Die Arctic-Gletscher (Melville Bay)

Title

Die Arctic-Gletscher (Melville Bay)

Description

View shows Melville Bay of Baffin Bay on the west coast of Greenland with sailing ship offshore.

ca. 1850

Artist

Kunstanstalt Hildburghausen (1828-1874)

The German publishing company Bibliographisches Institut was founded 1826 in Gotha by Joseph Meyer, moved 1828 to Hildburghausen and 1874 to Leipzig. Its production over the years includes such well-known titles as Meyers Lexikon.

Historical Description

Greenland is the largest island in the world and is geologically part of the Arctic North America. From a political point of view, it is an autonomous part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Around 875, the Norwegian Gunnbjørn discovered the island and named it Gunnbjørnland. In 982 Erik the Red had to flee Iceland and finally ended up in southwest Greenland. He gave the island its name Grænland. The Vikings who settled in Greenland were therefore called Grænlendingar. Around 1124 to 1126 Greenland became its own diocese, the bishopric of which was in Gardar, today's Igaliku, with the cathedral of Garðar. In 1350, the Icelandic churchman Ivar Bardarsson reported that the western settlement had been abandoned. A Swedish-Norwegian expedition under Paul Knudson (1355-1364) found no more Grænlendingar there. The last written record of the Northmen from the eastern settlement is from 1408, telling of a wedding in the church of Hvalsey. Contacts with Norway and Iceland broke off. After Europe lost contact with the settlers on Greenland in 1408, the island received little attention for 300 years due to its inhospitable nature. The English navigator John Davis landed in 1585, looking for the Northwest Passage, as the first new discoverer of Greenland, which he called the Land of Desolation, near present-day Nuuk. He circumnavigated the southern tip of the island and gave Cape Farvel its name. Under Christian IV there were three expeditions to Greenland in 1605, 1606 and 1607. In the first, helmsman James Hall, who had probably also driven with John Davis, recommended the new route taken by John Davis between the Orkney and Shetland Islands. In 1721 Greenland was taken over by the Norwegian Hans Egede for Denmark-Norway. In the Peace of Kiel in 1814, the Danish-Norwegian personal union was dissolved, Greenland fell to Denmark, but with the entry into force of the new Danish constitution on June 5, 1953, Greenland was no longer a colony.