Day 30 27 August Qaqortoq (Greenland)

 With a population of 3,000, this is the largest town in southern Greenland. The area has been inhabited for the last 4,300 years. A different group of people arrived around 2,800 years ago with their rectangular peat dwellings.

Written records of South Greenland history begin with the arrival of the Norse in the late 10th century. Their ruins are located 19 kilometres northeast. The Inuit arrived in southern Greenland around the 12th century. However, there is little evidence of early contact.  But later, the south Greenland Norse traded with them, especially ivory. The Norse era lasted for almost five hundred years. The last written record of the Norse presence is of a wedding in 1408.

The present-day town was founded in 1775 by the Danes.  It became a major center for the seal trade and still has a sealskin tannery. The museum buildings date back to 1804. The oldest standing building is from 1797.

Fish processing, tourism, tanning, fur production, and ship maintenance and repair are key activities, but the economy is based primarily on educational and administrative services. The primary industries in the town are fishing, service, and administration.

Agriculture is mainly sheep farming, cattle and reindeer herding, on farms in the fiord landscape close to Qaqortoq.

Qaqortoq is located in one of the most mineral rich areas in the world and most of their electricity is from hydroelectricity.

 The town has more than 35 cruise calls per season and +30,000 cruise visitors. 

In the early 1990s, Greenlander and Nordic artists created the Stone & Man project, to give the town an open-air art gallery. There are over 40 sculptures. Many are carved into the natural landscape, like a rock wall. This is like an Inuit Mount Rushmore.

Big horn sheep.

The town has the oldest fountain in Greenland, Mindebroden, finished in 1932 with Igaliku sandstone and depicts whales spouting water out of their blowholes. This fountain is made from a beautiful reddish speckled granite. The guide called it “salami granite”.

The original Lutheran church which is now too small for them.

The Museum collection. Perhaps part of the new Harris Scarffe range...

Part of their collection which was well displayed.

Charles Lindbergh the American aviator stayed here in 1931 and 1933 doing aerial surveys. Probably the first B&B. (Brrrr and Brrrr).

Can you drink Icelandic beer in Greenland? Yes...yes you can...but because our fridges aren't cold enough it wasn't the best taste. Mmmmm...room temperature.

Look at that sky...just sensational.