Care to play Hopping Stones, an old Greenlandic game? It was like hopscotch, a game I played as a child, but with only using one leg the entire time! The stones were laid out behind the home.
Next door was the Assistant House, the town's last commercial building from its colonial era. The half-timbered building, built in 1905 with a natural stone foundation, is now used as a courthouse.
On Aasiaat's main street was the Colony Manager's House, which has been used as the Aasiaat Museum since 2002. Built in 1860, it was the last of a series of houses of the same type that were shipped from Denmark to several Greenland settlements from 1839 to 1860. The home was unusual for its balcony, added when the house was enlarged in the 1920s, and for its fence, as very few homes in Greenland have fences. Greenlandic homeowners only own the house, not the land it sits on.
Later that day, we discovered that the cannons, once used to welcome ships into the harbor, now only fire on the country's National Day.
A minute's walk away was the boarded-up Captain's House, another partially timbered building. It was later converted to the town's Post Office, but it was now used as a warehouse by a local company.
With all the historical houses looking very similar because of the same shade of red paint and wooden style, it was challenging to figure out which building was the assistant's, the whale commander's, or the captain's house! This next one was the KGH Store, which was built in 1840 and enlarged in 1953. The KGH is the Danish acronym for the Royal Greenlandic Trade, the company established for the exclusive trade monopoly throughout Greenland. The regulation, in force from 1776 through to 1950, effectively barred private citizens or foreigners from traveling to Greenland. It also restricted Greenlanders from engaging in maritime activities and trade with foreign sailors during the entire period.
As I wrote in the initial post on Aasiaat, one of my takeaways from the town was the preponderance of large pipes leading to and from its homes.
Steven and I also observed a significant number of walkers outside homes. I wondered whether people with physical limitations were moved to Aasiaat from smaller communities that didn't have access to appropriate medical care that was presumably available in Aasiaat. By comparison, I don't recall seeing a single walker in any of the other communities we'd visited in Greenland. Even though the Inuit considered the town flat, it had numerous staircases, making life difficult for anyone with mobility issues.
You might recognize by now the roof of Aasiaat's Black Church in the background. We reached the Turf House via a maze of staircases and traipsing across a rocky area, although afterwards we realized it would have been far simpler to climb the stairs to the adjacent church! After all that, it was closed to add insult to injury, too!
It was built in 1998 by the Aasiaat Museum to help people understand how turf houses looked and functioned years ago. I read that they evolved from a circular shape in the 1600s to an elongated style to accommodate larger groups. The style changed again in the 1700s to a square shape after European traders introduced tree products and glass, which allowed the Inuit to add wooden doors and windows to their turf dwellings.
Later that day, we learned that turf houses were typical in Aasiaat until the end of World War II, when traditional or "normal" houses became the norm.
As we walked toward the Old Community House, we noticed that this home was decorated with numerous antlers.
The building was constructed in 1935 as a community house before being used later as a storehouse. Meetings, parties, Greenlandic polka dance lessons, and cultural gatherings were held here.
Nearby, but then of course everything was reasonably close by in the small town, was the former Elementary School that was built in 1914, and now used as a junior club. On our tour of the murals, we'd seen kids playing on the barebones playground.
The Jørgen Brønlund House was the home of the sole survivor of Brønlund (1877–1907), a Greenlandic polar explorer, educator, and catechist, who participated in two Danish expeditions to Greenland in the early 20th century. The home was recognized because the owner provided free housing in the memorial house dedicated to Brønlund.
Next to the Brønlund home was the District Doctor's House, which had been built in Sisimiut in 1907 before being moved to Aasiaat in 1916. You might recall that Steven and I spent a few hours touring Sisimiut, including its appealing museum, when the Sarfak Ittuk ferry stopped there on its journey up Greenland's west coast. I was surprised that the home had been painted blue, not the customary red like the other homes, or even yellow, the color associated with medical buildings in Greenland, as it was still owned by the Aasiaat Hospital.
