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Perpetual ice

Alltogether twelve missinary ships of the brethren set sails between 1770 and 1926. These ships mostly provided supplies for those missionary outpost in Labrador that were not otherwise connected by sea. Five out of these twelve ships were named “Harmony”.
At 27, Johann August Miertsching (1815-1875) was appointed to missionary service and travelled via London on the sailing vessel “Harmony” to the missionary settlement Okak in the North of Labrador. There Miertsching studied Inuktit, the language of the Inuit, taught children and later also preached in the local language. Only just returned to his home, he received an order by the British admiralty. This made him travel to the Arctic as an interpreter for a naval expedition in search of the missing Franklin expedition which had set out to find the Northwest Passage three years before.
The details of the incredible hardships endured by all members of the expedition on the sailing vessel HMS Investigator – storms, ice, freezing cold, hunger, despair, their unbelievable courage when their ship was stuck in the ice for several winters before they finally rescued themselves by forced marches through arctic deserts – are all described in Miertschings travellog.
Miertsching, Johann August
Frozen ships. The arctic diary of Johan Miertsching, 1850-54. New York: St. Martins Press 1967.