INTRODUCTION 



IN the year 1910, at North Star Bay, in North Greenland, 

 I founded an Arctic Station wherefrom I could explore 

 the regions which as yet had not been closely examined. 

 The first result from this station was the first Thule Expedition. 

 The various expeditions which subsequently went out with this 

 station as their base I have therefore named after the station, 

 Thule. 



On the first Thule Expedition in 1912, when the route was 

 laid across the inland-ice of Greenland from Clements Markham 

 Glacier in the mouth of Inglefield Gulf on the west coast to 

 Denmark Fjord on the east coast, we forced our way through 

 Independence Fjord into the land connecting Greenland and 

 Peary Land, and by charting we established that the channel 

 which Robert E. Peary thought he had discovered between 

 Independence Fjord on the north-east side and Nordenskjold 

 Inlet on the north-west side was non-existent. 



Because of the long journey, more than 1,000 kilometres 

 across the inland-ice, and the conditions which made progress 

 difficult in the neighbourhood of Denmark Fjord, we did not 

 succeed in pushing quite through from the recently discovered 

 Adam Biering Land to the vicinity of Nordenskjold Inlet and 

 Sherard Osborne Fjord. At the time when the decision to 

 commence the return journey was made we had spent more 

 than four months of incessant and very strenuous journeying 

 through unknown regions, and out of consideration both for 

 ourselves and our dogs we found it necessary to attempt the 

 homeward journey across the inland-ice to my station Thule by 

 North Star Bay, and postpone the exploration of the unknown 

 districts of Greenland until the time when the work could be 

 recommenced with renewed strength. 

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