On the arrival of Hans Egede at Copenhagen he had an audience of the King, who appointed him Superintendent of the Greenland Mission, with a salary of £100 a year. He passed the last years of his life in retirement with his daughters on the island of Falster, where he died, in his 73rd year, on the 5th November, 1758[98].
The Danish Government took both the Greenland Mission and the trade under royal protection. For it began to be understood that there was wealth in the products of Greenland, in the whalebone and oil, the skins of seals, deer, and foxes, the walrus and narwhal ivory, and the eider-down. There were to be royal factors and storehouses, side by side with missionaries and churches. Stations were to be formed at intervals along the coast, to be visited annually by ships which were to receive the products collected by the factors during the year. The larger stations consisted of the factor’s house, storehouse, and smithy, the mission house and church, and the native huts.
The most southern station, Frederikshaab, was formed in 1742 by Jacob Severin, a merchant of Jutland. About 40 miles to the north of this station is the famous Eis blink, a great ice mass whose “glance” or “blink” in the sky is seen for many leagues out at sea. It forms a vast ice bridge over the fjord, two leagues across and eight leagues long and the ebb tides take quantities of ice out to sea, under the bridge. Further north is the bay which Hans Egede called Fischer’s Fjord, in lat. 63° N. Here a station was formed in 1754, and, four years later, on the same island, the Moravians settled their second mission, which they called Lichtenfels. These were the only stations south of Godthaab in the early days.
To the north, the station of Sukkertoppen was founded in 1755, and in 1759 Holsteinborg was established, and named after Count Holstein, President of the Missions College. The first factor was Nils Egede, younger son of the great missionary. Holsteinborg is well placed in an excellent harbour with the numerous Knight Islands in the offing. Fifty miles further north is the station of Egedesminde which was founded by Nils Egede in 1759, who gave it that name in memory of his father. In Disco Bay a settlement was formed by order of Jacob Severin as early as 1734 and named Christianshaab. Paul Egede was the first missionary there[99]. Claushavn was established further north in 1752. The shores and islands of Disco Bay were, at that time, the most populous part of Greenland. Another station was founded there in 1741, which was named Jacobshavn in memory of the Director of trade, Jacob Severin. In the south entrance of the Waigat the station of Rittenbenk was founded in 1755, and at the other end that of Noursoak in 1758. In those days nothing was known further north, but these 12 stations had factors, and were annually visited by ships to receive the year’s collection of blubber and skins. Some 20 years later, in 1774, the station of Julianshaab was founded in the far south.
Danish Greenland has since continued on much the same lines. The Royal Trade Monopoly was established by a statute in 1774, and the system of collecting the products along the coast commenced. There are 176 inhabited places scattered over 1000 miles of coast, and 60 trading stations where the products are collected and sent to the chief stations. Besides the yield of the cryolite mine these products consist of oil, the skins of seal, reindeer, fox and bear, eider-down, feathers, whalebone, narwhal horns, walrus tusks, and dried cod; the net revenue being about £6600 a year, not including the cryolite royalty.
The Danish Mission is also a government institution, there being eight missionaries with small salaries, besides catechists, not counting the Moravian missionaries with four stations.
CHAPTER XIX
THE HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY. HEARNE AND MACKENZIE, COOK AND PHIPPS
We have seen how quickly a lucrative trade and remunerative returns followed on the heels of Arctic discoveries. It was so in the Spitsbergen seas, it was so in Greenland and Davis Strait, and now we shall see that it was so in Hudson’s Bay. The Hudson’s Bay Company, under the auspices of Prince Rupert, was founded in 1668, and an expedition was sent out, consisting of the ship Nonsuch, under the command of Captain Zachariah Gillam. That officer wintered with his crew in Rupert’s river and established a station called Fort Charles. A charter was granted by which the sole right to trade in Hudson’s Bay and Strait was given to the Company, with territorial rights and jurisdiction. Stations were formed and a trade in furs was established with the Indians, who received European goods in exchange.
Discovery was not altogether neglected, although nothing was thought of but trade during the first 50 years. In 1720 a sloop was sent on a voyage of discovery under two officers named Knight and Barlow, but they were never heard of more. A Captain Scroggs was sent in search, but without result. Again in 1737 a sloop and shallop were despatched by the Company, also without result.
In 1741 a Mr Arthur Dobbs became the chief projector of an expedition to discover a north-west passage by Hudson’s Bay. The Admiralty gave assistance, and Captain Christopher Middleton received the command of an old bomb vessel called the Furnace, with a pink called the Discovery, under Captain William Moore, as a consort. Arriving late in the season of 1741, Captain Middleton resolved to winter in the Churchill river, housing his men in an old fort. In February, 1742, scurvy broke out. The only efficacious treatment was not then understood, and Captain Middleton’s panacea was plenty of rum with sugar to make punch. There were some deaths in March but not enough to hinder the expedition, and in July 1742 the voyage was resumed, the plan being to explore the great opening called by Luke Foxe “Sir Thomas Roe his Welcome,” and to seek a passage by that route. The cape on the western side of the sound in 65° 10′ N. Middleton named Cape Dobbs. Proceeding up the Welcome he discovered an opening which at first seemed likely to lead to the desired passage, but it turned out to be the estuary of a river which was named the Wager River, after Sir Charles Wager, then First Lord of the Admiralty. A point of land was named Cape Hope, because hopes of a passage were revived on rounding it and further north another opening to the west was seen, but it could not be explored owing to the ice and the state of the weather. It received the name of Repulse Bay. Then Frozen Strait was discovered at the head of the Welcome and, on climbing a high hill, Middleton saw that the coast trended south-east to the Cape Comfort of Baffin, thus proving the insularity of Southampton Island. The expedition then shaped a course down Hudson Strait, arriving in the Thames in October 1742.