Appaalissiorfiup Ikerasaa (old spelling: ''Agpâligsiorfiup Ikerasâ'') is a

strait A strait is a water body connecting two seas or water basins. The surface water is, for the most part, at the same elevation on both sides and flows through the strait in both directions, even though the topography generally constricts the ...

Avannaata Avannaata (, ) is a municipality of Greenland created on 1 January 2018 from the bulk of the former Qaasuitsup municipality. It encompasses an area of 522,700 km2 and has 10,726 inhabitants. Geography In the south, Avannaata is flanked ...

municipality in northwestern

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

Geography

The strait is located at the northern end of

Tasiusaq Bay Tasiusaq Bay (Danish language, Danish: ''Vakkerprydsbugt'') is a bay in the Upernavik Archipelago in the Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland. It is an indentation of northeastern Baffin Bay. The name of the bay derives from the na ...

. It separates Qullikorsuit Island in the northeast from

Apparsuit Island Apparsuit Island (old spelling: ''Agparssuit'') is an uninhabited island in Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland. Cape Shackleton, the western promontory of the island, marks the northernmost extent of Tasiusaq Bay, an indentation of ...

in the southwest.''Upernavik Avannarleq'', Saga Map, Tage Schjøtt, 1992

History

The strait has been used as a waterway starting from 1875, when the northbound migrations of Greenlanders from

Upernavik Kanunarinaqiniiaaq (known as Upernavik) is a small town in the Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland, located on a small island of the same name. With 1,064 inhabitants as of 2024, it is the twelfth-largest town in Greenland. It c ...

reached the islands north of Tasiusaq. Apparsuit Island is characteristic for its cliffs falling to the sea from all sides, providing shelter and a breeding ground for thousands of seabirds. Together with the cliffs of Qaarsorsuaq Island in the southern part of the archipelago, the number of birds reached millions. The cliffs were harvested for eggs from the start, and continue to be occasionally harvested to this day. The shore of the strait was inhabited between 1916, when the Appaalissiorfik settlement on Qullikorsuit Island was founded, and 1923, when it was abandoned.

References

{{coord, 73, 49, N, 56, 40, W, scale:500000, display=title Tasiusaq Bay Straits of the Upernavik Archipelago