Jens Munk (explorer)

Explorer

• Born: June or July 3, 1579
• Birthplace: Arendal, Norway
• Died: June 1, 1628
• Place of death: Copenhagen, Denmark

Significance: Jens Munk was a Dano-Norwegian explorer who was sent by King Christian IV of Denmark to find the Northwest Passage, a sea route from Europe to Asia via the Arctic Ocean. He was known for his feats at war and his expeditions.

Background

Jens Eriksen Munk was born on June or July 3, 1579, at his father’s estate of Barbo in Arendal, Norway, which was at that time part of a united kingdom with Denmark. He was the second of two sons. His father, Erik Nielsen Munk, was an aristocrat, but his mother, Anna Bartholomaeidatter, was neither of the nobility nor legally married to Erik Munk. Jens Munk, therefore, had no official standing in the Danish aristocracy. Munk’s father had his fiefs confiscated in 1585 and was imprisoned in 1586; according to most sources, this was due to his mistreatment of his subjects and attempts to gain money through illegal means. Shortly afterward, he died in prison, in what was likely a suicide.

Munk’s mother, no longer able to remain at the estate, moved with her children to the small town of Frederiksstad, and when Munk was nine years old, she sent him to live with his father’s sister, who had married the burgomaster, or mayor, of Aalborg, a city in northern Denmark.

When Munk was twelve, he boarded a ship bound for Oporto, Portugal, where he worked for a year for shipping magnate Duart Duez. At the age of thirteen, he sailed to Bahia, Brazil, and was attacked by pirates. One of only seven survivors, Munk continued to live in Bahia, working odd jobs, until 1598, when he returned to Copenhagen and was hired by the Lord Chancellor Henrik Ramel as a ship clerk. He worked in this capacity until he earned enough money for a ship of his own.

Exploration

In 1609, Munk and his partner Jens Hvid sailed out on a hunting expedition in the icy Barents Sea, near the Russian archipelago of Novaya Zemlya. The expedition was disastrous: Munk’s ship was wrecked, most of the men were lost, and Munk lost a large sum of money. For this reason, he entered the service of King Christian IV; his first assignment, in 1610, was to sail north in search of a Northeast Passage. However, this expedition came to an early end when ice prevented the ships’ progress, and further attempts were forestalled by the outbreak of war with Sweden. In this conflict, known as the Kalmar War (1611–13), Munk served as a naval officer.

After peace was concluded, Munk returned to conducting explorations at the behest of the king, and also took up whaling, becoming the first to introduce the whaling industry to Denmark. In 1618 the king tasked Munk with preparing an expedition to India via Cape Horn, but the command went not to Munk, but to the nobleman Ove Gjedde. Undaunted by this setback, Munk proposed to the king an expedition to search for the Northwest Passage.

Munk set out on the voyage for the Northwest Passage May 9, 1619, with about sixty-four men and two ships, the Enhjørningen (Unicorn) and the Lamprenen (Lamprey). The voyage was troubled from the outset, and after accidental detours into Frobisher and Ungava Bays and worse weather in the Hudson Strait than Munk had expected, the expedition reached the Hudson Bay two months later than planned. Under Arctic winter weather conditions, they could neither sail on nor return to Denmark, so they were forced to spend the winter in the Hudson Bay, where most of the men succumbed to scurvy. On July 16, 1620, Munk and his two remaining crew members set sail for Denmark-Norway on the Lamprenen; despite damage to the ship and the fact that it was intended for a crew of sixteen, they arrived safely in Dalafjord, Norway, on September 21.

Both Munk and the king wished to prepare a second expedition in search of the Northwest Passage, but this never came to fruition, in part because the failure of the 1619–20 expedition made it difficult to find a crew. He published his account of his Arctic expedition, Navigatio Septentrionalis, in Copenhagen in 1626. Munk remained a member of the royal navy until his death in 1628 in unclear circumstances. One early biographer, Isaac de la Peyrère (ca. 1594–1676), reported that the king blamed Munk for the failure of the Northwest Passage expedition and Munk was so distraught over this that he wasted away. However, other early accounts simply state that Munk died several days after participating in a naval engagement in the Thirty Years’ War against Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, and most later biographers and historians consider it more likely that he died of wounds sustained in this battle. He was buried in Copenhagen on July 3.

Impact

Jens Munk was one of the first explorers to attempt to find the Northwest Passage, a search that would continue for centuries after his death. (The Northwest Passage was first successfully navigated by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen between 1903 and 1906.) An uninhabited island near Baffin Island, off the coast of Nunavut, Canada, was named Jens Munk Island in his honor. The Jens Munk rose, a particularly hardy species that can survive temperatures as low as -45 degrees Fahrenheit, was also named for him. The remains of the ship he abandoned in the Hudson Bay were found by a small Danish team in 1964.

Personal Life

Munk was married twice. His first marriage, to Katherine Adriansdatter, ended in divorce in 1623. His second marriage, in 1626, was to Margrethe Tagesdatter, to whom he was married at his death. He had several children.

Bibliography

Corley, Nora T. "Munk (Munck), Jens Eriksen." Dictionary of Canadian Biography. U of Toronto/Université Laval, 1979. Web. 5 Aug. 2016.

Davis, Richard C., ed. Lobsticks and Stone Cairns: Human Landmarks in the Arctic. Calgary: U of Calgary P, 1996. Print.

Day, Alan. Historical Dictionary of the Discovery and Exploration of the Northwest Passage. Lanham: Scarecrow, 2006. Print.

Gosch, C. C. A. Danish Arctic Expeditions, 1605 to 1620. 1897. Reprint. New York: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.

Macpherson, Margaret A. Silk, Spices, and Glory: In Search of the Northwest Passage. Markham: Fifth House, 2001. Print.

Sandnes, Joachim. "Exploring Canada’s Arctic Frontiers: Jens Munk and the Death in Hudson Bay." Norway: The Official Site in Canada. Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ottawa, n.d. Web. 5 Aug. 2016.