Hovgaard Island (Greenland)

This article is about the island in Greenland. For the island in Antarctica, see Hovgaard Island. For the island in Russia, see Hovgaard Island (Kara Sea).
Hovgaard Island
Hovgaard Ø
Hovgaard Island
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 km (37 mi)
Width 42 km (26.1 mi)
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]

Polar climate prevails in Hovgaard Island. The average annual temperature in the area is -17 °C. The warmest month is July when the average temperature reaches -2 °C and the coldest is February when the temperature sinks to -29 °C.[2]

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.[3]

The island has an length of 60 km and a width of 42 km. Part of the interior is covered by an ice cap.[1]

Map of Northeastern Greenland.
View of the terminus of the Nioghalvfjerdsbrae glacier with the southwestern end of Hovgaard Island and Cape Adolf Jensen.

History

Hovgaard Island was explored by the ill-fated Denmark Expedition to the North-East Coast of Greenland in 1906–1908.[4] 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. ↑ "NASA Earth Observations Data Set Index". NASA. Retrieved 30 January 2016.
  3. ↑ "Hovgaard Ø". Mapcarta. Retrieved 10 April 2016.
  4. 1 2 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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