WRECKED ON THE COAST OF 

 GREENLAND 



By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT 



N THE 7th of August, 1894, the steamer 

 " Miranda," with a company of tourists 

 under charge of Dr. F. A. Cook, put into 

 the harbor of Sukkertoppen, on the west 

 coast of Greenland, and was cordially 

 greeted both by the two cultivated fami- 

 lies who represented the Danish govern- 

 ment in that district, and by the three or 

 four hundred Eskimo who were clustered in the village 

 on the rocky shores. It was designed that we should 

 remain in the place but two days, while some slight repairs 

 were made to the steamer, but these two days were suffi- 

 cient to allow our party to make a most interesting trip 

 in boats forty or fifty miles up the Isortok Fiord, which 

 penetrates the pasture grounds of the few remaining rein- 

 deer that have survived the introduction of firearms into 

 Greenland. The excursion was doubly interesting from 

 the fact that two or three glaciers enter the fiord through 

 tributary valleys leading down from the main Greenland 

 icefield, which stretches for an indefinite distance to the 

 northeast, and which we were subsequently to visit. 



We were back at Sukkertoppen on the 9th, ready to 

 start for the far north. As is well known, the " Miranda " 

 was not a fortunate ship. On our way up we had run 

 into an iceberg in the Straits of Belle Isle, which stove a 

 great hole in her iron plates above the water line; but 

 fortunately the sea was calm, and we were near St. Charles 

 Harbor in Labrador, where we put in for temporary relief, 



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