Expedition to the Thule Region

Nuuk, meaning “the cape”, was Greenland’s first town (1728). Started as a fort and later mission and trading post some 240 kilometers south of the Arctic Circle, it is the current capital. Almost 30% of Greenland’s population lives in the town. Not only does Nuuk have great natural beauty in its vicinity, but there are Inuit ruins, Hans Egede’s home, the parliament, and the Church of our Saviour as well. The Greenlandic National Museum has an outstanding collection of Greenlandic traditional dresses, as well as the famous Qilakitsoq mummies. The Katuaq Cultural Center’s building was inspired by the undulating Northern Lights and can house 10% of Nuuk’s inhabitants.

Located just north of the Arctic Circle, Sisimiut is the northernmost town in Greenland where the port remains free of ice in the winter. Yet it is also the southernmost town where there is enough snow and ice to drive a dogsled in winter and spring. In Sisimiut, travelling by sled has been the primary means of winter transportation for centuries. In fact, the area has been inhabited for approximately 4,500 years. Modern Sisimiut is the largest business center in the north of Greenland, and is one of the fastest growing Greenlandic cities. Commercial fishing is the lead economy in the town‘s thriving industrial base.

In AD 850, the Vikings established their parliament in Tórshavn, a name which translates as "Thor's harbor." It was named after Thor, the god of thunder and lightning in Norse mythology. The town became a center of trade for the island, and in fact was designated as the only legal place for the islanders to sell and buy products. This trade monopoly was abolished in 1856. Today it is the capital and largest city of the Faroe Islands, with fish-processing plants, a shipyard, and woolen products making up. It is considered to be one of the oldest capitals in Northern Europe.

Located in northern Baffin Island, Pond Inlet is a small, predo¬minantly Inuit community, with a population of roughly 1,500 inhabitants. In 1818, the British explorer John Ross named a bay in the vicinity after the English astronomer John Pond. Today Pond Inlet is considered one of Canada's "jewels of the North" thanks to several picturesque glaciers and mountain ranges nearby. Many archaeological sites of ancient Dorset and Thule peoples can be found near Pond Inlet. The Inuit hunted caribou, ringed and harp seals, fish, polar bears, walrus, narwhals, geese, ptarmigans and Arctic hares, long before European and American whalers came here to harvest bowhead whales. Pond Inlet is also known as a major center of Inuit art, especially the printmaking and stone carving that are featured in the town’s art galleries.

Devon Island is Canada’s sixth largest island and was first seen by Europeans in the early 17th century. The Thule culture had already settled there many centuries before, and left behind qarmat homes, made of rocks, whale bones, rock and sod walls, and skins for roofs that tell a story of over 800 years of human habitation. Other striking finds in this area are the many fossils of corals, crinoids and nautiloids that can be seen. Just across Lancaster Sound is Prince Leopold Island, a Canadian Important Bird Area, a federally listed migratory bird sanctuary, and a Key Migratory Bird Terrestrial Habitat site with large numbers of Thick-billed Murres, Northern Fulmars and Black-legged Kittiwakes that breed there.