In the beginning of the 18th century there was living at Vogen, in the diocese of Trondhjem in Norway, a priest named Hans Egede, who for some years had been engaged solely in his parochial duties. In about 1708, when his age was 26, he became deeply impressed with the story of the abandonment of the Greenland colony. The fact that Christians had formerly lived in Greenland, that they had been abandoned to their fate, and that the world had heard of them no more, preyed upon his mind. He felt that it was the duty of every Norwegian to help in the search for them. If no one else had that feeling he, a poor parish priest, would do so single-handed. He was torn by conflicting duties to his parish, and to his wife and children, but his Greenland duty seemed the most urgent. This inward impulse was the strongest, and in 1710 he addressed a petition on the subject to his Bishop. The reply commended the project, but dwelt on the almost insuperable difficulties.

Hans Egede was looked upon as a fanatic, as a knight errant. At first no one would listen to him. He went to Bergen to try and get support, but none could be obtained, though some were touched by his zeal. One great comfort was that after a time his wife embraced the idea and became as enthusiastic as her husband. At last, in 1718, he determined to go to Copenhagen and appeal to his King. Frederick IV admired the good priest’s devotion to a noble cause, encouraged him in his efforts, and used the royal influence for raising funds. At last a sum of £2000 was got together, while the King gave £40 towards the equipment of a vessel and granted a salary of £60 a year to Egede.

A vessel called the Hope was bought, and the adventurous priest embarked with the crew and his wife and four little children, a party altogether of forty souls. The 2nd May, 1721, was the memorable day when the Hope sailed from Bergen, and the history of modern Danish Greenland was commenced.

Though ice was found blocking up the approaches to the Greenland coast, a lane of water was seen apparently leading to the land, and the little vessel was steered into it. But the ice closed, and she was beset, a dense fog being followed by a strong gale, and for some time the adventurers were in danger. The gale had the effect of clearing away the ice, so that at last the Hope was brought safely into Gilbert Sound of Davis. Hans Egede called it Bell’s River. He appears to have been ignorant of the details of Davis’s voyages, but he must have known the expedition of Hall, who named one of the branches of the fjord Bell’s river, after Mr Richard Bell, and the other after Sir James Lancaster. Hans Egede set up the house he had brought out in pieces on an island in Gilbert Sound, the native name of which was Kenget, renamed by him Haabetsö or Hope Island. At first the Eskimos were very friendly and Egede at once began to learn the language. But neither he nor his people were at all efficient in hunting and fishing, and they could only occasionally get food from the natives. The consequence was that scurvy broke out, and most of his people returned in the Hope when the navigable season arrived. But in 1723 two ships arrived with provisions and the good news that the King had imposed a Greenland assessment for the support of the colony.

It was found that the Dutch had long frequented Davis Strait for the whale fishery. Several ships arrived every year and they made use of two or three harbours, but had no permanent settlement.

In the second year after his arrival Hans Egede undertook a boat voyage in search of the lost Greenland colony. The distance was great from Gilbert Sound to Cape Farewell, and then round to the east side of Greenland, for the general belief then was that the “East Bygd” of the Norsemen was on the east coast. On Egede’s map Frobisher’s Strait was shown to pass through Greenland, instead of on the other side of Davis Strait, and he naturally relied upon being able to make a short cut to the east coast by passing through it. This was the last time that anyone was misled by the errors of Niccolo Zeno’s chart. For the first land of Frobisher was supposed to be the Friesland of Zeno, in which case the second land would be Greenland. In reality the first land was Greenland, and the second land of Frobisher was the other side of Davis Strait.

Hans Egede proceeded along the coast to the southward, examining the principal fjords, discovering the ruins of the church at Kakortak95 and other vestiges of the Norsemen, little thinking that all the time he was in the “East Bygd,” which he supposed to be on the other side of Greenland. He looked out anxiously for Frobisher’s Strait, which of course he never found, and went almost as far as Cape Farewell. The lateness of the season at last obliged him to return.

Hans Egede then devoted all his energies to the instruction and conversion of the Eskimos, who were scattered in small bodies along the coast. He carefully sought out any words in their language that resembled those of the Norsemen96. Probably he thought that these Greenlanders had Norse blood in their veins, that in fact they represented all that remained of the lost colony. The Danish Government came to the conclusion that Greenland might be a valuable acquisition and there was still a desire to reach the east coast where the East Bygd of the Norsemen was supposed to be. In 1728 Major Paar arrived as Governor with five ships, one of them a man-of-war, bringing materials for a fort and a garrison, as well as horses for crossing to the East Bygd, so little was the inland ice then understood. Major Paar removed the settlement from Kenget Island to the mainland, on the south side of Gilbert Sound, where it received the name of Godthaab, and is now the capital of Danish Greenland. Unfortunately a form of scurvy broke out and the people died off rapidly, the mortality continuing until the spring of 1729, when the survivors were sent home, and this first attempt at a colony came to an end, leaving Hans Egede almost in despair. His eldest son Paul was sent to Copenhagen to complete his education.

Governor Paar made an attempt to comply with his instructions about the east coast. On April 25th, 1729, he set out with a party of seven men to explore the Amaralik Fjord, but found it impossible to make any progress on the inland ice, and returned on the 7th of May. On the map in the English translation of the book by Hans Egede there is a strait passing right across Greenland from Disco Bay with the following legend:—“It is said that these streights were formerly passable but now they are shoot up with ice.” All the names from Ivar Bardsen are scattered along the east side of Greenland in this map of 1740.

