The Peary Channel ( da, Peary-kanal) was a hypothetical

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

or marine channel running from east to west separating

Peary Land Peary Land is a peninsula in northern Greenland, extending into the Arctic Ocean. It reaches from Victoria Fjord in the west to Independence Fjord in the south and southeast, and to the Arctic Ocean in the north, with Cape Morris Jesup, the north ...

in northernmost

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

from the mainland further south. The assumed existence of this channel and other errors in Peary's maps reportedly caused the tragic loss of the leading team of the

Denmark expedition The Denmark expedition ( da, Danmark-ekspeditionen), also known as the Denmark Expedition to Greenland's Northeast Coast, and as the Danmark Expedition after the ship, was an expedition to the northeast of Greenland in 1906–1908. Despite being ...

to Greenland's Northeast Coast 1906–1908.

Geography

Robert Peary based his mapping of the area on observations he made in 1892 from Navy Cliff, located north of the

Academy Glacier Foundation Ice Stream is a major ice stream in Antarctica's Pensacola Mountains. The ice stream drains northward for along the west side of the Patuxent Range and the Neptune Range to enter the Ronne Ice Shelf westward of Dufek Massif. The Unit ...

. From his perspective the channel allegedly connected the head of

Independence Fjord Independence Fjord or Independence Sound is a large fjord or sound in the eastern part of northern Greenland. It is about long and up to wide. Its mouth, opening to the Wandel Sea of the Arctic Ocean is located at . In the area around Independe ...

in the east with the heads of

Nordenskiöld Fjord Nordenskiöld Fjord or Nordenskjöld Fjord is a fjord in Peary Land, northern Greenland. Geography To the northwest the fjord opens into the Lincoln Sea of the Arctic Ocean. It separates the island of Nares Land, to the west of the fjord, from Fr ...

and a parallel and misplaced "Chipp Inlet" in the west. There is a Chipp Sound that separates Sverdrup Island from smaller Elison Island, but it is located at the other end of Nordenskiöld Fjord, beyond its mouth. In Peary's map Independence Fjord was merely a short bay and further to the east Peary had drawn the coast of hypothetical "Academy Land" slanting southeastwards with the " East Greenland Sea" to the north. In the wake of the tragic outcome of the Denmark expedition's main team, many scholars were highly critical of Peary's cartographic errors, but

Lauge Koch Lauge Koch (5 July 1892 – 5 June 1964) was a Danish geologist and Arctic explorer. Biography Lauge Koch was born in 1892 to Karl and Elisabeth Koch. His development as a scientist was greatly influenced by his father's second cousin Johan Pet ...

, who made detailed surveys of the area in the 1920s and 30s, took a more lenient view:

History

In 1907

Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen (15 January 1872 – 25 November 1907) was a Danish author, ethnologist, and explorer, from Ringkøbing. He was most notably an explorer of Greenland. Literary expedition With Count Harald Moltke and Knud Rasmussen Mylius-E ...

(1872–1907), the ill-fated leader of the Denmark expedition, searched in vain for the Peary Channel in 1907 and was misled to his death by existing maps. Two years later

Ejnar Mikkelsen Ejnar Mikkelsen (December 23, 1880 – May 1, 1971) was a Danish polar explorer and author. He is most known for his expeditions to Greenland. Biography Mikkelsen was born in Vester Brønderslev, Jutland. He served in the Georg Carl Amdrup ex ...

(1880–1971), leader of the

Alabama expedition ''Two Against the Ice'' is a non-fiction book authored by Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen. The book details the author's exploration into Greenland, a journey made with his compatriot Iver P. Iversen in 1910. The book was originally published in ...

, assumed that the channel existed, until he found Mylius-Erichsen's report in a cairn at the head of

Danmark Fjord Danmark Fjord (), also known as Denmark Sound, is a fjord in northeast Greenland. Administratively it belongs to the Northeast Greenland National Park. The fjord was explored and named after the expedition ship '' Danmark'' at the time of the ill ...

, where Mylius-Erichsen had written emphatically that: Finally

Knud Rasmussen Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (; 7 June 1879 – 21 December 1933) was a Greenlandic–Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" (now often known as Inuit Studies or Greenlandic and Arctic Studies ...

, during his First Thule Expedition, also realized in 1912 that Peary Land is a peninsula and corrections were made in the maps of northernmost Greenland printed after that date.Spencer Apollonio, ''Lands That Hold One Spellbound: A Story of East Greenland,'' 2008 p. 139 Not knowing about the non-existence of the Peary Channel beforehand, the leaders of these three expeditions had planned eventually to use the Peary Channel to reach the NW coast of Greenland for their return journey. Since 1892 it had taken a full twenty years after being put on the map to confirm that the Peary Channel had been a cartographic error.Iben Bjørnsson. ''The Misery of Peary's Elusive Channel'', The Arctic Journal, 12 July 2016

References

{{coord missing, Denmark 19th century in the Arctic Sounds of North America Straits of Greenland Error 1890s in Greenland Peary Land