Vilhelm Guard

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Thomas Vilhelm Garde (born October 22, 1859 in Copenhagen , † June 24, 1926 there ) was a Danish naval officer and polar explorer . His women's boat expedition to East Greenland, which he undertook with Gustav Frederik Holm from 1883 to 1885, is well known . He was one of the first to step on the Greenland Ice Sheet .

Life

Early years

Vilhelm Garde was one of the children of lieutenant and later Rear Admiral Hans Georg Friboe Garde (1825-1885) and his wife Anna Christine Elisabeth Knudsen (1834-1919). He embarked on a military career himself, became a cadet in 1876 and was promoted to Rear Admiral in the Royal Danish Navy until 1918. His skills were already evident at the naval school, where he was awarded the Henrik Gerner Medal in 1880 as the best of his class. In 1880/81 he served on the frigate Jylland on her way to the Danish West Indies .

Danish women's boat expedition 1883–1885

Rumors of an Inuit settlement called Ammassalik , still unknown to Europeans , which was supposed to be north of the coastal strip explored by Wilhelm August Graah from 1828 to 1830, led Denmark to send an expedition to the east coast in 1883 under the direction of Gustav Frederik Holm. Guard was appointed his deputy. Other participants were the geologist Hans Knutsen (1857–1936), the botanist Peter Eberlin (1862–1900), the catechist Johannes Hansen and his nephew, the translator Johan Petersen (1867–1960). After the umiaks used by the expedition, the Eskimos ' women's boats , they were later called the women's boat expedition. The expedition left their base in Nanortalik in four umiaks at the end of July 1883, passed the Prince Christian Sound and drove on the east Greenland coast 87 km to Kasingortok, where they set up a storage facility. Then she returned to Nanortalik to hibernate. On May 5, 1884, the expedition started again and reached the island of Timmiarmiit on July 28 , about 300 km from Prince Christian Sound. Here Garde turned back with Eberlin and Petersen, while Holm and Knutsen drove on to Ammassalik and met a group of Inuit who had not yet had contact with Europeans. On the way back, Garde explored and mapped the fjords that the expedition had passed on the way north without being able to examine them further. On September 27th he was back in Nanortalik. In 1885 Garde drove back to Timmiarmiit to wait for the Holm to come from Ammassalik. He was already at the agreed meeting point on July 8th and had time to explore the fjord behind Umanaq, where he met Holm on July 16th. Together they drove to Nanortalik and reached Copenhagen on October 3rd, 1885 on board the Constance . The expedition had achieved its goals, and Vilhelm Garde played no small part in its success.

Guard Moltke Expedition 1893

Routes of the expeditions that entered or crossed the Greenland Ice Sheet until 1913

In the second half of the 1880s, Moltke served on various ships (1886 on the Fylla , 1886/87 again on the Jylland ). From 1889 to 1891 Garde was the captain of Hvidbjørnen , a ship belonging to the Greenland Trading Company ( Den Kongelige Grønlandske Handel ).

In 1893 he was commissioned with Carl Moltke to map the part of the district of Qaqortoq ( Julianehaab ) that was not recorded in the land survey in 1890 and - if the weather conditions permitted - to advance to the inland ice. The expedition should also conduct magnetic and hydrographic surveys. From the arrival at Paamiut on April 24th to June 12th, 1893, the outstanding surveying work in the Avigaat and Arsuk area was completed so that the ascent to the ice sheet could begin. Garde chose the Sermitsialik glacier for this. By June 23, the expedition was 110 km from its starting point and had reached an altitude of 2286  m . For the way back, Garde chose a southern route that led him to the Nunatak Aputainuitsoq until June 26 , which turned out to be a group of several Nunataks. Five years after Fridtjof Nansen's crossing of Greenland, Garde and Moltke were still among the first to venture out onto the Greenland ice sheet.

Further life

In 1894 the Guard was first officer on the schooner Diana , and in 1895 on the corvette Dagmar . In 1896 he mapped the Icelandic Hvammsfjörður . In 1897 he transferred the new icebreaker Nadjoschny from Copenhagen to Vladivostok on behalf of the Russian government . He then commanded the survey ship Krieger in 1898/99 . From 1900 to 1903, Garde was the captain of the mail steamer that operated between Korsør on Zealand and Kiel . In 1903 he was first officer on the protected cruiser Valkyrien and in 1904/05 he was chief of staff of a squadron of the Danish Navy. Until 1907 he served in the Navy Ministry. In 1906 he commanded the cruiser Hejmdal , the cadet training ship of the Danish Navy, and in 1907/08 the schooner Ingolf . From 1908 to 1911 Guard was Director of the Navy Ministry and then until 1914 Chief of Staff of the Fleet. In this role he played a major role in ensuring that the Danish Navy was well prepared for the First World War , in which the country remained neutral. During the war, Garde commanded the 2nd Fleet Squadron in the Great Belt , then the 1st Fleet Squadron in Öresund and, from April 1918, the Defense Squadron for Copenhagen ( Danish: flydende Defension ). In 1921 he retired from active service and retired to his estate near Kvistgård, north of Copenhagen.

Familiar

Vilhelm Garde married Inger Kirstine Holm (1859–1904) on November 24, 1885. After the death of his wife, Vilhelm Garde married Christine Vilhelmine Ohlsen (1877–1969) on October 26, 1906.

Honors

Vilhelm Garde received the following medals and orders:

The following geographical objects are named after him:

Fonts (selection)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h V. Garde im Dansk biografisk leksikon (Danish)
  2. ↑ a b c d Garde, Thomas V. at navalhistory.dk, accessed on February 24, 2017 (English)
  3. ^ A b Carl Frederik Wandel : Scientific Investigations in Greenland . In: Vahl (ed.): Greenland . Volume 1, Reitzel, Copenhagen 1928, p. 120 f. (English)
  4. ↑ Garde Islands in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey (English)
  5. ↑ Guard Nunatakker . In: Anthony K. Higgins: Exploration history and place names of northern East Greenland. (= Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin Vol. 21, 2010). Copenhagen 2010, ISBN 978-87-7871-292-9 (English)
  6. ↑ Cape Guard on geographic.org (English)
  7. ↑ Garde Øer on geographic.org (English)
personal data
SURNAME Guard, Vilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Garde, Thomas Vilhelm (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Danish naval officer and polar explorer
DATE OF BIRTH October 22, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Copenhagen
DATE OF DEATH June 24, 1926
Place of death Copenhagen