[1][2] Flink received training as a primary school teacher and graduated in Gothenburg in 1869.
He accompanied Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld on his expedition to Greenland, during which he collected minerals and petrified plants on Iceland in 1883.
On behalf of a Royal Danish geological and geographical commission he made mineralogical investigations in southern Greenland in 1897.
He was assistant at the mineralogical department of the Swedish Museum of Natural History from 1905 to 1916.
[3] Flink was awarded an honorary doctorate by Uppsala University in 1900.