A DREARY COUNTRY by E. J. Burnham

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 11, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 50.

A DREARY COUNTRY.

By E. J. Burnham

GREENLAND is a land of glaciers and icebergs. Beyond the narrow strip of coastland, which is snow-covered eight or nine months in the year, is the great inland ice-field, “rough, crevasse-torn, white, earthless, moraineless, lifeless,” stretching in the distance to a dim, misty horizon of ice, and in places rising to a height of several thousand feet above the level of the sea. The approach to the inland ice is “generally in the form of a glacier offshoot which has crept down into a fiord, or is making its way to the sea in one of the mossy valleys lying between two high cliffs,—valleys noisy with mallmucks or with the weird screams of cormorants” which have established colonies in various sheltered nooks. On reaching the sea, the glacier plows along the bottom, until the force of the water buoys it up. Presently a great mass is broken off, and as an iceberg it sails away, a menace to the safety of ships in warmer seas.

In the southern part of the island more snow falls than in the north, and traveling is more difficult. While the people in the northland are enjoying lovely rides over the sparkling ice, lighted by the flashing glories of the aurora, those in the south are often snow-bound for a prolonged season, confined to within a few yards of their homes, if the snow is not too deep for them to get even this short distance.

The vegetation of Greenland is arctic. There are no forests, and farming is impossible. When Hans Egede declared that he would support his family in that distant field by cultivating the land, he was told that there was no land to cultivate; and this is true. “No crops, in the strict acceptation of the term, are cultivated in Greenland, but at Godthaab attempts have been made to grow turnips, radishes, lettuce, and chervil, in little gardens made with earth brought from the site of old Eskimo houses. Potatoes never grow larger than marbles, while peas only produce seeds barely recognizable.”

In this dreary, desolate country Hans Egede and his noble wife chose to labor for the wild, degraded, pagan Eskimos. Truly it took Christian heroism and love, the love of Christ for perishing souls to enable them to face such hardships and suffering as fell to their lot. Fifteen years they labored there. Elizabeth died at her post, then Hans, with his children and the dead body of his wife, returned to the home land. But others were already there to take up the work as it fell from their hands. It was prosecuted with great difficulty and even danger; but great have been the results, for as a people the natives have abandoned their old pagan ways, and are enjoying the blessings of civilization and Christianity.

There are about three hundred Danes on the island and ten thousand Eskimos. The latter live by hunting and fishing. Along the west coast of their possessions the Danes have established trading stations, where for exportation they collect from the natives oil, seal-skins, eider down, and other products of the chase and of their fisheries. The musk-ox and ermine are found only in the extreme north, beyond the Danish settlements.

At the best Greenland is, as Hans Egede called it, a land “desolate and cruel;” but the missionaries, while opening for the poor Eskimos a door of hope for the future life, have greatly improved their condition in the present life. E. J. BURNHAM.