8/3/25: Aasiaat's Apartment Block Murals

As our Sarfaq Ittuk ferry neared the town of Aasiaat, located on an island of the same name on the west coast of Greenland, Steven and I had to be up at what he considered the crack of dawn to vacate our 'suite' by 7 a.m. This allowed staff to prepare our room for the next guests before the ferry headed further north at 8:30. We'd also be traveling further north in a few days, but not until we had a chance to explore Aasiaat and the surrounding community.

Aasiaat, with the best deep and sheltered harbor in the area, is situated at the northern end of an archipelago that stretches about 60 miles down the country's west coast from the southern edge of Disko Bay. As you'll see in the next few posts, you and I would call Aasiaat Island a little hilly, but the Inuit consider it flat.

The town's population is under 3,000, making it Greenland's fifth largest. It was surprising to me that it is relatively untouched by tourism, even though it has decent boat connections to other towns in the bay and offers a slew of activities in both summer and winter. Independent travelers can rent bikes to explore the self-guided hiking trails or kayaks to discover the network of sheltered waterways that are popular with whales.

History: Hans Egede's second son, Niels, established a town he called Egedesminde here in 1763 because of its harbor and fishing opportunities. The semi-nomadic Inuit living in the area had consistently named their community Aasiaat, the name it's known by today, which means the “land of a thousand islands.” The settlers who arrived with Egede worked in the whaling industry. They sadly brought diseases with them, particularly smallpox, which wiped out many of the indigenous Inuit, reducing the town's population to just 21 at one point. 

Still a fishing and hunting town, Aasiaat men switched to cod fishing when whaling declined. A factory salted the fish to preserve it for shipping. The main catches since the 1980s have been shrimp, halibut, and crab. Another source of income is that Aasiaat has become the regional center for ship repairs. In 1932, the town was the first in northern Greenland to establish a high school for girls. Aasiaat is just one of four towns in all of Greenland to have a high school. Students relocate from the far north to Aasiaat to study for the entire school year.

Of the passengers waiting to board the ferry as we disembarked, this woman caught my eye. I imagine her expressive face hid a wealth of stories. 

A taxi driver dropping off people at the port took us to our 'hotel,' on the hill overlooking the harbor. I say 'hotel' because one fellow checked us in, but we never saw him or any other staff, and only one other guest, during the four days we were there. It was an unusual property, but the large bedroom, a much larger sitting area, and a well-supplied kitchen suited us perfectly.

In almost no time, Steven and I got used to the abundance of long steel pipes that connected the brightly colored homes on Aasiaat's jagged, rocky hills. The overground and insulated pipes, necessary due to the harsh climate and the possibility of permafrost, carried water to and sewage from each home. They became synonymous with Aasiaat in our minds.

We soon learned that the fastest and most interesting way to get down the hill to town was navigating the staircases, which also connected most homes in town. As we had learned previously, staircases in Greenlandic towns are accessible to all and not private.

A view of our hotel from the bottom of the hill on one of Aasiaat's main streets:

I've mentioned previously how impressed I was with the number of sculpture or art walks in southern Greenland communities. There is certainly no equivalent in similarly sized towns in either the US or Canada, as far as I am aware. One of the reasons Steven and I wanted to break up our time in Greenland was to explore Aasiaat's Historical Houses and Art Walk, both via self-guided tours that Steven had downloaded at home. As it turned out, we had far more time than we originally planned - more on that later, however!

Aasiaat's Town Beautification Program began in 2005 with numerous murals painted throughout the town. It later incorporated stone sculptures carved by Jens Erik Kjeldsen, who originally trained as a pianist and flutist. We were able to find The Bear and the Dogs easily, as it was located across from the staircase in the town square! The work referred to the Avannaata Qimussersui, the 25-mile-long National Dog Sled Race held in different locations above the Arctic Circle each year, which is one of the most significant cultural events in Greenland. Not only are the drivers or mushers celebrated at the finish line, but so are the dogs. In addition to being used for dog sledding for locals and tourists, Greenlandic dogs also function as guard dogs, alerting people when danger is approaching.

Further up another hill from our hotel was the large Community Hall, which we tried to enter a few times. It was famous for having an extensive collection of paintings by a Danish artist who spent the summer of 1969 painting in the town. Perhaps fittingly, Aasiatt's first mural painting took up one exterior wall. Made by Kistat Lund, Inuit Land evoked Lund's childhood, when her grandmother and other elderly people shared Greenlandic myths and tales with her. These stories later became an inspiration for her art. This painting is described as illustrating not only how the Northern Lights brighten up the dark sky but also symbolizing "ancient spirits playing football with walrus skulls."

Don't forget to click on any picture to make it bigger!

Given Greenland's harsh winter climate, I was again surprised by the number of small cars we came across in the country's towns.

We regarded it as a good sign that the bells of the adjacent Black Church that we saw from the hotel were tolling as we arrived!

Next to the church was a relief sculpture of Frederik Lynge, a Greenlandic teacher and politician. In the 1950s, Greenland was seen as part of Denmark with equal rights, and he and his cousin, Augo Lynge, were elected as the first Greenland representatives in the Danish Parliament.

