Swedish botanist and enthographer who came to an unfortunate end in the depths of Greenland. Attending the University of Lund, Thorild Wulff was named docent at the university after he graduated. Following this he moved to Stockholm where he also worked as a docent at the university there.
In 1899 Wulff studied transpiration and the presence of anthocyanin in arctic plants in Spitsbergen and he published his results in 1902. Between 1906 and 1909 he worked as an assistant at the Central Agricultural Research Institute just outside Stockholm and was concerned with the parasitic fungi of fruit trees, amongst other things. During this period he published widely.
It was in 1916 that he left on an expedition to Greenland and, accompanied by an expedition leader, a cartographer and four Inuit guides, he embarked across the tundra from North Star Bay in April 1917. Problems arose because of a distinct lack of game in the region and the group were soon struggling to find anything to eat. By the time they reached De Long's Fjord they were going hungry and one of the guides had been eaten by a wolf, probably because he was too weak to defend himself. They turned back, but soon, having eaten the last of their dogs, a few of them were unable to continue.
Two members of the party marched on in the hope of reaching Etah where they could get help while the others, including Thorild Wulff, rested a while and planned to follow when they could. By the next day Wulff realised he would not make it and began writing letters to his family, as well as accounts of the vegetation in the region which he had continued to document despite the frightening situation they were in. When he could no longer get up, the others were forced to leave him. Luckily his companions managed to kill two caribou, enabling them to make it to meet help, which was by then on its way from Etah. Wulff's body was never found, but the party did manage to map out a previously unexplored region, describe some of its plant life and bring back some important fossils.
Sources:
R.E. Fries, 1950, A Short History of Botany in Sweden
W. Elmer Ekblaw, 1918, "Educational events: the death of Thorild Wulff", Science, 48(1232): 132-133.