To give you some geographical context for our self-guided tour, Steven and I were walking away from the town center toward the former Girls' School, passing the ugly apartment blocks on the way. The next historical residence of interest was the Boarding School Gym Hall, which was built in 1939. The gym and bathing facilities were used by approximately six thousand people a year while it was in operation. It's important to remember that Aasiaat's current population is half that, so it must have attracted people from the region. Plus, the gym was only the second one built in the country, the first being in the capital city of Nuuk.
The building also hosted sports, film screenings, and theatrical performances, including an event in 1952 for King Frederik IX and Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.
I think the Boarding School's Director's Home, which dates to 1927, was between the gym and the school. As it was now a private home, its fence likely kept out nosy lookyloos! I don't recall seeing many other dwellings in Greenland that also had an outdoor storage shed.
I suspect this was an elevated meat drying rack, so that animals couldn't touch it.
'
Aasiaat's fitness center, open 24/7, was on a hill just above the school.
I think the Boarding School's Director's Home, which dates to 1927, was between the gym and the school. As it was now a private home, its fence likely kept out nosy lookyloos! I don't recall seeing many other dwellings in Greenland that also had an outdoor storage shed.
The Boarding School for Girls, now the town library, was built in 1932. At that time, it was considered essential to provide a better education for girls in Greenland, so they could better "participate in the development of society." After it was enlarged in the 1950s by the country's architecture office, it became a designated heritage building.
Unlike two days before, the library was open and the lights were on, but we saw no staff or library patrons perusing the books in the stacks. Steven wandered around upstairs, where he found a sole computer. As we left, two people entered.
From the library, we had marvelous views of the Private Houses on the hill across the way. They were built in the 1950s and 1960s as part of the historical colony homes erected by Greenland's Technical Organization or GTO. Applicants for housing loans for the construction of single-family homes could choose between different home sizes. The most popular became the one-and-a-half-floor, 732-square-foot homes.
I suspect this was an elevated meat drying rack, so that animals couldn't touch it.
'Another mural from the Art Walk was Inequ Simigaq Ulloriannguaq by Liza Kreutzmann, from Greenland’s smallest town, Kangaatsiaq. A huge fan of hiking and kayaking in her spare time, she encountered a hungry polar bear outside her hometown and has since then enjoyed painting the country's wildlife.
On Block 6 was I Remember by Karl Svane, a local artist who worked at the Aasiaat Museum. It illustrates two people wearing Greenland's national costume: a woman in an anorak with colorful beads and a man in a white anorak.
Gammeqarfik, Aasiaat's only elementary school, which officially opened in 1956, now has 400 students and 35 teachers. It used to be called AB School, as it had two classes or educational streams: Class A for students learning crafts and business-related subjects, and Class B, which focused on more academic subjects. How scary that students were pigeon-holed into these two learning streams in elementary school. Who decided which track students would follow? Could students transfer from one track to another, and, if yes, how easy was that process?
Overlooking the school was The Hands on Sun Stone by Jens Erik Kjeldsen, a famous Danish sculptor who lived in Aasiaat for more than 30 years. You may recall his other sculptures I showed you on the Art Walk. In collaboration with local children, Kjeldsen made this sculpture as a tribute to Tupilak-41, the local sports club, for their 75th anniversary.
Aasiaat's fitness center, open 24/7, was on a hill just above the school.
Another view of Kreutzman's mural and the apartment block:
On Block 12, Nikolaj Andersen Olsvig, born in Sisimiut in 1967 and the youngest son of fellow muralist Karl-Peter Olsvig Andersen, had painted Spring. As a child, he drove the dog sleds by himself. Together with local students, he made this piece to brighten up Aasiaat during the dark winter months and remind the townsfolk that spring is just around the corner.
This was the first decent playground Steven and I had come across in Aasiaat.
Passing by one of the apartment blocks that the Danish government had set up for the relocated Inuit, I walked through the nearest open door, curious about what they looked like inside. It was sad to see so much trash and graffiti.
As there was limited space inside the units, dog sleds or sledges, as the Greenlandic people call them, were strewn about outside.
