author
Hans Egede
1686–1758
A determined 18th-century priest and explorer, he became one of the key figures in renewing Danish-Norwegian contact with Greenland. His years there shaped both missionary history and some of the earliest widely read European descriptions of Greenland and Inuit life.
1 Audiobook
A Description of Greenland
by Hans Egede
About the author
Born in northern Norway in 1686, Hans Egede was a Lutheran priest who became fascinated by old stories of the lost Norse settlements in Greenland. That interest led him to press for a voyage west, and in 1721 he sailed to Greenland with his family and other settlers, hoping both to find the old colonies and to begin Christian mission work.
He did not find surviving Norse communities, but he stayed and built a lasting presence instead. Egede worked among the Inuit, learned about the country in detail, and helped found the settlement of Godthåb, now Nuuk. Because of this work, later generations often called him the “Apostle of Greenland,” though his legacy is also tied to the wider Danish-Norwegian colonial project on the island.
After years in Greenland, including a period marked by severe smallpox, he returned to Denmark. He continued writing and publishing about Greenland, and his books became an important source of information for European readers. He died in 1758.