The History of Sermilik Station

After several years of planning, the Austrian polar scientists soon will get better facilities with a new permanent base in East Greenland. The construction of the new Building at the Research Station Sermilik is proceeding. The Station will be operated by the University of Graz in cooperation with University of Copenhagen and builds on decades of polar research experience. This is a major step for the Austrian polar research.

It may seem strange that Austrian polar researchers decide to build a research station in the middle of nowhere, 20 km from the nearest (small) town on the East coast of Greenland. However, the history of polar science in the Sermilik area began already in 1933 when the last expedition led by the famous Danish polar explorer, Knud Rasmussen, made the first observations and measurements of the nearby Mittivakkat Glacier (back then known as Midtluagkat). Keld Milthers, a geologist participating in the expedition, recorded ablation and photographed the glacier and its surroundings. The foundation for the next almost 90 years of research in the area was established.

Because of the studies from 1933, the Mittivakkat glacier was chosen as one of four case studies for the Danish contribution to the International Geophysical Year (1957/1958). When Børge Fristrup and his team arrived at the Mittivakkat glacier in 1958, 25 years after Milthers, the glacier front had retreated 0.6 km and experienced more than 50 meters lowering of the ice surface (Fristrup, 1960). Since then, the glacier has retreated further and made it possible to study a proglacial landscape in rapid change.

During the field work for the International Geophysical Year and the field campaigns of the next years all work was done with a temporary tent camp as the logistic base.
As scientists from University of Copenhagen intensified the scientific work in the 1960s it became clear that there was a need for a more permanent base for the field work. Consequently, the first Sermilik Station was built in 1970. To celebrate the opening of the station, the Danish crown princess Margrethe (now Queen Margrethe II) visited Sermilik and left a coin in the foundation. The position of the station was chosen to be sheltered from strong storms coming from the Greenland ice sheet. However, while protected from heavy storms it was exposed to other natural hazards: in spring 1972 the recently built station was destroyed entirely by an avalanche. Luckily, at least the royal coin was recovered and donated to Børge Fristrup.