Ejnar Mikkelsen

Ejnar Mikkelsen (December 23, 1880 – May 1, 1971) was a Danish polar explorer and author. He is most known for his expeditions to Greenland.

Biography

Mikkelsen was born in Vester Brønderslev, Jutland. He served in the Georg Carl Amdrup expedition to Christian IX Land, East Greenland (1900), and in the Baldwin-Ziegler North Pole Expedition to Franz Joseph Land (1900–02).

With Ernest de Koven Leffingwell he organized the Anglo-American polar expedition which wintered off Flaxman Island, Alaska, in 1906–07. They lost their ship, but in a sledge journey over the ice they located the continental shelf of the Arctic Ocean, 65 miles (105 km) offshore, where in 2 miles (3 km) the sea increased from 50 meters (164 ft) to more than 690 meters (2264 ft) in depth.Mills, William James (2003
"Mikkelsen, Ejnar (1880–1971)"
''Exploring polar frontiers: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1'' pp 426 ff, ABC-CLIO ,

Organizing an expedition to map out the northeast coast of Greenland, to recover the bodies of Mylius-Erichsen, leader of the ill-fated Denmark expedition and the expedition's cartographer, Niels Peter Høeg Hagen, and their records, Mikkelsen wintered 1909–10 at Shannon Island, East Greenland. His wooden ship, the ''Alabama'', was trapped in the ice of Shannon and, while he was exploring, the rest of the party returned home on a whaler. Remaining with his engineer, Iver Iversen, Mikkelsen succeeded by a series of hazardous sledge journeys in recovering the lost records in a cairn at the head of Danmark Fjord:

Hence, he rebutted the existence of a hypothetical sound or marine channel running from east to west separating Peary Land in northernmost Greenland from the mainland further south.

The two explorers returned to Shannon island to find the crew gone but they had salvaged timbers and planking and erected a small cottage. Mikkelsen and Iversen then spent two winters at the cottage before they were rescued, in the direst of extremities, by a Norwegian whaler in summer 1912. The so-called ''Alabama cottage'' has survived and was photographed during a visit by Danish Navy inspection ship ''Ejnar Mikkelsen'' in September 2010.

In 1924, he led an expedition to settle what later came to be Scoresbysund. In 1932, he led the 'Second East-Greenland Expedition of the Scoresbysund Committee' that carried out the first archaeological excavations on the Skaergaard intrusion by the shores of the Kangerlussuaq Fjord.Skaergaard history
/ref> In 1970, on his 90th birthday a national tribute was paid to him in Denmark; he died in Copenhagen a few months later on 1 May 1971. In 2009, the Royal Danish Navy named the second Knud Rasmussen class patrol vessel the .
The Ejnar Mikkelsen Range is named after him.

Works

* ''Conquering the Arctic Ice'' (London, 1909)
* ''Lost in the Arctic'' (1913). Some of his Greenland expeditions are recounted here.
* ''Mylius-Erichsen's Report on the Non-Existence of Peary's Channel'' (1913)
* ''Tre Aar par Grönlands Ostkyst'' (1914)
* Nord-syd-øst-vest (1917)
* ''Norden For Lov og Ret'', a story (1920)
** translated as ''Frozen Justice'' (1922)
* ''John Dale'', a novel (1921)
* ''Farlig Tomansfaerd'' (1955)
** translated as ''Two Against the Ice'', (1957)

Awards

* 1933 Hans Egede Medal of the Royal Danish Geographical Society.(in Danish)
/ref>
* 1935 Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society

In popular culture

The film ''Against the Ice'', released on March 2, 2022, depicts Mikkelsen's most famous ordeal. He was portrayed by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

See also

*Cartographic expeditions to Greenland
*List of inspectors of Greenland

References

Further reading

* ''Meddelelser om Grønland'' (50 volumes, Copenhagen, 1876–1912)
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External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mikkelsen, Ejnar
1880 births
1971 deaths
People from Brønderslev
Danish male novelists
Danish polar explorers
Explorers of the Arctic
Explorers of Alaska
Scandinavian explorers of North America
Greenlandic polar explorers
20th-century Danish novelists
20th-century Danish male writers