The catechist Johannes Hansen, called Hanserak, a Greenlandic
missionary, was part of Captain Gustav Holm s well-known umiaq
expedition to the east coast of Greenland (1884 1885), which passed the
winter in Angmagssalik and discovered eleven Inuit communities. His
diary is a series of extremely interesting sketches of the remarkable
customs and practices of the native people and was reported in the pages
of Atuagagdliutit, the first Greenlandic newspaper.
This work examines the people of eastern Greenland at the later stages
of the 19th century in diaristic form, but with the compassion and
empathy of a native. Material of this kind is very rare and significant
for understanding the longer, mostly unknown, evolution of Greenlandic
culture in the midst of Danish colonization."