However, young boys, watched over by parents or neighbors, looked like they were having a blast on the bike ramp. What a shame they had to live in such depressing apartments.
Steven and I then walked to the opposite end of town to Hotel SØMA, formerly called the Seamen's Hotel, where we began a walking tour of Aasiaat with one of the hotel's summer employees, Anna. She mentioned that the town's name now means spider in English, although she was quick to point out that they are only outside homes in Aasiaat, compared to inside homes in Denmark! She explained that it also meant "on the way to summer" in its previous pronunciation.
Photo on the hotel website:
On our way to the town's Kalaalimineerniafik Fish Market, Anna told the group, which included us, Germans, Italians, and French, that she was 19 and had attended boarding school in Denmark for three years before transferring to Aasiaat's high school, the northernmost in Greenland. She described the country's education system as one where students attend elementary school until the 10th grade. After that, they either go to boarding school in one of the country's four high schools, also called a gymnasium, or continue their education in Denmark until age 19. She was hoping to attend Greenland's only university in Nuuk or study in Denmark after completing her third year at the gymnasium. The former offers 11 undergraduate programs and four Master's programs.
Anna explained that local Inuit must travel by boat for four to five hours to hunt reindeer. They then bring their catch to the market in Aasiaat, as only locals can sell there.
Anna told us that the hunters are responsible for setting their own prices. Quite a gathering of locals had arrived to purchase the muskox meat the hunter was carving. I wonder how people knew when to arrive at the market, as there were obviously no set hours for when the hunters returned from their trips.
Anna informed us that Aasiaat is a container port for Northern Greenland and that supplies arrive weekly in the summer and twice a month in the winter, depending on the weather. In 2022, sea ice in the archipelago from the beginning of February through April made deliveries extremely tough. The trawlers catch crabs and shrimp, which are then delivered to factories.
From the harbor, we had decent views of Transit Island, known locally as Qeqertannguaq. Though the large storage buildings were now empty, it seemed evident that the island had once been an active place. During World War II, the Americans used the island as a transit harbour for their supply ships, making Aasiaat a vital harbor. They also constructed a weather station on Tupilak, the neighboring island, which they called Bluie West 5. It became an important part of American defense during the war.
After the war, the purpose of Transit Island changed, with Aasiaat becoming a fishermen’s town. In the 1950s, the first fish processing plant was built on the island, featuring a fillet production and freezing plant. However, due to sea ice conditions in the area, the need for a plant with all-year-round access increased. In 1989, after a new plant was built on the main island away from the harbor, the Transit Island was gradually emptied, leaving it as a storage for the local fishermen and a historical mark of Aasiaat.
Transit Island is still occasionally used as a transit harbor because of its optimal location. In 2017, the big wooden Maud, a ship that belonged to the explorer Roald Amundsen, was kept safe on the island during the winter, before being transported to a museum in Norway.
One of the most interesting pieces of trivia we learned from Anna was the building numbering system in Greenland. Identifying a building, even when it contained a business, might have no sign or even a street name, which makes it challenging! The navy-colored '26' indicated it was the 26th building in Aasiaat, and the yellow-colored '6' indicated its location on the street. Another way of looking at it is that building numbers are unique in each town and are issued sequentially when permission is granted to build.
Anna, reading from her index cards, mentioned that this was the Courthouse and noted that it was problematic to find well-trained people to serve, even though anyone in Aasiaat could learn to become a judge. If an agreement is not found between two individuals or groups in Aasiaat, then it must be adjudicated in Nuuk.
On the back side of the Courthouse was the Municipality Building, where people as young as 12 can buy hunting certificates. Anna added that there are 5,900 people scattered among the four towns and eight settlements that comprise Greenland's smallest municipality. Citizens pay 44% in taxes, but that supports education, healthcare, a highly subsidized transportation system, etc.
Diagonally across the street was Aasiaat's branch of Pilersuisoq, the government-owned grocery store that ensures that settlements with at least 50 people have their own fully stocked store year-round. We had seen that ourselves when we visited the settlement of Akuunaaq the day before.
