Rasmus Jensen was a Danish Lutheran priest

Priest

A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...

 and the first Lutheran cleric in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

Little is known about the life of Jensen, not even the parish where he served as pastor, although his diary during the expedition provides some information. It is known that he was the chaplain

Chaplain

Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...

 aboard an expedition to the New World commissioned by King Christian IV of Norway and Denmark in 1619. The expedition was made up of two small Danish ships Enhiørningen and Lamprenen, with 64 sailors who were Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and Germans.

Captained by Norwegian navigator and explorer, Jens Munk

Jens Munk

Jens Munk was a Danish navigator and explorer who was born in Norway where his father, Erik Munk, had received several fiefs for his achievements in the Northern Seven Years' War. He returned to Denmark at the age of eight...

, the ships were searching for the Northwest Passage

Northwest Passage

The Northwest Passage is a sea route through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways amidst the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans...

. After sailing into Frobisher Bay

Frobisher Bay

Frobisher Bay is a relatively large inlet of the Labrador Sea in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada. It is located in the southeastern corner of Baffin Island...

 and Ungava Bay

Ungava Bay

Ungava Bay is a large bay in northeastern Canada separating Nunavik from Baffin Island. The bay is shaped like a rounded square with a side length of about and has an area of approximately...

, Munk eventually passed through Hudson Strait

Hudson Strait

Hudson Strait links the Atlantic Ocean to Hudson Bay in Canada. It lies between Baffin Island and the northern coast of Quebec, its eastern entrance marked by Cape Chidley and Resolution Island. It is long...

 and reached Digges Island (at the northern tip of Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

) on August 20. They then set out across the Bay towards the southwest. By early September, they had not yet found a passage. The party arrived in Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay

Hudson Bay , sometimes called Hudson's Bay, is a large body of saltwater in northeastern Canada. It drains a very large area, about , that includes parts of Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Alberta, most of Manitoba, southeastern Nunavut, as well as parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota,...

 on September 7, landed at the mouth of Churchill River

Churchill River (Hudson Bay)

The Churchill River is a major river in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, Canada. From the head of the Churchill Lake it is 1,609 km long. It was named after John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough and governor of the Hudson's Bay Company from 1685 to 1691...

, settling at what is now Churchill

Churchill, Manitoba

Churchill is a town on the shore of Hudson Bay in Manitoba, Canada. It is most famous for the many polar bears that move toward the shore from inland in the autumn, leading to the nickname "Polar Bear Capital of the World" that has helped its growing tourism industry.-History:A variety of nomadic...

, Manitoba

Manitoba

Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...

.

It was a disastrous winter. Cold, famine, and scurvy destroyed most of the men. Only Munk and two sailors survived to return, leaving no settlement in the New World. The crew of the Lamprenen reached Bergen, Norway on 20 September 1620.

Jensen had died on 20 February 1620. Following the death of Jensen, the majority of Danish Lutheran missionary

Church of Denmark

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark, Church of Denmark or Danish National Church, is the state church and largest denomination in Denmark and Greenland...

 activity was concentrated in India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and the Virgin Islands

Virgin Islands

The Virgin Islands are the western island group of the Leeward Islands, which are the northern part of the Lesser Antilles, which form the border between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean...

, especially Saint Thomas

Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

Saint Thomas is an island in the Caribbean Sea and with the islands of Saint John, Saint Croix, and Water Island a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands , an unincorporated territory of the United States. Located on the island is the territorial capital and port of...

. Rasmus Jensen's commemoration date is February 20 within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is Canada's largest Lutheran denomination, with 152,788 baptized members in 624 congregations, with the second largest, the Lutheran Church–Canada, having 72,116 baptized members...

 and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a mainline Protestant denomination headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA officially came into existence on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three churches. As of December 31, 2009, it had 4,543,037 baptized members, with 2,527,941 of them...

.

Additional reading

• Jens Munk Navigatio Septentrionalis, Efterretning af Navigationen og Reisen til det Nye Danmark af Styrmand Jens Munk (Copenhagen: 1624)
• Peter Lauridsen, Jens Munks navigatio septentrionalis med indledning, noter og kort (Copenhagen: Gyldendal. 1883)
• C. C. A. Gosch, Danish Arctic Expeditions 1605 to 1620, volume ii (Hakluyt Society, No. xcvii. London: 1897)