251
Arctic Yearbook 2014
suggests that the first settlers of Avanersuaq arrived some 5000 years ago after crossing Smith Sound
from Canada. The direct ancestors of today’s Inuit belonged to the “Thule” culture and reached
Avanersuaq soon after 1000 A.D.
Qaanaaq was established in 1952 following the Danish authorities’ decision to move the local
population, Inughuit (the great people) from their home village Uummannaq (Dundas) because of its
close proximity to the American Thule Air Base. Greenland’s most northern town has a number of
facilities including a hotel, a supermarket, a bakery, a post office, a tourist office, and a little, wellequipped hospital, as well as a museum, which is housed in the former home of the famous arctic
explorer Knud Rasmussen, who in 1910 established the district’s first trading post called Thule
(named after the Latin name of Ultima Thule).
In Qaanaaq, like in the other peripheral districts, hunting activities are predominant and are
substantial components of the informal economy and of the subsistence sector. The possibilities to
diversify the activities, and thus, having an extra income, are rather limited in this peripheral and
scarcely populated area. Besides some administrative jobs, there is a Handicrafts Centre, managed on
a cooperative basis but administratively and financially supported by municipal authorities, with
facilities for making handicrafts and a shop for displaying and selling.
Some tourism activities are taking place in the area, thanks to the impressive landscape and its
remoteness. This together with the mythical aura of the Ultima Thule, has great potential for
tourism. The region is not always easy to reach and symbolizes one of the last frontiers in tourism.
For this reason, tourism is a recurrent issue in the community discourse and is considered as “the”
option for future development.
The craft and souvenir shop in Qaanaaq, which is also the Tourism Office, has a variety of activities
to offer to the tourists21, as well as accommodation in Qaanaaq and the surrounding settlements.22
The local hunters and fishermen are involved in the tourism activities. The revenues from tourism
activities are considered important in the community, where the main source of income is huntingproducts, followed by tourism.23 However, the number of tourists remain very small. In the 1990s
larger groups of tourists (10–16) arrived whereas today, it is mostly individual travellers or smaller
groups (2–4) that land in Qaanaaq. Reasons for this trend are among others, more expensive air
tickets that were introduced after the building of the airport24 in 2002.
So far, apart from some seasonal tourism activities, involving a small fraction of the local
population, only a little tourism development has taken place.
Findings
Generally, the interviewees25 agree that it is a good income to have tourists especially now, that the
ice is becoming thinner which is making hunting places difficult to reach. Some of them would like
to work mainly as guides, with hunting as a side-activity. However, they admit that they do not have
as many sled-dog tourists as anticipated, but on the other hand they recognize that the profits stay in
the community.26
Tourism, Human Capital & Regional Development in Three Communities in Greenland