Jens Munk

Jens Munk (3 June or July 1579 – 28 June 1628) was a Dano-Norwegian navigator and explorer. He entered into the service of King Christian IV of Denmark and is most noted for his attempts to find the Northwest Passage to India.

Jens Munk was born on his father's estate Barbu at Arendal in the county of Aust-Agder, Norway. His father, Erik Munk, had received several fiefs for his achievements in the Northern Seven Years' War. However, his father had a reputation for his brutal rule over his estates which led to several trials. In 1585, he was deposed and imprisoned at Dragsholm Castle. At the age of eight, Jens Munk moved to Aalborg, Denmark with his mother who became a housekeeper in the home of her husband's sister who was married to the city's mayor.

In 1591, at the age of twelve, Munk went to Oporto in Portugal where he worked for the shipping magnate Duart Duez. The following year he sailed with a Dutch convoy to Bahia in Brazil. Off the Brazilian coast, the convoy was attacked by French pirates. Munk was among the seven survivors. Munk lived in Bahia (today's Salvador) for six years, where he was in the service of Duart Duez' brother, Miguel. In 1599, under dramatic circumstances, Munk returned to Europe and Copenhagen, where the Danish magnate and Lord Chancellor Henrik Ramel hired him as a ship clerk.

In 1609, he set sail with his partner Jens Hvid for the ice-filled Barents Sea. After two unsuccessful attempts to find the Northeast passage in 1609 and 1610, he caught the attention of King Christian IV. In 1612, during the Kalmar War (1611–13), Jens Munk together with the nobleman Jørgen Daa led a successful attack on the Swedish fortress Älvsborg, near today's Gothenburg. In 1614, he led a search for the privateer Jan Mendoses, whom he fought in a battle at Kanin Nos near the entrance of the White Sea. In the spring of 1617, he recruited eighteen Basque whalemen for the first Danish whaling expedition to Spitsbergen.

...
Wikipedia