Greenland Expeditioning. A Balanced Perspective By Eric Philips
Published on Explorers Web www.exweb.com - 2005 In 1888 the
Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen and his team made the first crossing
of Greenland (locally known as Kalaallit Nunaat). It was a
pioneering and extraordinarily daring exploit that relied not on
dogs but their own human-power and rudimentary sledge-rigged
sails made from their tent floors. This expedition into the
unknown interior of an icecap is widely regarded as heralding a
new era of polar endeavor, that of icecap exploration, which
ultimately lead to the Heroic Era of Antarctica exploration and
the attainment of the South Pole. The American, Robery Peary, of
North Pole fame/infamy, spent many years in Greenland before his
Arctic Ocean era. His early expeditions explored the lower
icecap east of Qaanaaq (Thule) but in 1891-92 he dog-sledded
across the northern and wider sector of the icecap from
McCormick Bay, near the current Thule Air Base, to Independence
Fiord and back, a distance of ove