Hans Egede

Hans Poulsen Egede (31 January 1686 – 5 November 1758) was a Norwegian Lutheran priest and missionary who launched mission efforts to Greenland, which led him to be styled the Apostle of Greenland. He established a successful mission among the Inuit and is credited with revitalizing Danish-Norwegian interest in the island after contact had been broken for about 300 years. He founded Greenland's capital Godthåb, now known as Nuuk.

Background

Hans Egede was born into the home of a Danish-born civil servant, the priest son Povel Hansen Egede, and the Norwegian-born Kirsten Jensdatter Hind, daughter of a local merchant, in Harstad, Norway, nearly 150 miles (240 km) north of the Arctic Circle. His paternal grandfather had been a vicar in Vester Egede on southern Zealand, Denmark. Egede was schooled by an uncle, a clergyman in a local Lutheran Church. In 1704 he travelled to Copenhagen to enter the University of Copenhagen, where he earned a bachelor's degree in theology. He returned to Hinnøya Island after graduation, and on 15 April 1707 he was ordained and assigned to a parish on the equally remote archipelago of Lofoten. Also in 1707, he married Gertrud Rasch (or Rask). At the time he was about 21, while Rasch was 13 years his senior at 34. Four children were born to the marriage – two boys and two girls.

Greenland

At Lofoten, Egede heard stories about the old Norse settlements on Greenland, with which contact had been lost centuries before. Beginning in 1711, he sought permission from Frederick IV of Denmark–Norway to search for the colony and establish a mission there, presuming that it had either remained Catholic after the Danish–Norwegian Reformation or been lost to the Christian faith altogether. Frederick gave consent at least partially to re-establish a colonial claim to the island.