Mikkelsen, Ejnar - Lost in the Arctic. The Alabama Expedition 1909-1912 - 1913

Account of the gruelling journeys in the search for the missing expedition compatriots

Mikkelsen, Ejnar
Lost in the Arctic. The Alabama Expedition 1909-1912
London: William Heinemann, 1913 [first English edition]

8vo (25x19 cm); xviii,  395 pages. Illustrated with numerous b/w photographs and a large folding map at rear. Bound in the original green cloth with silver decorations on front and spine.

Condition good minus: Wear at spine ends with small split in cloth. Corners of boards moderately bumped and worn with light spotting. Outer hinges are intact. Remnants of a private bookplate on the front free endpaper. Lacking the tissue guard of the frontis photograph. All illustrations present. The map at the end of the book has a few tears and folds, but remains complete.

First and rarer English edition of this translation from the Danish original. In 1906, the Danish government and other Danish interests sponsored a scientific expedition to the little-explored North-East coast of Greenland. To facilitate research, the expedition split into three teams, one of which, comprising Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, N.P. Hoeg-Hagen and N.I.J. Bronlund, disappeared. In 1909, following the discovery of Bronlund's body, Ejnar Mikkelsen led a follow-up expedition to search for the remaining missing men, as well as their scientific records. Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen journeyed north towards the region explored by their predecessors and in May 1910 came across cairns containing records left by them on Danmark Fiord. The search, however, was an arduous one, and took its toll on Mikkelsen and Iversen, who lost their dogs along with their supplies, diaries and other materials. After a series of ordeals and a long wait of more than a year, the two men were finally rescued in July 1912. Lost in the Arctic is Mikkelsen's account of this expedition and of the gruelling journeys he undertook along with Iversen in the search for their compatriots.