Northeastern Greenland – Eirik the Red's Land

Gradually, the Sunnmøringans understood that if this land capture in North-East Greenland was to be effective, they had to go ashore, build huts and live there all year round. They found polar foxes in particular here in large numbers. The white and blue polar fox, which is closely related to the Norwegian arctic fox, is found everywhere in North-East Greenland. It was easy to spot, and was easy to catch in simple snap traps.

In the period from 1926 to 1959, an average of about 1000 Arctic foxes were caught annually, of which about 15% were blue foxes.

In 1905, they attempted the first expedition to overwinter. However, the icebreaker "Idræt" they used was sunk into the ice before they reached land, and they lost all their equipment.

Later, the leader and another man drowned.

In 1908 the next expedition was ready. It was the "Floren" expedition with seven men and Severin Liavåg as leader. Diverre then drowned the leader and another man while hunting polar bears out on the fjord ice.

The "7 de June" expedition with Vebjørn Landmark as leader set out in 1909. They landed at Germania Hamn at 74 degrees north. That expedition was exposed to the deficiency disease scurvy, one man died and several became ill. The results of the first two expeditions were not great and there was a pause of several years before the next wintering took place.
But these were the pioneers.

These Sunnmøringane had now seen that it was possible to live here and hunt in these inhospitable areas. But the loss, and the rather poor catch yield of these first two expeditions, meant that there was a pause in the winter hunting until 1922 when Johan A. Olsen from Troms went over to Nordaust-Grønland with the M/S "Anni 1".

In collaboration with the Geophysical Institute in Tromsø, the expedition had a radio station established in Myggbukta. Daily meteorological reports were to be sent here, and from 14 October 1922 regular weather reports were sent to Tromsø via Jan Mayen. It would turn out that these weather reports from Myggbukta would be of great importance for international weather forecasting. It was therefore decided that the meteorological service in Myggbukta would continue, and in the summer of 1923 Mikal Olsen set off with a relief crew on board the "Conrad Holmboe".

In addition to the main house in Myggbukta, they also built a cabin at Cape Franklin in 1922. The catch was good, especially with foxes, polar bears and wolves. They expanded the hunting grounds and built more cabins in the area.

But the year 1923 was a difficult year in the Greenland Ice Sheet, in fact with the worst ice conditions they had ever seen. "Anni 1" with Johan Olsen's expedition disappeared without a trace on the way home. "Conrad Holmboe" got stuck in the ice and drifted down to Scoresbysund and made it to Iceland as a wreck.

The M/K "Ørnen" with Meyer Olsen's expedition did not reach the coast and had to turn around and go to Svalbard. The M/K "Polarulv" which was sent to rescue "Anni 1" and "Conrad Holmboe" was wrecked north of Iceland and many of the crew got away. The Danish expedition ship "Teddy" also sank in the Greenland ice sheet that same summer.

Nils Foldvik, Hallvard Devold and Frits Øien from the Geophysical Institute equipped, together with three trappers, for wintering trapping and operation of the radio station in 1926. The Foldvik expedition was to have fundamental significance for further Norwegian activity in North-East Greenland, and this came primarily because Hallvard Devold had convinced the expedition to bring sled dogs from Norway, and this proved to be of great importance.

Previously, Norwegian trappers had been accustomed to small areas from Svalbard and Jan Mayen. In the vast expanses of North-East Greenland, trappers had to drive over large fields. The Foldvik expedition understood this and it was also understood that the trappers would need a lot of help from dog teams. The prerequisite for trapping over large areas was also that a series of main stations were built with a large number of smaller trapping stations, auxiliary stations, located with a short day's journey between each. They built a total of 15 cabins in the area.

From now on, there were annual wintering expeditions to North-East Greenland. The Hird expedition came in 1927-1929. Finn Devold's first expedition was equipped in 1928 and was to take over Myggbukta with the weather service after the Foldvik expedition. In 1928, the expedition made the first attempt at live capture of foxes for farming, and by Christmas they had about 100 foxes in the fox farm, but it ended with them being slaughtered for fur.

In a 30-year period from 1908 to 1938, we had the following wintering expeditions in Northwestern Greenland:

In the summer of 1932, six wintering expeditions set out from Norway to East Greenland. They spread from the Lindenow Fjord to Dove Bay at Germanialand. The southernmost expedition was the Brandal expedition, which landed in an area that would prove to have little catch. But the expedition had two other tasks:

1. To establish a permanent meteorological radio station in the area north of Lindenow Fjord. Landing of new winterers at the Mortensen expedition house and construction of new cabins in this area.
2. To establish a temporary meteorological radio station (in connection with the polar year 1932-33) in Storfjorden. The radio station Torgilsbu was established according to plan, and four new cabins were built in the district. Torgilsbu Radio was later taken over by the Norwegian state, which handed over the administration to the Norwegian Svalbard and Arctic Ocean Research Institute.

But this activity that the Norwegians were carrying out here "irritated" the Danes, who had been granted dominion over this country in the "Treaty of Kiel" of 1814. When Denmark announced in 1921 that Danish suzerainty applied to all of Greenland, Norway protested because of the large hunting and fishing interests it had in East Greenland. In 1924, the East Greenland Agreement was signed. This resolved the practical issues of fishing and hunting, but not the issue of sovereignty.

In 1931, Hallvard Devold carried out a private occupation of the district around the Norwegian radio station in Myggbukta, which was immediately confirmed by the Norwegian government by royal decree. Denmark took the case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague and was awarded sovereignty over all of Greenland by a judgment of 5 April 1933.

Norway was then given a 10-year deadline to end the trapping, but due to the Second World War this deadline was extended. However, from 1959, when the "Polar Seal" was sent to clean up the area, all Norwegian trapping in North-East Greenland ended.