50 a ARIC AL 
GARDER 
INTRODUCTION 
rs høg a person who has lived many years in the Arctic and become 
acclimatized to it, what, if anything, he finds wanting of the 
ordinary life of his more genial mother country, he will respond that 
he misses something, sometimes so much that he is heartsick with 
longing, such things as fresh strawberries, the shade of trees, or good 
music. For the last, quite lately radio has been a good substitute, but 
the other things will probably for all time be unattainable. 
It had been the writer's wish for many years to make a trip to 
southernmost Greenland, that peculiar section, part of a big Arctic 
land, but not Arctic itself, or rather, with the Arctic keynote modified 
by a nuance of something more genial. It is a country where trees still 
are seen; where Eric the Red and his people had their farms, churches 
and cloisters; and where now their Eskimo victors, their seals having 
gone, are trying to establish a living by cattle- and sheep-ranching, 
in the fashion of the old Norse and on their very farm-sites. But the 
short Arctic summer too often made such a trip impossible. The fact 
that all connection with the outer world is limited to three months, 
condenses to the same short period all administrative and clerical 
work. Also, the steamers do not touch the ports of the whole coast, 
and even if such a rare event should happen, one would be without 
means of transportation in the working field if they were not taken along 
from the starting point. 
In 1924, the Danish Government had granted the Arctic Station 
a new motor-boat, the “A. Holck”, named in memory of the man 
through whose generosity the Danish Arctic station was founded in 
1906. Built as a yawl of 15 tons burden, with a 12 H. P. engine, it was 
stronger and more sea-worthy than that which the station had pre- 
viously possessed. It arrived in the autumn, too late for an extended 
experimental cruise that year, but during the winter the southern trip 
was prepared for. As the ships in the spring of the next year brought 
no visitors to the station, there seemed to be no obstacle, and the 
long desired trip was started. 
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