Johan Carl Christian Petersen

Johan Carl Christian Petersen (28 June 1813 – 24 June 1880) was a Danish seaman and interpreter who participated in several expeditions in Northern Canada and Greenland in search of the missing British explorer John Franklin.

At the age of about 20 he moved to Godhavn (now Qeqertarsuaq) in Greenland where he made a living as a carpenter and sailor.

In 1841 he moved to Upernavik, at the time the most northern Danish colony in Greenland.

There he married a Greenlandic Inuk woman and adopted their customs and way of living, in the process he became a quite skilled hunter, dog sledge driver, and observer.

After these expeditions, Petersen moved back to Denmark and died in Copenhagen, at the age of 66.