Greenland in 1941, while Denmark itself was occupied by Germany.

Back then the patrol consisted of Danish, Greenlandic and Norwegian hunters whose task was to patrol the remote and inaccessible coast of Northeast Greenland. If the Germans attempted to establish weather stations, the patrol was to alert the Americans. Weather reports from the region were of great importance for planning the war in Europe.