A relief sculpture by Greenlandic Lauritz Jessen (1922-1982) was of Søren Kaspersen, a catechist and politician who worked as a senior catechist in Aasiaat. During his political career, he was a member of the Great Greenland Commission and participated in the Danish decolonization of Greenland.

Steven and I were delighted, and more than a tad surprised, that the church was open, as precious few churches we had hoped to enter in other Greenlandic towns had been. Suspended from the ceiling down the middle aisle were two model votive ships adorned with Danish, not Greenlandic, flags.

In Danish, the nave of the church is called 'the ship,' and the church roof did indeed look like the inside of a gigantic upturned boat.

Hanging from the ceiling in the rear was another ship that immediately drew my focus. It was an umiak, a boat traditionally operated exclusively by women to transport children, dogs, and household belongings from one settlement to another. You may recall I had been captivated by an umiak glass sculpture we'd seen in Nuuk, Greenland's capital, a couple of days earlier. 

On the back wall were three impressive paintings by sculptor and artist Lauritz Jessen that depicted traditional and religious stories.

This painting depicts an Inuit fable called The Sun and Moon, which tells the story of a young girl, Malina, who was disturbed by a man who came to her bed in the middle of the night. Suspecting it might happen again, and wanting to know who it was, she put soot on her face. When he returned with soot on his face, Malina lit her lamp and followed him to the communal room, where she discovered he was her brother, Anningaaq. Devastated, she ran from him, holding her lamp to light the way, but he quickly followed her. They both ran so far and fast that they took off into the sky. That is why we see the sun goddess, Malina, being chased by the god of the moon, Anningaaq, as they travel across the sky.

We next made our way from the church toward one of Aasiaat's residential areas in the quest for more murals on the Art Walk. 

In a previous post, I wrote about the Danish government's horribly misguided decision to build massive apartment buildings in towns along Greenland's west coast, so they could relocate Inuit hunters and fishermen from the only way of life they had known in remote communities. Apartment buildings like the many we saw in Aasiaat were designed by and with Danes in mind, and failed to take into account the needs of the Inuit in Greenland. In a further degradation, the buildings are called Block One, Block Two, etc.

At the end of Block Two was Coffee Break, created in 2008 by Kurt Nielsen, a local artist who captured the moment when the morning sunrays softened the winter breeze, prompting two sled dog drivers to decide it was time for a coffee break.

Life was one of three mural paintings in Aasiaat by Nikolaj Andersen Olsvig. I read that the painting illustrates “globalisation and the transportation methods of modern Greenland.”

Olsvig’s 2008 The Myth about the Sun and the Moon, a version of which we’d seen in the church, was featured on Block 3. According to the Inuit, this eternal race explains why the sun and the moon are rarely seen together in the sky.

Muralist Karl-Peter Olsvig Andersen painted Excursion of the Story in 2008 on the other end of Block 3. Andersen described the Inuit people’s journey from their traditional nomadic lifestyle to modern civilization, where they live in permanent houses. 

Andersen also painted Sea Mother in 2008 on Block 14. In the Inuit mythology, people believed there was a goddess named Sassuma Arnaa who controlled the sea and its animals. If people angered the goddess, her long black hair would become filthy and catch all the animals, making hunting more difficult and resulting in food shortages for the families along the coastline. 

Whenever this occurred, the Inuit people went to the Angakkoq, the local Shaman, and asked him to go to the Sea Mother, comb her hair, and make her happy again so she would release all the animals.

Also on Block 14 was a mural by Evnike Qaaviaaq from Qaanaaq in southern Greenland. Interested in drawing and DIY projects since her childhood, she was encouraged by her fascination with other people’s artwork to pursue a career as an artist. Her paintings, including Happy Inuit, which depicts the women of Thule, the ancestors of the modern Inuit people, were inspired by her childhood in Greenland. 

Modern apartment buildings under construction by the shore were the antithesis of the numerous old and ugly apartment blocks just a couple of minutes away.

Outside Aasiaat’s library, formerly Aasiaat’s Girls’ School, was the Mikael Gam Monument by Jens Erik Kjeldsen. Gam, the school’s founder and principal, was Greenland’s first minister and significantly influenced the modernization of the country's school system, including publishing several textbooks for Greenlandic schools.

The library was unfortunately closed on Sunday afternoons, so we vowed to return another day.

Views from the library that we looked forward to exploring another time:

As we walked back toward the town center, the apartment blocks seemed to go on forever, with no break for shops, a park, or anything to break up the monotony, except that they were painted different colors. Note the tiny windows, too, that wouldn't let in much light on a sunny day.

Another example of the Danish influence was that most street names were named after Danes.

As we ended up being in Aasiaat for longer than planned, we found out later that this was the town's hospital. 

The building's open windows reminded me of our self-guided walking tour of Reykjavik on our first day of the trip. We learned that Icelanders prop open their windows to take advantage of the geothermal hot water and create a cross breeze when things get too warm or stuffy. The temperature was a chilly 42 degrees that day in Aasiaat, so it couldn't have been too warm indoors!