The attempt to form a colony had a very injurious result for the mission, as it made most of the natives move northwards to Disco Bay.

The death of King Frederick IV, who had steadily supported Egede and the Greenland enterprise, seemed to be a mortal blow. The Government of his successor, Christian VI, saw no probability of any commercial advantage, and considered that the ten years of missionary efforts had produced little or no result. An order was therefore issued that the colony was to be given up, Hans Egede being given the option either to return with the rest or to remain. He resolved to stay, ten sailors volunteering to stand by him, and after much importunity, a year’s provisions were left with him. His youngest son Nils was now old enough to assist his father, and undertook the commercial part of the work, going about to collect blubber and other products, and striving, when possible, to take the part of a catechist. But privations and anxieties were telling upon Egede. A feeling of despondency was beginning to weigh him down, and he was only encouraged to perseverance by the heroic constancy of his wife.

At last hope was revived. In May, 1733, a ship arrived with the news that the Greenland trade was to be continued, and that the King would make an annual grant of £400 a year to the mission. In the same ship three Moravian missionaries arrived who formed a station which they called “New Herrnhuth,” a few miles from Godthaab, and worked in harmony with the Danish missionaries97. But progress was still further delayed by an appalling calamity. An Eskimo boy who had been at Copenhagen brought back the smallpox. It spread like wildfire, and threatened to wipe out the whole Eskimo race. The sufferings were terrible and several thousands died.

Hans Egede’s eldest son Paul had returned, and gave lessons in the Eskimo language, of which he was a master, having learnt it from childhood, to the Moravian missionaries. He afterwards had charge of the mission station of Christianshaab in Disco Bay until 1740. The devoted wife of Hans Egede died in December 1735, a true Christian heroine, full of zeal for the conversion of the natives and of helpful care for their welfare. With the loss of his brave wife Hans Egede felt that his work was at an end and sailed with his daughters and his youngest son on the 9th August, arriving at Copenhagen on the 24th September, 1736. His wife’s remains were taken with him, and interred in St Nicholas churchyard.

Hans Egede had made a beginning. He had sown the good seed. He left four missionaries and two catechists in Greenland, twenty or thirty adult converts, and about a hundred baptized children. He had formed rather a high opinion of the Eskimo character after an experience extending over 15 years. He looked upon the Greenlanders as even-tempered and good-natured, of orderly behaviour and hating every kind of strife. There was no thieving among themselves, though foreigners were considered fair game. They were hospitable, and every one was content with his own state and condition.

On the arrival of Hans Egede at Copenhagen he had an audience of the King, who appointed him Superintendent of the Greenland Mission, with a salary of £100 a year. He passed the last years of his life in retirement with his daughters on the island of Falster, where he died, in his 73rd year, on the 5th November, 175898.

The Danish Government took both the Greenland Mission and the trade under royal protection. For it began to be understood that there was wealth in the products of Greenland, in the whalebone and oil, the skins of seals, deer, and foxes, the walrus and narwhal ivory, and the eider-down. There were to be royal factors and storehouses, side by side with missionaries and churches. Stations were to be formed at intervals along the coast, to be visited annually by ships which were to receive the products collected by the factors during the year. The larger stations consisted of the factor’s house, storehouse, and smithy, the mission house and church, and the native huts.

The most southern station, Frederikshaab, was formed in 1742 by Jacob Severin, a merchant of Jutland. About 40 miles to the north of this station is the famous Eis blink, a great ice mass whose “glance” or “blink” in the sky is seen for many leagues out at sea. It forms a vast ice bridge over the fjord, two leagues across and eight leagues long and the ebb tides take quantities of ice out to sea, under the bridge. Further north is the bay which Hans Egede called Fischer’s Fjord, in lat. 63° N. Here a station was formed in 1754, and, four years later, on the same island, the Moravians settled their second mission, which they called Lichtenfels. These were the only stations south of Godthaab in the early days.

To the north, the station of Sukkertoppen was founded in 1755, and in 1759 Holsteinborg was established, and named after Count Holstein, President of the Missions College. The first factor was Nils Egede, younger son of the great missionary. Holsteinborg is well placed in an excellent harbour with the numerous Knight Islands in the offing. Fifty miles further north is the station of Egedesminde which was founded by Nils Egede in 1759, who gave it that name in memory of his father. In Disco Bay a settlement was formed by order of Jacob Severin as early as 1734 and named Christianshaab. Paul Egede was the first missionary there99. Claushavn was established further north in 1752. The shores and islands of Disco Bay were, at that time, the most populous part of Greenland. Another station was founded there in 1741, which was named Jacobshavn in memory of the Director of trade, Jacob Severin. In the south entrance of the Waigat the station of Rittenbenk was founded in 1755, and at the other end that of Noursoak in 1758. In those days nothing was known further north, but these 12 stations had factors, and were annually visited by ships to receive the year’s collection of blubber and skins. Some 20 years later, in 1774, the station of Julianshaab was founded in the far south.

Danish Greenland has since continued on much the same lines. The Royal Trade Monopoly was established by a statute in 1774, and the system of collecting the products along the coast commenced. There are 176 inhabited places scattered over 1000 miles of coast, and 60 trading stations where the products are collected and sent to the chief stations. Besides the yield of the cryolite mine these products consist of oil, the skins of seal, reindeer, fox and bear, eider-down, feathers, whalebone, narwhal horns, walrus tusks, and dried cod; the net revenue being about £6600 a year, not including the cryolite royalty.

The Danish Mission is also a government institution, there being eight missionaries with small salaries, besides catechists, not counting the Moravian missionaries with four stations.