First Thule expedition

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Map with the route of the First Thule Expedition (KNUD RASMUSSEN & PETER FREUCHEN 1912) and all other Greenland crossings up to 1913

The First Thule Expedition was the prelude to a total of seven interdisciplinary research expeditions, which the Greenlandic-Danish polar explorer Knud Rasmussen in the period 1912-1933 in the Arctic carried out. The Thule expeditions were named after Rasmussen's trading post of the same name in Uummannaq in North Greenland, which served both for financing and as a starting point for the ventures. The First Thule Expedition was primarily a rescue expedition for Ejnar Mikkelsen, who was in distress in northeast Greenland . The four participants crossed the Greenland ice sheet twice , discovered previously unknown areas and proved that Pearyland is not an island separated from Greenland by the Peary Canal , but a peninsula. The remains of human dwellings found at Independence Fjord were further north than any known until then.

prehistory

In 1910 Knud Rasmussen founded the trading post "Thule" in Uummannaq near Cape York in North Greenland. He wanted to enable the polar skimos living in the region to continue their trade in skins on fair terms after the end of Robert Peary's regular presence for two decades . At the same time, he wanted to use the station as a starting point for expeditions of an ethnographic and geographical nature, for the financing of which the profit generated was used.

The coastline of Greenland was almost completely known at that time. The last unexplored areas in the northeast of the island were mapped by the Danmark Expedition in the years 1906-1908. There was still some uncertainty in the north, where Pearyland was viewed as an island separated from Greenland by the hypothetical Peary Canal. Rasmussen decided to explore the area more closely. However, one circumstance made him change his plans at short notice: the Danmark expedition had taken a tragic turn. Their manager Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen , the cartographer Niels Peter Høeg-Hagen and the Greenland sledge driver Jørgen Brønlund had died. Brønlund had been found with the map sketches in 1908, but there was no trace of Mylius-Erichsen, Høeg-Hagen and their valuable diaries. As a result, the Alabama expedition set out on their search in 1909 . After spending the winter in Alabamahavn , the expedition ship Alabama was crushed by the ice, while the expedition leader Ejnar Mikkelsen and his companion Iver Iversen (1884–1968) were traveling further north. The rest of the crew had been picked up by a whaler . Mikkelsen and Iversen now lacked the opportunity to return to Denmark. Mikkelsen was an experienced polar explorer who had previously participated in three Arctic expeditions. It was assumed that he would be looking for the way to the settlements of West Greenland. Two routes were conceivable - along the north coast of Greenland over the Peary Canal or the shortest route over the inland ice .

Rasmussen felt obliged to rush to help Mikkelsen. In the event that he had chosen the route across the ice sheet, Rasmussen set out for Melville Bay in October 1911, accompanied by the Greenlander Qulutanguaq . Bad weather made the unsuccessful search last two months instead of the estimated two weeks.

Expedition destination

Rasmussen's stated aim was to explore and map the Peary Canal and the surrounding regions. The plight in which Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen had gotten through the loss of the Alabama made the search for them the main objective of the expedition. But Rasmussen was planning on the fast ice to go along the north coast of Greenland and the Pearykanal to northeast Greenland, so that the original goal was to be maintained. On the way a visit should be made to Fort Conger on Ellesmere Island , one of Mikkelsen's possible wintering quarters.

Attendees

Knud Rasmussen
Peter Freuchen

The expedition team consisted of four participants:

  • Knud Rasmussen was the leader of the expedition. He grew up in Ilulissat , West Greenland, was fluent in Kalaallisut and was familiar with dog sledding from childhood . From 1902 to 1904 he took part in Mylius-Erichsen's literary expedition to Greenland, which had an ethnographic character and was mainly used to record songs and legends of the polar skimos.
  • The Dane Peter Freuchen was Rasmussen's partner in the operation of the Thule station. He had studied medicine for a few semesters and had participated in the Danmark expedition as a stoker and assistant to the meteorologist Alfred Wegener . He was responsible for the mapping of the areas visited by the Thule expedition and the meteorological observations.
  • Uvdloriaq was a 35- or 36-year-old Inuk, an experienced sled driver and hunter.
  • Inukitsoq was a 25 or 26 year old Inuk who had taken part in Frederick Cook and Robert Peary's expeditions and was very knowledgeable about dogs and hunting.