In the previous post, I wrote about Greenland's unique color-coding system that was in effect for decades and still is in many circumstances. One example is the blue color used for the power station. At Christmastime, the star at the top of one of the poles is lit up with green lights!
Anna
Anna then led us to the Black Church, which we felt we knew very well by that point! She said that the seats in Greenlandic churches are "normally" covered with sealskins, but not in Aasiaat's. However, Steven and I hadn't seen sealskins in any of the churches we'd visited in either Qassiaruk, Qaqortok, or Akunnaaq.
I hadn't realized before then of the significance of one of the votive ships hanging from the ceiling. The red one was the first trawler used in Greenland, and was also the first one that the Inuit were permitted to board in the 1960s.
Anna then drew our attention to the hanging above the altar and the tiny spider in the green flowers, because of one interpretation of the town's name.
If you click on the image to make it bigger, you'll see the spider at the bottom!
At the rear of the church were the paintings by Lauritz Jessen we'd previously admired. Anna said that the second painting depicted the first Greenlandic person to encounter Jesus. After hearing about heaven and earth from Jesus, he was initially shocked but later converted to Christianity, according to Anna.
By the church was a home with another walker out front.
A few steps away was a house with two umiaks, or boats traditionally used in Greenland by women only. On the left was a newer version, and on the right, an older one. Anna told us that they are only used on national holidays.
As we walked past the town's hospital, Anna indicated that there was a very high staff turnover because it was so tough to attract qualified doctors. She said that seriously ill patients must be transferred to Nuuk for more advanced treatment.
The hospital's logo depicted a family and an igloo, according to Anna. She mentioned how helpful it is to have yellow as the designated color for hospitals, or blue for power stations, black for the police, etc, especially in the winter, when it can be so tough to pick out certain buildings. With bitterly cold temperatures dropping to minus 30 and biting winds, seeing the colors of buildings helps you know where you are!
Anna pointed out the green elementary school, the blue gym, and the red school administration building, and said she knew them well as she had attended primary school in Aasiaat.
Just beyond the library was Tipitooq Lake, where an American airplane was forced to land on the shore in 1942, due to fog at another airport. Fortunately, the 11 American crew members survived the landing, and there were no casualties on land. The plane was later cut up and reused, including windows, which are still part of private homes in Aasiaat. Anna joked that there were even discussions about who would get the plane's toilet!
Did you remember that this shade of blue was used for utilities in Greenland? When one of the group turned the spigot on, water poured out. Anna said the blue boxes supplied emergency water when residents ran out.
Anna cautioned us all not to approach the dog, as it was a working sled dog and would be very aggressive if anyone got too close. She added that locals know which dogs are sled dogs versus pets.
In the distance was one of the "dog islands" where a pack of dogs chose which one would become the alpha male, according to Anna.
That night, Steven and I ate at Cafe 3, where I enjoyed a chicken and honey dish that was one of the most delicious meals I've ever had. The restaurant was owned by Nolan, originally from Cebu in the Philippines, who had worked in restaurants from Singapore to Dubai. Wanting to slow down, he moved to Aasiaat of all places!
He told us that "some people might think it's boring there, but that it was up to him to make it not boring." After living there for almost two years, he said he loves it now and that it's good to be here, but it's still great to take vacations from time to time. In Nolan's words, "There is no traffic and no people shouting in Greenland."
Nolan had brought over a chef from Dubai, and the extensive menu reflected some influences from the Middle East. I was amazed to hear Nolan tell us that all the meals are made with fresh ingredients, given how remote the restaurant's location is, high above the Arctic Circle.
Aasiaat's harbor at night:
Next post: An unexpected extra day in Aasiaat.
Posted on October 21st, 2025, from Denver, where we've been lucky to experience nippy fall temperatures when I leave for the gym before sunrise, and almost summertime temps in the afternoon. I know we'll get our first freeze soon enough, but Steven and I are sure enjoying our first fall in Denver in many years. I hope that you and your loved ones are also loving where you are.
No comments:
Post a Comment