Article

Bernhard Hantzsch

Published Online April 13, 2008

Last Edited December 16, 2013

Bernhard Adolf Hantzsch, explorer, ornithologist (d near the mouth of Hantzsch R, NWT June 1911). Hantzsch sailed with a German ornithological expedition to the eastern Arctic in 1906 and during that summer explored and collected specimens along the coast of Ungava Bay and northern Labrador.

Bernhard Adolf Hantzsch

Bernhard Adolf Hantzsch, explorer, ornithologist (d near the mouth of Hantzsch R, NWT June 1911). Hantzsch sailed with a German ornithological expedition to the eastern Arctic in 1906 and during that summer explored and collected specimens along the coast of Ungava Bay and northern Labrador. From 1909 to 1911, he was part of a larger expedition, sponsored by the Geographical Soc of Dresden. On the way to Cumberland Sd his ship was wrecked and most of his supplies were lost. He made his way to a whaling station on Blacklead I, then to one at Kekerten. He crossed Baffin I on foot, making ornithological and ethnological observations, and in 1910 travelled with a party of Inuit to Foxe Basin where he continued his observations. On his death, which was probably of trichinosis, he was buried by the Inuit, who returned to Cumberland Sd with his journals.