Ejnar Mikkelsen was a Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 polar explorer and author, born in Jutland

Jutland

Jutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...

. He served in the Georg Carl Amdrup

Georg Carl Amdrup

Vice Admiral Sir Georg Carl Amdrup , RN was a Danish naval officer, Vice Admiral and Greenland researcher.-Career:...

 expedition to Christian IX Land, East Greenland (1900), and in the Baldwin-Ziegler expedition to Franz Joseph Land (1900–02).

With Ernest de Koven Leffingwell

Ernest de Koven Leffingwell

Ernest de Koven Leffingwell was an arctic explorer, geologist and Spanish-American War veteran.During the period from 1906 to 1914, Leffingwell spent 9 summers and 6 winters on the Arctic coast of Alaska, making 31 trips by dog sled and/or small boats. He created the first accurate map of a large...

 he organized the Anglo-American polar expedition which wintered off Flaxman Island, Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

, in 1906-07. They lost their ship, but in a sledge journey over the ice they located the continental shelf

Continental shelf

The continental shelf is the extended perimeter of each continent and associated coastal plain. Much of the shelf was exposed during glacial periods, but is now submerged under relatively shallow seas and gulfs, and was similarly submerged during other interglacial periods. The continental margin,...

 of the Arctic Ocean

Arctic Ocean

The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions...

, 65 miles (105 km) offshore, where in 2 miles (3 km) the sea increased from 50 meters (164 ft) to more than 690 meters (2264 ft) in depth. Organizing an expedition to map out the northeast coast of Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

, to recover the bodies of Mylius-Erichsen

Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen

Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen was a Danish author, ethnologist, and explorer, from Ringkøbing. He was most notably an explorer of Greenland. With Count Harald Moltke and Knud Rasmussen he formed the Danish Literary expedition to West Greenland, and in the early stages discovered near Evigheds Fiord two...

 and Lieutenant Höeg-Hagen and their records, Mikkelsen wintered 1909-10 at Shannon Island

Shannon Island

Shannon is a large island in the Sermersooq municipality, in eastern Greenland, to the east of Hochstetter Foreland, with an area of . It was named by Douglas Charles Clavering on his 1823 expedition for the Royal Navy frigate HMS Shannon, a 38 gun frigate on which he served as midshipman under Sir...

, East Greenland. His wooden ship, the Alabama, was trapped in the ice of Shannon and, while he was exploring, the rest of the party returned home on a whaler. Remaining with his engineer, Iversen, Mikkelsen succeeded by a series of hazardous sledge journeys in recovering the lost records and in disproving the existence of Peary Channel, The two explorers returned to Shannon island to find the crew gone, but, they had salvaged timbers and planking and erected a small cottage. Mikkelsen and Iversen then spent two winters at the cottage before they were rescued, in the direst of extremities, by a Norwegian whaler in summer 1912.

He is most known for his expeditions to Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

, some of these recounted in Lost in the Arctic (1913). In 1924, he led an expedition to settle what later came to be Scoresbysund.

The so-called Alabama cottage has survived, intact, and was photographed during a visit by Danish Navy inspection ship Ejnar Mikkelsen in September 2010.

In 2009 the Royal Danish Navy

Royal Danish Navy

The Royal Danish Navy is the sea-based branch of the Danish Defence force. The RDN is mainly responsible for maritime defence and maintaining the sovereignty of Danish, Greenlandic and Faroese territorial waters...

 named the second Knud Rasmussen class patrol vessel the HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen

HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen (P571)

HDMS Ejnar Mikkelsen is a Royal Danish Navy patrol vessel.Launched in November 2007, she is the second vessel of the Knud Rasmussen class. The normal patrol area of the Ejnar Mikkelsen, and her sister ships, will be the waters around Greenland....

.

Works

• Conquering the Arctic Ice (1909)
• Tre Aar par Grönlands Ostkyst (1914)
• Norden For Lov og Ret, a story (1920)
• translated as Frozen Justice (1922)
• John Dale, a novel (1921)
• Two Against the Ice, with a foreword by Lawrence Millman (Steerforth Press, 2003)