Status Updates From The Ice at the End of the W...

Nansen expedition, 1888

Snowstorms blow in regularly over the Greenland ice sheet, known by the Inuit as “piteraq”

The ice sheet is not flat but shaped like a gently sloping dome w/its highest altitude in the center of G; in practice to walk across is tantamount to climbing half of it then descending the other.

adding to difficulty of the crossing is edges of ice sheet can be vertical cliffs hundreds of feet high; b/y that for 20-30 mi is crevasse zone: varies in width & difficulty, succession of steep ridges, hills, fissures

It was the search for the lost colonies that led to the initial exploration of the ice sheet.

Norwegian Lutheran pastor Hans Egede appointed official missionary to Greenland by Danish King— set sail on May 12, 1721, arr in southwestern G on July 3

Set up mission on coastal island he called Island of Hope; few years later moved to the mainland to town Godthab, which in time became capital of Nuuk

The Norse colonies died off; last ship arrived in G in 1406 & returned in 1410; also letter from 1424

Disappearance of Norse colonies remains mystery: some catastrophe, could have been change in climate lead to mass starvation, or storm, plague or deadly skirmish with Inuit

- from arch evidence, it seems likely that groups of Inuit settlers arr in G via sea ice connecting northern Canada around 1200

[Lief Erickson was the second son of Erik the Red who founded Greenland; Erickson made his journey to North America at Newfoundland/Nova Scotia after 1000]