Hovgaard Island (Greenland)

For the island in Antarctica, see Hovgaard Island.
Hovgaard Island
Hovgaard Ø
Hovgaard Island (Greenland)
Geography
Location Greenland Sea
Coordinates 79°54′N 18°30′W / 79.900°N 18.500°W / 79.900; -18.500Coordinates: 79°54′N 18°30′W / 79.900°N 18.500°W / 79.900; -18.500
Length 60
Width 42
Highest elevation 1,086 m (3,563 ft)
Administration
Zone Northeast Greenland National Park
Demographics
Population 0

Hovgaard Island (Danish: Hovgaard Ø) is a large uninhabited island of the Greenland Sea, Greenland. The island was named after Andreas Hovgaard, a Polar explorer and officer of the Danish Navy who led an expedition to the Kara Sea on steamship Dijmphna in 1882-83.[1]

Geography

Hovgaard Island is a coastal island located to the south of the Holm Land Peninsula. To the west, further inshore, lies smaller Lynn Island and to the east and the southeast the Greenland Sea. The Dijmphna Sound limits the island to the west and north, and to the southwest lies the mouth of the Nioghalvfjerd Fjord of the Nioghalvfjerdsbrae glacier.[2]

The island has an length of 60 km and a width of 42 km.[1]

Map of Northeastern Greenland.
1911 German map of NE Greenland showing Hovgaard Island.

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History

Hovgaard Island was explored by the Danmark Expedition to the North-East Coast of Greenland in 1906–1908.[3] The northwestern coast of the island was surveyed by Alfred Wegener in 1907, who at that time put Lynn Island on the map for the first time in history.[4]

In 1910 Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen (1884–1968), two members of the Danish Alabama Expedition struggled against the cold and famine on the island. Mikkelsen wrote the following about this bleak, inhospitable place:

... and the name Hovgaard Island will stay with us forever connected with hunger, deprivation, cold and distress.[5]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Hovgaard Ø. In: Anthony K. Higgins: Exploration history and place names of northern East Greenland. Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland Bulletin Bd. 21, 2010. Copenhagen 2010, ISBN 978-87-7871-292-9
  2. ↑ "Hovgaard Ø]". Mapcarta. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  3. ↑ G. Amdrup: Report on the Danmark Expedition to the North-East Coast of Greenland 1906–1908. Meddelelser om Grønland. vol. 41, 1913, pp. 143–147
  4. ↑ G. Amdrup: Report on the Danmark Expedition to the North-East Coast of Greenland 1906–1908. In: Meddelelser om Grønland. vol. 41, 1913, pp. 143–147.
  5. ↑ Ejnar Mikkelsen: Ein arktischer Robinson, F. A. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1913, p. 242


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