Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen

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Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen
Achton Friis : drawing by Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen (1906/07)

Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen (born January 15, 1872 in Viborg , † November 25, 1907 in Greenland ) was a Danish Greenland explorer.

The literary expedition to Greenland

From 1902 to 1904 he led a Danish expedition along the west coast of Greenland to the Cape York area, where u. a. the painter and draftsman Harald Moltke and the Greenland-Danish polar explorer Knud Rasmussen were also involved. The aim of the expedition, which wintered on Saunders Island in 1903/1904 , was ethnographic field research among the polar Inuit , in particular the recording of their songs and legends. That is why it is also called "The Literary Greenland Expedition" in literature.

The Danmark Expedition

The team of the Danmark Expedition, in front right Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen

In 1906 he was given the task of leading a new expedition. After the ship Danmark it was called the Danmark Expedition. The aim of the expedition was to explore the last unknown stretch of the Northeast coast of Greenland between Cape Bismarck (north of Store Koldewey Island ) and Cape Bridgman (in northeastern Pearyland ). His team also included the German Alfred Wegener and the Danish draftsmen Achton Friis and Aage Bertelsen . The first meteorological station in Greenland was built near Danmarkshavn , and kites and, for the first time, tethered balloons were used for meteorological measurements in the arctic climate.

Two groups with dog sleds and three participants each explored and measured the coastline, and they also found Northeast Rundingen , the most easterly point of Greenland. The expedition came to a tragic end. The group with Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, the Greenlander Jørgen Brønlund as sledge driver and hunter and Niels Peter Høeg-Hagen as cartographer did not return. At a depot in Lambert-Land (79 ° n. Br.) The search expedition found only the body of Brønlund, including his notes and diaries, from which the death of the other two emerged. Their bodies should be on the ice in the fjord in front of the glacier north of Lambert Land. They could not be found until today. Peter Freuchen , also a participant in the expedition, accused Mylius-Erichsen of failure in planning: Apparently, the group had also forgotten a needle and thread to repair their shoes. At the end of summer, they could not go on with frozen feet.

The Mylius-Erichsen-Land on Greenland is named after Ludvig Mylius-Eriksen .

Commemorative medal

In 1933, 25 years after the return of the expedition, Captain Alf Trolle (1879–1949), leader of the expedition ship Danmark and - after Mylius-Erichsen's death - leader of the expedition, had a silver commemorative medal minted. He gathered the surviving members of the expedition (19 were still alive in 1933) in his Trollesminde house in Rørvig and presented them with the medal. The next of kin of the deceased also received a copy. The artist Harald Moltke provided the draft. A plate from the Kgl, also designed by Moltke, served as a model . Copenhagen porcelain factory , which also shows the stone observatory that the expedition members built in 1908 in Danmarkshavn to commemorate their comrades who died.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ole Ventegodt: The Litterære Ekspedition . In: The Store Danske Encyklopædi , accessed January 3, 2014 (Danish)
personal data
SURNAME Mylius-Erichsen, Ludvig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish Greenland explorer
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1872
PLACE OF BIRTH Viborg
DATE OF DEATH November 25, 1907
Place of death Greenland