Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of Greenland

Narrative of an Expedition to the East Coast of Greenland Synopsis

In 1828 a Danish expedition was sent out from Copenhagen under the command of the naval officer and explorer Wilhelm August Graah (1793–1863). Its goal was to locate lost Norse settlements on the coast of Greenland, which had existed in certain places from around the turn of the millennium until their collapse some centuries later. The Danes did not find any settlement where they searched on the eastern coast, and the men endured harrowing conditions and near starvation during three winters. First published in Danish in 1832 and reissued here in its 1837 English translation, Graah's work opens with a brief history of the exploration and colonisation of Greenland before recounting his own expedition. Observations on the Greenlandic Inuit are incorporated as well. Addressing what was known about the Norse settlements at that time, the appendix also contains the expedition's scientific observations.