Major Claus Enevold Paarss (18 February 1683 – 26 May 1762) was a Danish military officer and official.
[2] Paarss was born in Thy in then Denmark–Norway in 1683 and commanded a Danish man-of-war and three[3] or four other ships to Hans Egede's "Haabets Koloni" on Kangeq, which he removed to the mainland opposite and fortified under the name "Godt-Haab",[2] later known as Godthåb and then Nuuk.
[1] After putting down a general mutiny,[3] Paarss tried and failed twice to cross the island from the Ameralik Fjord in search of resources and a connection to the supposed location of the old Norse Eastern Settlement.
He also proposed a scheme to populate Greenland with fallen Danish aristocrats and their households on the model of the French colonies in Canada.
[1] Meanwhile, forty of his colonists died of scurvy and other complaints, leading to the abandonment of the colony even by the native Greenlanders.