The local power plant's gaily decorated smoke stacks should have been included in the Art Walk, don't you think?!

At the top of the stairs outside the church was another sculpture by Kjeldsen. The Queen’s Stone was of the three heads of the Danish Royal Family: Queen Margrethe II, her husband Prince Henrik, and the current monarch King Frederik X, symbolising the connection between Denmark and Greenland. The sculpture was given as a gift to the royal family during their 2004 visit to Aasiaat.

Pilersuisoq was one of two large supermarkets in Aasiaat, the other being Pisiffik. It was unusual for there to be a state-run Pilersuisoq in a town that has a private Pisiffik supermarket. The former only had a presence in Aasiaat because it was the port where their large ships arrived to transport goods to the Pilersuisoq stores in the small settlements. In the summer, large ships theoretically arrive weekly, while in wintertime, they come every two weeks, but sea ice can stop boats for up to three months.

That night, we headed out again to explore more of the town, as it was still very light out and the temperature was still 45 degrees close to 8 p.m. A stone's throw from our hotel was the Aasiaat Steakhouse, but we never ate there as we never saw anyone going in or leaving.

I mentioned in one of the Qaqortoq posts that we had observed less regard for the environment in Greenland than in Iceland. Sadly, that was certainly true again in Aasiaat, where we encountered household trash dumped along the side of the road.

A harbor view from above the town:

Back on harborside was the Kalaalimineerniafik Fish Market, where fishermen and hunters sell the day's catch. Typically, it includes seal meat, various fish, and occasionally whale meat. The market was empty, of course, at night.

Though I took this photo that night in Aasiaat, it could have been a shot of colorful homes clinging to hillsides virtually anywhere on the west coast of Greenland! There was nothing to differentiate the view from the other towns we'd seen on our ferry trip up the coast from South Greenland.

I'd read that one reason Greenlandic people paint their homes in vivid colors is that they can more easily pick them out in the blinding snow. If that's true, these homeowners must have an easy time of it!

On the opposite side of the island from the drab apartment blocks with the murals we'd walked to earlier, we came across some more modern apartment buildings that wouldn't look out of place in almost any city.

It's easy to walk around towns in Greenland without paying attention to traffic or the rules of the road, as traffic is often limited with so few cars. However, we quickly learned that some drivers in Aasiaat drove like they were qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 or Le Mans!

 GUX Aasiaat was one of just four high schools in the entire country!

On the school grounds was another sculpture by Kjeldsen, called Aqissiaq, which means ’young ptarmigan’ in Greenlandic. Aqissiaq, a type of bird that lives in cold regions, was a Greenlandic folk hero, and his adventures are well-known in West Greenland. For the ancient Inuit, the inland area of Greenland was considered dangerous and haunted by ghosts, giants, and animal monsters. When Aqissiaq became an adult, he was big and strong and, according to legend, he could run as fast as a ptarmigan. While hunting one day, he saw a serpent, killed it, and brought the meat back to the tribe for a feast. On another hunting trip, he and his brothers met a troll who stole a seal from them. As a revenge, Aqissiaq pushed the troll off a cliff. This sculpture illustrates the moment when the troll was forced off the cliff.

I wonder why that particular sculpture was chosen to be on school grounds, instead of one that was less violent!

Because so many students come from further north in Greenland to study at the high school, some live year-round in dorms like this one.

We learned days later that these buildings directly across from the school were also dorms.

Steven and I searched high and low for Kjeldsen’s Arnaq Pilattoq sculpture on our first night! We finally found it nestled among the town's older houses. The sculpture illustrated a woman removing seal skin for garment making. In Inuit society, the seal has been a vital part of their way of life, providing food, shelter, and clothing. After a seal has been killed, the skin is quickly prepared for garment-making by Inuit women. The first step is to clean and rinse the skin to remove salt, fat, and blood. The next step is scraping away the fat and blubber by using an ulu knife while the skin is lying flat on a board. Then the skin is stretched over a frame and left to dry. After the sealskin has dried, it becomes very stiff. To soften it, the Inuit women chew, fold, and stomp on it to prepare it for making clothes.

I believe these daisies were the only flowers we saw blooming in Aasiaat.

In the course of several hours in Aasiaat, we'd come across so many different types of accommodation: drab apartment blocks, new construction by the harbor, colorful homes on the hills, modern towers that looked so familiar, and older homes like these. At no point during the day, however, had we seen any hotels or other guest lodging.

Have you noticed my occasional pictures of playgrounds over the years? The playground in Aasiaat piqued my interest because I've been very involved in helping to design four playgrounds at the two parks in our neighborhood since Steven and I moved here 35 years ago. 

Hey, what a surprise - we happened to see our Sarfak Ittuk ferry returning to Aasiaat late that night for a quick stop on its way south again after having gone north to Ilulissat in Disko Bay!

Next post: Private tour by boat to Akunnaaq Settlement.

Posted on October 15th, 2025, from another beautiful fall day in the foothills of Denver. Steven and I didn't have much of a summer in Iceland and Greenland, but at least we've been fortunate in experiencing a picture-perfect fall! Please take care of yourself and your loved ones.