Aasivissuit-Nipisat

Aasivissuit-Nipisat covers a corridor of west Greenland running around two hundred and thirty kilometres from the coast at Nipisat inland to Aasivissuit near the ice cap, and it was inscribed in 2018 for what it shows: more than four thousand years of Inuit and pre-Inuit hunting, with winter houses, caribou drive systems, tent rings and hunting sites across the whole belt, used seasonally as people moved between coast and interior with the game.

History

The area was occupied on and off from around 2000 BCE, when the Saqqaq culture reached the coast, and radiocarbon dates on Nipisat Island suggest the Saqqaq stayed here until at least 700 BCE, longer than anywhere else in Greenland; the Dorset people followed, travelling further inland, perhaps as far as the ice cap. The Thule people, who came from northern Canada around 1100 CE and are recorded here from about 1250, hunted by dog sled and kayak, wintering in stone houses on the coast at Innap Nuua and Arajutsisut and moving inland in summer to hunt caribou at camps such as Aasivissuit. A Danish colony attempted on Nipisat Island in the early 1700s was soon abandoned, colonial villages for the fishing and caribou-skin trade came in the next century, and in 2018 the landscape was added to the World Heritage List (Wikipedia, Aasivissuit - Nipisat).

What to look for

• The caribou drives - stone systems built to funnel animals to hunters.
• The winter house remains - the turf and stone dwellings along the corridor.
• The seasonal pattern - the movement between coastal and inland sites.
• The 4,500-year record - occupation across successive cultures in one landscape.

When to go

June to September is the season for walking and boats. Snow covers the sites the rest of the year. Mosquitoes in July are severe.

Good to know

The sites are spread over a very large area and most are reached only on foot over several days. There is no interpretation on the ground. Mosquitoes in the interior in July are genuinely punishing.

Nearby

Sisimiut is west, and Kangerlussuaq is east.

Key facts