Preparation, equipment and funding

The winter of 1912 was used for a trip to Upernavik to replenish supplies and equipment. Exchange objects were also needed for the residents of Neqi , where Rasmussen wanted to stock up on walrus meat . Due to heavy snowfall and unfavorable ice conditions, the 1800 km long journey with the dog sled took almost three months to the end of March.

During his expedition, Rasmussen largely relied on the techniques of the polar skimos, supplemented by rifles, ammunition, primus stoves , kerosene and tools as well as luxury goods such as coffee, tea and tobacco. However, he did not burden the sledges with large reserves of food, but relied on being able to feed men and dogs by hunting. That made the small expedition team fast and agile, but it also involved risks from poor hunting results or unfavorable weather conditions.

The expedition was equipped with the following scientific instruments:

Rasmussen turned with a request to take over the patronage of the expedition to the "Commission for the management of geological and geographical investigations in Greenland" (Commission for ledelsen af de geologiske og Geografiske undersøgelser i Grønland) , whose members Carl Frederik change (1843-1930 ), Gustav Frederik Holm and Knud Johannes Vogelius Steenstrup . The Carlsberg Foundation contributed to the financing with 9700 crowns.

course

The expedition left Thule on April 6, 1912 and went to Neqi, 200 km away, to take in provisions in the form of walrus meat and narwhal skin for the men and 1.5 tons of walrus skin for the dogs. This was distributed among the four sleds, each pulled by 12 to 15 dogs. Storms that had persisted since February had broken up the coastal ice in such a way that Rasmussen was forced to change his route again. He decided to cross the ice sheet to visit Mylius-Erichsen's Steinmann at Danmarkfjord , where Mikkelsen had probably left a message. On April 14th, the ascent over the Clements-Markham Glacier began, for which Rasmussen hired more dog teams, so that a caravan of 35 sleds and 350 dogs went on the journey. On the first day they covered a distance of 66 km and an altitude difference of 1100 meters. At the first rest area, all the sledges turned around except for 9, and from April 19, the four expedition members with their 53 dogs were among themselves.

The journey across the inland ice went without any major problems. If you take into account that eight days had to be rested due to the weather, the average daily driving distance was 62 km. The greatest height exceeded was 2225 m. On May 9th, the expedition reached the edge of the ice sheet and saw the Danmarkfjord. The descent from the glacier was the greatest challenge up until then. Men, dogs and sledges had to be roped down 20 m. The men descended over a glacial lake and through the Zig-zag Dalen to the fjord, which was reached on May 31 at Cape Renaissance. The exertion was great, and the few musk oxen shot did not meet the meat requirements, so the number of dogs had to be reduced to 32.

On June 4th, the expedition came across Mylius-Erichsen's former summer camp and a large stone man in the vicinity. But Rasmussen found no message in him. He concluded that Mikkelsen had not reached this point and gave up looking for him because he was waiting far south. In reality, however, Mikkelsen had taken the message from Mylius-Erichsen two years earlier without - as usual - replacing it with his own. By the time Rasmussen reached the Steinmann, Mikkelsen and Iversen were waiting for Bass Rock , where they were rescued on July 19 by the Norwegian sealer Sjöblomsten . The knowledge of Mylius-Erichsen's document left behind would have saved Rasmussen a lot of time, which he could have used to discover as yet unknown areas, because it contained the message that the Peary Canal did not exist.

