Sisimiut and Kangerlussuaq Museum

© Styrelsen for Dataforsyning og Infrastruktur

The association Sisimiuni Katersugaasivik was founded on 14 March 1974. The items collected were placed in Gammelhuset, the former assistant’s residence from 1756. In November 1984, Gammelhuset opened after restoration. Today, the museum is housed in a number of historic buildings from the colonial period: the 18th-century whale hunting lodge, the missionary residence from 1759, the blacksmith’s workshop from about 1900, the Bethel Church from 1775, the old shop from 1825, the Halfway House from 1844 and the colonial manager’s residence from 1846. Furthermore, a peat house rebuilt in 1992 is attached to the museum. In 2015, the local council decided to let the small privately started Kangerlussuaq Museum become part of the Sisimiut Museum, which therefore now has the name Sisimiut and Kangerlussuaq Museum.

The entrance to the museum area in Sisimiut is adorned with a whale’s jaw as a testimony to the importance of whale hunting in the town’s history. The jaws are from a baleen whale caught in the early 1900s. The museum area is characterised by a number of historic buildings from the colonial period. The museum has also built a reconstructed peat house, which gives an insight into colonial housing conditions for the Greenlandic population around 1900.
ANINGAAQ R. CARLSEN/VISIT GREENLAND, 202

Further reading

Read more about Culture in Greenland

  • Daniel Thorleifsen

    (b. 1962) MA. Director of the Greenland National Museum & Archives.

  • Bo Albrechtsen

    (b. 1968) MA. Director of the Greenlandic House in Aalborg.