Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen
Encyclopedia
Ringkøbing
Ringkøbing is a town in Ringkøbing-Skjern municipality in Region Midtjylland on the west coast of the Jutland peninsula in west Denmark. The town has a population of 9,742 .-History:...
. He was most notably an explorer 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...
. With Count Harald Moltke and Knud Rasmussen he formed the Danish Literary expedition (1902-04) to West Greenland, and in the early stages (1902) discovered near Evigheds Fiord two ice-free mountain ranges. Later the party proceeded to Cape York and for 10 months lived native fashion with the Eskimo
Eskimo
Eskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....
. The return journey of the expedition to Upernivik across the ice of Melville Bay was the first sledge crossing on record.
Death
As commander of the Danmark expedition (1906-08) Mylius-Erichsen undertook and carried out the task of exploring and charting the entire coastline of unknown northeast Greenland by three months' field work. The expedition made sledge journeys of more than 4000 miles (6,436 km), exceeding the record of any single Arctic force. The main travel, excluding duplications, of KochJohan Peter Koch
Johan Peter Koch was a Danish captain and explorer of the Arctic dependencies of Denmark, born at Vestenskov.He participated in Amdrup's expedition to east Greenland in 1900 and was one of the general staff of the surveying expeditions to Iceland in 1903-1904.In 1906-1908 he was a member of the...
was some 1250 miles (2011 km), and that of Mylius-Erichsen must have exceeded 1000 miles (1609 km). Their explorations showed that Peary's
Robert Peary
Robert Edwin Peary, Sr. was an American explorer who claimed to have been the first person, on April 6, 1909, to reach the geographic North Pole...
chart of a coast trending southeast from Navy Cliff was radically incorrect. Instead the shore ran to the northeast, adding about 100,000 square miles (259,000 km²) to Greenland and extending it about halfway from Navy Cliff—where the maps wrongly placed Greenland Sea—to Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen
Spitsbergen is the largest and only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in Norway. Constituting the western-most bulk of the archipelago, it borders the Arctic Ocean, the Norwegian Sea and the Greenland Sea...
. Mylius-Erichsen's own exploration disclosed the nonexistence of Peary's Channel, and thus established the continuity of Greenland from Cape Farewell
Cape Farewell, Greenland
Cape Farewell , is a headland on the southern shore of Egger Island, Greenland. Located at it is the southernmost extent of Greenland, projecting out into the North Atlantic Ocean and the Labrador Sea on the same latitude as Stockholm and the Scottish Shetland Islands. Egger and the associated...
, 60° N, to the most northern land ever reached, 83° 39' N. He also discovered and explored the great fiords of "Danmark", "Hagen", and "Brønlund". Misled by existing maps, Mylius-Erichsen with Hagen and the greenlander Brønlund so prolonged his journey that a return to the ship that spring was impossible, and they were forced to spend the summer in the area without the necessary footgear for hunting in the stony area. The need for food for men and dogs forced them to reduce their three dogteams to one. Finally in September they were able to start their return journey on the new frozen sea ice, but en route Mylius-Erichsen and Hagen perished of starvation, exhaustion, and cold. Hagen's mapmaterial, the body of the greenlander Brønlund together with his diary were found next spring by Koch. Some cairn reports, left at Danmark Fjord
Danmark Fjord
Danmark Fjord is a fjord in north-eastern Greenland, lying south of Hagen Fjord....
by Mylius-Erichsen, were found and brought to Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
by Ejnar Mikkelsen
Ejnar Mikkelsen
Ejnar Mikkelsen , was a Danish polar explorer and author, born in Jutland. He served in the Georg Carl Amdrup expedition to Christian IX Land, East Greenland , and in the Baldwin-Ziegler expedition to Franz Joseph Land .With Ernest de Koven Leffingwell he organized the Anglo-American polar...
in 1912.
Works
Mylius-Erichsen wrote:- Tatere (1898), a drama
- Vestjyder (1900), tales
- Den Jydske Hede før og nu (1903)
- Isblink (1904), poems from Greenland
- Grønland (1906)
- Report on the nonexistence of Peary Channel in Meddelelser om Grønland, (50 volumes, Copenhagen, 1876-1912), volume xli (1913), edited by Ejnar MikkelsenEjnar MikkelsenEjnar Mikkelsen , was a Danish polar explorer and author, born in Jutland. He served in the Georg Carl Amdrup expedition to Christian IX Land, East Greenland , and in the Baldwin-Ziegler expedition to Franz Joseph Land .With Ernest de Koven Leffingwell he organized the Anglo-American polar...
.
Literature
- Achton Friis, Danmark Expeditionen til Grönlands Nordostkyst (1909), peprinted in 1987 and 2005.
- Greely, True Tales of Arctic Heroism (New York, 1912)
- Rasmussen, People of the Polar North (Philadelphia, 1908)
- G. C. Amdrup, Report on the Denmark Expedition to the North-East Coastof Greenland (Copenhagen, 1913).
- Ole Ventegodt, "Den sidste Brik", Copenhagen, 1997
- Peter FreuchenPeter FreuchenPeter Freuchen, born Lorenz Peter Elfred Freuchen was a Danish explorer, author, journalist and anthropologist.-Biography:...
, "Min grønlandske ungdom", 1936 (Memories)