The GPS told us we crossed the Arctic Circle: 66° 33′ N.
Attu & Disko Bay
A few hours more is Attu, another small fishing settlement, population probably under 200 by now.
Small square traditional style houses dot a flat peninsula, built on islands of rock with surrounding lawns of natural grassland.
Beyond the house walls and the borders of little planked decks and steps the locals don’t appear bothered with property boundaries, each home something like a boat anchored in a bay.
A few flags were on display, one Danish and one Greenlandic – both the same red and white, both at half-mast for what turned out to be a local funeral. In the harbour there is a little breakwater and wharf, and adjacent is the focus of the place: a fish factory to process local catch before it’s shipped away.
Abandoned and decaying fishing vessels of a more traditional style are not an uncommon sight.
A day later we made the southern end of Disko Bay, which was to be our northernmost destination on this voyage. Disko Bugt is a large inlet with a 30 mile wide mouth formed by the mainland and a big island. Its waters are nutrient-rich and host an increased wealth of wildlife as a consequence, making it a resourceful location for fish, walruses (ivory), seals (pelts), and whales. Norse settlers arrived soon after establishing their south-western settlements in the late 900’s, uninhabited at the time but later also by the Inuit from the north.
The administrative centre for the Bay is Aasiaat – “spiders” in Greenlandic, no one really sure why – population some 3,000 sprinkled across the usual rocky plateau of an island at the southern coast. After the small fishing settlements the wharf and built-up township felt like a return to modernity. Kiwi Roa was docked directly to rusting steel plate, up and down with the tides and a high climb to get ashore.
Further into the Bay we would find another abandoned settlement to explore.
