The large land area between Sisimiut and Kangerlussuaq is the reason why Aasivissuit – Nipisat was entered on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2018. The 20-km wide land area, stretching 235 km from the ice sheet in the east to Davis Strait in the west, has been entered as a unique cultural landscape where the Inuit have hunted for 4,500 years.
Aasivissuit, located 20 km northwest of Kangerlussuaq, was the summer hunting settlement to where people from winter settlements in and around Nipisat 15 km south of Sisimiut went to hunt caribou. Dried caribou and trout were brought back as winter supplies to supplement the staples like seal, whale, fish and seabirds.
The area is entered on the UNESCO’s World Heritage List both because of the archaeological findings and because of the existing hunter culture. This culture is important for the hunting profession, but also for ordinary Greenlanders who sail into the fjords in late summer and autumn to hunt caribou and catch trout.
Further reading
- Agriculture in Greenland
- Biodiversity and nature management
- Bird species in Greenland
- Coasts
- Horticulture
- Inuit hunting culture
- Kujataa – farming on the brink of the ice sheet
- Seals in the Greenlandic waters
- The climate in Greenland
- The ice sheet
- The ice-free landscapes
- The Inuit culture, precolonial period
- The National Park in north and east Greenland
- The sea and the fjords
- Traditions and tales
Read more about Nature and landscape in Greenland
