L. Mylius Erichsen

Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen (15 January 1872 – 25 November 1907) was a Danish author, ethnologist, and Arctic explorer. He played a central role in early 20th-century exploration of Greenland, leading the Denmark Expedition (1906–08), which mapped large areas of northeast Greenland and corrected earlier geographic misconceptions. He died during the expedition.

Early life, family and education

Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen was born in Ringkøbing, Denmark.

Literary expedition

With Count Harald Moltke and Knud Rasmussen Mylius-Erichsen formed the Danish Literary Expedition (1902–04) to West Greenland, and, in the early stages (1902), discovered, near Evighedsfjord, two ice-free mountain ranges. The party later proceeded to Cape York and lived for 10 months in native fashion with the Eskimo. The return journey of the expedition to Upernavik across the ice of Melville Bay was the first sledge crossing on record.

Denmark expedition

As commander of the Denmark Expedition (1906–08) Mylius-Erichsen undertook and carried out the task of exploring and charting the entire coastline of unknown northeast Greenland by three months' field work. The expedition made sledge journeys of more than 4000 miles (6,436 km), exceeding the record of any single Arctic force. The main travel, excluding duplications, of Johan Peter Koch was some 1250 miles (2011 km), and that of Mylius-Erichsen must have exceeded 1000 miles (1609 km). Their explorations showed that Robert Peary's chart of a coast trending southeast from Navy Cliff was radically incorrect. Instead the shore ran to the northeast, adding about 100,000 square miles (259,000 km2) to Greenland and extending it about halfway from Navy Cliff—where the maps wrongly placed Greenland Sea—to Spitzbergen. Mylius-Erichsen's own exploration proved that Peary Channel did not exist. Two years later Ejnar Mikkelsen (1880–1971), leader of a new Danish Greenland expedition, assumed the channel existed until he found Mylius-Erichsen's report in a cairn at the head of Danmark Fjord, where Mylius-Erichsen had written emphatically that: