Jørgen Brønlund’s Diary 1907.
NkS 565 8º

First page of the diary (in Greenlandic)	The famous farewell note

The Greenland schoolteacher and arctic explorer Jørgen Brønlund (1877-1907) participated in the “Denmark Expedition” to Northeast Greenland in 1906-1908. He and two other members of the expedition, the leader Ludvig Mylius Erichsen and Niels Peter Høeg Hagen, died travelling back from the Independence Fiord. Brønlund died last at the 79-Fiord (named after the 79th latitude) in November 1907. This diary was found beside his body. It is kept in Greenlandic, but the moving farewell note is in Danish. It tells of the fate of his companions and explains that he cannot go on himself due to frostbitten limbs:
“Died 79 Fiord after attempt return home across the inland ice, in the month of November. I come here by waning moonlight, and could no more from frostbitten feet, and because of the darkness. The reason bodies of others are in the middle of the fiord in front of glacier (c. 2½ miles). Hagen died 15 November and Mylius about 10 days later. Jørgen Brønlund”.

16.5 x 11 cm.

See the entire diary in an online edition (only in Danish) by the Manuscript and Rare Books Department Jørgen Brønlund: Dagbog 1907.

© Det Kongelige Bibliotek 2003