Nipisat Island ( Kalaallisut: "

Lumpfish The Cyclopteridae are a family of marine fishes, commonly known as lumpsuckers or lumpfish, in the order Scorpaeniformes. They are found in the cold waters of the Arctic, North Atlantic, and North Pacific oceans. The greatest number of species ar ...

", referring to the island's shape) is a small, uninhabited

island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

in the

Qeqqata Qeqqata (, ) is a municipality in western Greenland, operational from 1 January 2009. The municipality was named after its location in the central-western part of the country. Its population is 9,378 as of January 2020. The administrative cente ...

municipality in central-western

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

Nipisat Island has situated south of

Sisimiut Sisimiut (), also known by its Danish name Holstensborg or Holsteinsborg, is the capital and largest city of the Qeqqata municipality, the second-largest city in Greenland, and the largest Arctic city in North America.The term 'city' is loos ...

, on the shores of

Davis Strait The Davis Strait (Danish language, Danish: ''Davisstrædet'') is a southern arm of the Arctic Ocean that lies north of the Labrador Sea. It lies between mid-western Greenland and Baffin Island in Nunavut, Canada. To the north is Baffin Bay. The ...

. It belongs to the group of small islands and

skerries A skerry is a small rocky island, usually defined to be too small for habitation. Skerry, skerries, or The Skerries may also refer to: Geography Northern Ireland *Skerries, County Armagh, a List of townlands in County Armagh#S, townland in Coun ...

located at the mouth of

Ikertooq Fjord Ikertooq Fjord (old spelling: ''Ikertôq'') is a long fjord in the Qeqqata municipality in western Greenland. The fjord empties into Davis Strait south of Sisimiut. Geography The upper part of the fjord, a confluence of three tributary inl ...

, immediately to the west of

Sarfannguit Island Sarfannguit Island (, ) is an island in the Qeqqata municipality in western Greenland. Geography The island is of elongated shape, separated from the mainland of Greenland by Sarfannguit Channel, a narrow waterway at the eastern promontory occ ...

. Dwarf scrub heath,

dwarf birch ''Betula nana'', the dwarf birch, is a species of birch in the family Betulaceae, found mainly in the tundra of the Arctic region. Description It is a monoecious, deciduous shrub growing up to high. The bark is non-peeling and shiny red-copper ...

Arctic willow ''Salix arctica'', the Arctic willow, is a tiny creeping willow (family Salicaceae). It is adapted to survive in Arctic conditions, specifically tundras. Description ''S. arctica'' is typically a low shrub growing to only in height, rarely to ...

, well-drained

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

s, and herb vegetation dominate the flora.

History

In the 18th century, the Danes and Norwegians came to Nipisat. In 1723,

Hans Egede Hans Poulsen Egede (31 January 1686 – 5 November 1758) was a Denmark–Norway, Danish-Norwegian Lutheran missionary priest who launched mission efforts to Greenland, which led him to be styled the Apostle of Greenland. He established a succes ...

found native people actively engaged in hunting large whalebone whales in Nipisat and the

Danes Danes (, ), or Danish people, are an ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural. History Early history Denmark ...

established the first settlement, a trading station here. Two years later, a small mission was established on the island, but it was abandoned the following year, and then burnt down by

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

whalers. In 1727, the Norwegians Ditlev Vibe and Bishop Deichmann of Christiania recommended to the King of Denmark the re-establishment of a trade station at Nipisat and the establishment of a whaling station. In 1728,

Frederick IV of Denmark Frederick IV (Danish language, Danish: ''Frederik''; 11 October 1671 – 12 October 1730) was List of Danish monarchs, King of Denmark and List of Norwegian monarchs, Norway from 1699 until his death. Frederick was the son of Christian V of Denma ...

ordered a fortress be constructed at Nipisat, but two years later, he ordered its abandonment and evacuation.

Archaeology

The island is notable for its well preserved

Saqqaq culture The Saqqaq culture was a Paleo-Eskimo culture in southern Greenland. It was named after the settlement of Saqqaq, the site of many archaeological finds. The Saqqaq were the longest-residing residents of Greenland in all of history. Timeframe T ...

archaeological site, containing some stone artifacts that were previously unknown from the Saqqaq culture. The Saqqaq people are not the ancestors of modern

Kalaallit Kalaallit are a Greenlandic Inuit ethnic group, being the largest group in Greenland, concentrated in the west. It is also a contemporary term in the Greenlandic language for the Indigenous of Greenland ().Hessel, 8 The Kalaallit (singular: ) a ...

people, rather they are related to modern Chukchi and Koryak peoples.Walton, Doreen
"Analysis of hair DNA reveals ancient human's face."
''BBC News.'' (retrieved 11 February 2010) The site, named after the island, was discovered in 1989 by Finn Kramer, curator of the

Sisimiut Museum Sisimiut Museum ( Greenlandic: Sisimiut Katersugaasiviat) is a museum in Sisimiut, Greenland. Located in a historical building near the harbour, specialises in Greenlandic trade, industry and shipping, with artifacts based on ten years of archaeo ...

.Gotfredsen, pp. 24 It lies approximately from the present coastline, situated on raised beaches with a southeastern slope. The area elevation ranges between and

above mean sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of a location's vertical distance (height, elevation or altitude) in reference to a vertical datum based on a historic mean sea level. In geodesy, it is formalized as orthometric height. The zero level ...

. This part of the island that contains the archaeological site, did not show signs of later occupation by

Dorset culture The Dorset was a Paleo-Eskimo culture, lasting from to between and , that followed the Pre-Dorset and preceded the Thule people (proto-Inuit) in the North American Arctic. The culture and people are named after Cape Dorset (now Kinngait) in ...

Thule culture The Thule ( , ) or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by 1000 AD and expanded eastward across northern Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the ...

. However, it does show signs of pre-Dorset, and of Arctic small tool tradition. During the five year evacuation period of 1989–1994, over 70,000 bone fragments and approximately 1,000 artifacts were recovered, including 314 tools. On 30 June 2018, it was inscribed as part of Aasivissuit – Nipisat: Inuit Hunting Ground between Ice and Sea, a

UNESCO World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

that stretches inland to the

Greenland Ice Sheet The Greenland ice sheet is an ice sheet which forms the second largest body of ice in the world. It is an average of thick and over thick at its maximum. It is almost long in a north–south direction, with a maximum width of at a latitude ...

. The world heritage site includes six other archaeological sites that each display different aspects of hunter-gatherer societies through 4000 years of occupation in Greenland.

References

{{Abandoned sites in Greenland Uninhabited islands of Greenland Archaeological sites in Greenland Former populated places in Greenland Human remains (archaeological) Prehistory of the Arctic 1989 archaeological discoveries Davis Strait