Roof of the Arctic: The 1935 Maiden First Ascent of Gunnbjørn Fjeld

The Unconquered Arctic Summit

When Gino Watkins sighted the jagged black nunataks of the Watkins Range from his Gipsy Moth biplane in 1930, one mountain stood supreme above all others: Gunnbjørn Fjeld (3,694 m). Named after the 9th-century Norse mariner Gunnbjørn Ulfsson, the first European to sight the shores of Greenland, this colossal pyramid was confirmed by aerial photogrammetry to be the highest mountain north of the Arctic Circle.

Yet reaching the foot of Gunnbjørn Fjeld was a formidable logistical barrier. The mountain stood eighty kilometres inland from the stormy, unpopulated coast of King Christian IX Land, surrounded by massive glaciated plateaus, bottomless crevasses, and the ever-shifting pack ice of the Denmark Strait.

In 1935, British geologist Lawrence Rickard Wager and Danish journalist-explorer Ebbe Munck resolved to finish what Watkins had begun. Wager was among Britain’s finest mountaineers; on the 1933 British Mount Everest Expedition, he had climbed to 8,570 metres without supplementary oxygen. Munck was an elite Arctic dog-sledder and navigator who would later achieve fame as a Danish Resistance hero in World War II.

Together, they forged the Anglo-Danish Expedition, securing the support of the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Danish Geographical Society, and funding from Augustine Courtauld.

Sledging into the Watkins Range

In July 1935, the expedition sailed from Norway aboard the historic sealing ship Quest. Battling through heavy sea ice, they made landfall at the head of Kangerlussuaq Fjord.

Accompanied by Jack Longland (who had established Camp VI at 8,350 metres on Everest in 1933) and Patrick Courtauld, Wager and Munck established Base Camp on the coast. In early August, hauling heavily laden sledges and back-packing polar rations, the four climbers penetrated the rugged coastal glaciers, climbing steadily through crevassed icefalls until they reached the elevated glacier plateau of the Watkins Range at 2,250 metres.

Before them rose the majestic basalt mass of Gunnbjørn Fjeld, its stark, wind-scoured ridges rising 1,400 metres above the inland ice like a colossal fortress of stone and frost.

The Summit Conquest

On August 16, 1935, under clear, crystalline polar skies and a biting sub-zero Arctic wind, Wager, Munck, Longland, and Courtauld set out on the summit push.

Roping together in teams of two, they attacked the South Ridge. The route ascended broad, wind-packed snow ramps angled at 30 to 35 degrees, bypassing crevasses that cleaved the lower glacier basin. As they gained elevation, the snow gave way to shattered basalt ledges and narrow, exposed rock ribs scoured clean by perpetual polar gales.

Climbing with steady rhythm, the four men ascended through thin Arctic air. In the early afternoon, they reached the final corniced ridge crest. Stepping onto the highest block of dark basalt rock at 3,694 metres (12,119 ft), Lawrence Wager and Ebbe Munck stood atop the highest summit in Greenland and the entire Arctic.

“We stood at last on the summit of Gunnbjørn Fjeld. Around us lay an endless wilderness of snow and ice, broken only by the sharp, black teeth of the nunataks. The Union Jack and Dannebrog flew together over the roof of the Arctic.” — Lawrence Rickard Wager, The Geographical Journal, 1936

On the summit, Wager conducted detailed geological sampling of the continental flood basalts that had formed sixty million years ago during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean. The four climbers descended safely back to their high camp, completing a flawless, landmark first ascent that remains a defining milestone in the annals of polar mountaineering.