The expedition now traveled to Independence Fjord and crossed over to Pearyland. Here the men found old tent rings, which testify that the region was once inhabited. They followed the fjord to its beginning without discovering the entrance to the Peary Canal. Where this was marked on their map, they saw only snow-free land from an elevated point on June 17th. The task now was to map as much of the new land as possible, to shoot enough game to provide provisions on the way home and to find a way onto the ice sheet. The further way was exhausting again. The glacier fronts at the end of Independence Fjord were too steep to be climbed. Although the men needed ice and snow for the sledges, they had to ascend over a snow-free and hilly promontory - they called it Cape Schmelck. It was not until June 30 that they stood on the Nyebo glacier. In the neighboring Valmuedalen between Adam-Biering-Land and Heilprin-Land , they stayed two weeks and replenished their supplies with the meat of musk ox. They had 28 dogs left when they left on July 12th. It took them three days to climb the Nyebo glacier to Navy Cliff. On July 23, Freuchen and Inukitsoq found Pearys Steinmann at Navy Cliff and his message of July 6, 1892, which had been deposited 20 years earlier. It was now time to make their way back to Uummannaq. Heavy storms with snow and rain delayed the departure until August 8th. The snow on the glacier was softer than in spring, and only 27 dogs were available to pull the three remaining sleds. The daily distances covered were therefore shorter than on the way there. With a sledge and eight dogs, the expedition reached its starting point on September 15, 1912.

Results

The most important result of the expedition was geographical - the discovery and rough mapping of previously unknown areas such as the Adam-Biering-Land and the Nyebo glacier. The expedition named a total of 29  geographical objects , mostly descriptive, sometimes after sponsors of the Thule trading post or after scientists. Rasmussen and Freuchen provided evidence that the Peary Canal does not exist and that Pearyland is part of Greenland and not an island in its own right. What they did not know was that Mylius-Erichsen had made this discovery before them and Mikkelsen was on his way to Europe with the message he had left behind.

An important archaeological discovery was the northernmost find of the remains of human dwellings. The expedition found the tent rings of prehistoric Eskimos at the mouth of the Jørgen-Brønlund-Fjord in the Independence-Fjord. This led to the Danish Pearyland Expedition in 1947, led by Eigil Knuth , which found further traces of settlement.

During their voyage, the expedition had noted a variety of observations on the wildlife found and made regular weather observations and measurements of temperature and air pressure. They had collected various plants, which they gave to the botanist Carl Hansen Ostenfeld for identification, and took rock samples, which the mineralogist Ove Balthasar Bøggild (1872-1956) later examined.

The apparent ease with which the inland ice had been crossed twice was impressive. A distance of around 2500 km had been covered. Clements Markham , the former president of the Royal Geographical Society , described the expedition as very efficient and called it the best that had ever been carried out with dogs. Johan Peter Koch , who led the “ Danish expedition to Queen Louise's land and across the ice sheet of North Greenland ” in 1913 , considered it to be “the largest and best carried out of all journeys” over the Greenland ice sheet.

Expedition report

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jean Malaurie : Myth of the North Pole. 200 years of expedition history. 2003, p. 224 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  2. ^ Therkel Mathiassen: Knud Rasmussen's Sledge Expeditions and the Founding of the Thule Trading Station . In: Geografisk Tidsskrift . Volume 37, No. 1-2, 1934, pp. 16-29 (English).
  3. ↑ Østgrønlandske Stednavne - Fra den første kortlægning (PDF; 9.54 MB) on the website of the Danish Arctic Institute (Danish)
  4. ↑ Bjarne Grønnow, Jens Fog Jensen: The Northernmost Ruins of the Globe: Eigil Knuth's Archaeological Investigations in Peary Land and Adjacent Areas of High Arctic Greenland (PDF; 10.1 MB), Danish Polar Center, Copenhagen 2003, ISBN 87-90369- 65-3 (= Meddelelser om Grønland , Man & Society , Volume 29)
  5. ^ Clements R. Markham: The Lands of Silence. A History of Arctic and Antarctic Exploration . University Press, Cambridge 1921, p. 379 ff. (English).
  6. ^ Johan Peter Koch: Our crossing of Greenland 1912–1913 , lecture at the general meeting of the Society for Geography on December 6, 1913. In: Journal of the Society for Geography in Berlin . 1914, pp. 34-50.