Friis grew up in a merchant family and received his early education at the Trondheim Cathedral School.
He was engaged as staff chaplain under the parish priest at Aukra in Romsdalen.
When his father-in-law died two years later, Friis took the office of vicar which he held until his own death in 1762.
[1] From his adolescence in Trondheim, he had become familiar with the Seminarium Lapponicum, a school for the education of missionaries and teachers to serve in the Sami settlement.
He is known for his cycle of poems, De norske Findlappers Beskrivelse which was first published in Copenhagen in 1740.