OBITUARY
Per Danker was for many years editor of Sermitsiaq.
Former editor of Sermitsiaq and the creator of Parcafolket Per Danker, Espergærde, has died on Monday 23 March 2026, aged 92.
“Per Danker fell asleep quietly with his family around him after 92 good, lovely years. He was happy and productive right to the end – and he sends you all the most loving thoughts”, the family writes on Facebook.
Per Danker was trained as a radio technician and engineer. He had worked in Narsarsuaq and at the Loran station Orssuiagssuaq near Tasiilaq, before coming to Nuuk in 1966 as a telecommunications engineer at the Greenland Televæsen (Tele Greenland, Tusass), where he ended his career with the title of export manager.
In the years 1969 to 1982, in addition to his work in the Televæsenet, he was associated with Sermitsiaq – most of the years as an editor. Initially unpaid, but eventually with a weekly fee of DKK 200.
It was during that period when the newspaper grew in size and went from being the local newspaper in Nuuk to a nationwide newspaper. It was a period that Per Danker has depicted with great humor in the anniversary article “Once upon a time there was a local newspaper”, which Tidsskriftet Grønland published in 2018 on the occasion of Sermitsiaq’s 60th anniversary.
The park people
Per Danker will especially be remembered for the Parca people – the little drawings that peppered life in Greenland for better or worse and with a loving poke at those in power. The idea was already nurtured in the long winter evenings in Orssuiagssuaq in the early 60s and for many years became a fixed element in Sermitsiaq, where the first drawing was brought on 17 October 1969.
The Parca people became a very large part of Per Danker’s life. He continued to draw the Parca people after the years at Sermitsiaq. In recent years, the drawings were published, among other things, on Per Danker’s Facebook profile.
Per Danker was generally active until the end. As recently as Thursday last week, he participated in the annual (Christmas) lunch of the Association of Greenland Journalists, of which he became chairman in 2009.
Per Danker will be buried from Mørdrup Church in Espergærde on Tuesday 31 March at 11am.
