Two stranded men spent over two years alone in the frozen environments of northern Greenland. Abandoned by their crew and left with a wrecked ship, Danish explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen and an inexperienced mechanic named Iver Iversen faced starvation, deadly scurvy, and the extreme cold.
They battled freezing temperatures while waiting for a rescue vessel that took twenty eight months to arrive. This 1909 expedition pushed them into an extreme survival situation, ending in a dramatic rescue where arriving sailors were initially terrified of the wild looking survivors.
A Dangerous Search Mission in Greenland
In 1909, Ejnar Mikkelsen set sail on a small sloop named the Alabama to locate the missing records of Ludvig Mylius Erichsen’s doomed Denmark Expedition. Before heading into the ice, the expedition’s original mechanic fell ill. A young assistant engineer named Iver Iversen volunteered at the very last minute to replace him.
By late August, their ship became trapped in the sea ice off Shannon Island. Mikkelsen and Iversen soon embarked on a difficult sled journey northward to trace the final steps.
The Discovery and a Desperate Return
The two men successfully located a cairn containing the crucial missing diaries. The recovered notes revealed a major geographical discovery, proving that an open waterway called Peary’s Channel did not actually exist. However, the trek back to their ship quickly turned disastrous.
They ran out of food and Mikkelsen developed severe scurvy, leaving him completely unable to walk. Iversen dragged him on the sled while their dogs rapidly died off from starvation and exhaustion. They eventually had to eat the remaining dogs to stay alive. After discarding their tents and sleeping bags to lighten the load, they finally reached Shannon Island.
Stranded at the Alabama Cottage
Upon arriving at the coast on September 19, they discovered that the Alabama had been crushed by the ice. The rest of their crew had safely returned home on a passing sealer. Utterly alone, Mikkelsen and Iversen built a small hut from the wooden wreckage of their destroyed ship, which they called the Alabama Cottage.
To stay warm during the freezing months, they slowly chopped up and burned the remaining ship timbers. To pass the time and distract themselves from the isolation, the two men adopted a family of baby hares and a wild Arctic fox they named Prut.
A Shocking Arctic Rescue
After spending two winters inside the tiny wooden hut, a Norwegian whaler finally arrived on July 19, 1912. When the rescue crew came ashore, they were completely terrified by the two explorers. Mikkelsen and Iversen had been isolated for twenty eight months, leaving them battered, wild looking, and barely recognizable.
One sailor actually ran away in pure terror, assuming the men were dangerous lunatics. The Norwegian captain eventually brought them aboard, officially ending one of the longest wilderness isolation events in polar exploration history.