Clavering Island
Clavering Ø Nickname: Eskimonæs | |
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Map drawn during Lauge Koch's expedition 1931-1934 | |
Clavering Island (Greenland) | |
Geography | |
Location | East-Greenland |
Coordinates | 74°16′N 21°00′W / 74.267°N 21.000°WCoordinates: 74°16′N 21°00′W / 74.267°N 21.000°W |
Area | 1,535 km2 (593 sq mi) |
Highest elevation | 1,650 m (5,410 ft) |
Highest point | Ortlerspids |
Administration | |
Greenland | |
Northeast Greenland National Park | |
Demographics | |
Population | 0 |
Clavering Island (Danish: Clavering Ø) is a large island in eastern Greenland off Gael Hamkes Bay, to the south of Wollaston Foreland.
History
It was named by the second German North Polar Expedition 1869–70 as Clavering Insel to commemorate Douglas Charles Clavering (1794–1827), commander of the Griper on the 1823 voyage, which explored the area and, at the southern shore of this island made the first (and last) encounter that Europeans made with the now extinct Northeast-Greenland Inuit.
In late August 1823, Clavering and the crew of the Griper encountered a band of twelve Inuit, including men, women and children. In his journal, Clavering described their seal-skin tent, canoe, and clothes, their harpoons and spear tipped with bone and meteoric iron, and their physical appearance ("tawny coppery" skin, "black hair and round visages; their hands and feet very fleshy, and much swelled"). He remarked on their skill in skinning a seal, the custom of sprinkling water over a seal or walrus before skinning, and their amazement at the demonstration of firearms for hunting.[1]
European visitors to Northeast Greenland prior to 1823 reported evidence of extensive Inuit settlement in the region although they encountered no humans. Later expeditions, starting with the Second German North Polar Expedition in 1869, found the remains of many former settlements, but the population had apparently died out during the intervening years.[2]
Bones of muskoxen have been found at Inuit sites on the island, but no such animals were reported by Clavering in 1823. Large numbers of Arctic hare bones suggest that the Inuit were reduced to hunting smaller game after the extinction of muskoxen in the area. After humans died out, muskoxen returned, and the first pair of live muskoxen ever to be brought to Europe were captured at Clavering Island in 1899.[3][4]
Geography
Clavering Island is a coastal island, separated from the mainland by a narrow sound of the Greenland Sea. Its highest point is the 1650 m high Ortlerspids and the island has an area of 1,534.6 km2 (592.5 sq mi) and a shoreline of 165.4 km.[5] Some small islands are located nearby, such as the Finsch Islands to the south and Jackson Island to the southeast at the mouth of the bay.[6]
See also
References
- ↑ Clavering, Douglas Charles (1830). "Journal of a voyage to Spitzbergen and the east coast of Greenland, in His Majesty's ship Griper". Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal 9: 21–24.
- ↑ Sandell, Hanne Tuborg; Sandell, Birger (1991). "Archaeology and Environment in the Scoresby Sund Fjord". Meddelelser om Grønland Man & Society (Museum Tusculanum Press) 15: 23. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
- ↑ Vibe, Christian (1967). "Arctic Animals in Relation to Climatic Fluctuations". Meddelelser om Grønland 170: 1–227.
- ↑ Lent, Peter C. (1999). Muskoxen and Their Hunters: A History. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 91, 132. ISBN 0-8061-3170-5.
- ↑ UNEP
- ↑ Shannon Ø
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