r/greenland • u/icebergchick • 3h ago
My love hate relationship with Qaanaaq [OC]
I preach on here about the amazing attributes of remote towns in Greenland. Particularly the places in the far northwest or northeast.
I pride myself on having been to nearly every Greenlandic town over the past 10 years. But Qaanaaq and Ittoqqortoormiit are the most special because they’re difficult to get to and niche.
Qaanaaq was one that I idolized because I had gone once in 2019 but the trip went sideways because I was delayed a week getting there and I didn’t know how to contingency plan back then. I also got deathly ill for the first six days I was there when I finally arrived. But I did go out in an open boat to Siorapaluk and I got some amazing landscape shots. Most of all, I got to see a harvest of dozens of belugas that the community harvested on the beach. Communal sharing of the hunt for mutual survival. It was beautiful to witness and inspired me to specialize in Greenland.
I didn’t know much about Greenland at that point. I hadn’t read that much because that would come during Covid. I didn’t know what I was witnessing. I didn’t appreciate it until I went to Ittoqqortoormiit and then back to Qaanaaq again for seven weeks this summer.
I was appalled to be honest. I thought I had seen poverty in Greenland in the East but seeing Qeqertat and Siorapaluk and many of the homes in Qaanaaq without running water and such was heartbreaking. In 2026. Worst of all, people here cannot leave. They’re stuck. The prices of the airfare are obscene. It costs 8000 DKK from Ilulissat one way. 11000 DKK one way to Nuuk. That’s nearly $1800 USD for one person one way and you’re not even leaving Greenland. In Ittoqqortoormiit, you can get to Iceland for 2000 DKK one way before you get into the discount schemes. You can get out though. It’s feasible. Not so in Qaanaaq.
You can tell. The doctor I met didn’t want to be there because they said people had given up on life. No one showed up for work. No one showed up for appointments. The standard of care was too low to be associated with. They ran that doctor out of town. And the teeth in Qaanaaq… non-existent. It's easier to yank them instead of filling the cavities so you’re good if you have a few to work with. Worst teeth in Greenland. Absenteeth... I need to stop.
I also saw the addiction on the beach. Public intoxication and some guy with no teeth tried to kiss me while I was taking photos. Everyone knows about the social problems in Greenland but they don't cross into my personal space usually.
The addiction to tobacco is much more pervasive. Chimneys basically. I timed one of my hunters went out a minimum of every 18 minutes while indoors and hunting was nearly nonstop. The tobacco was more important to keep these guys going than the bullets.
Flat rate internet has changed this place a lot. It was introduced when Tusass upgraded its satellite service to the remote areas back in 2024. Before that, internet was prohibitively expensive. Some of the settlements have started using starlink even though it's illegal in Greenland - though we aren't sure if the politicians will amend that decision in the coming months.
It used to be a culture of we but now it’s a culture of me. Everyone has to feed their addiction. The cigarettes, the phone, the booze, the whatever the flavor of the day is. The groceries are more expensive up there. They run out of baby formula for months on end. The tobacco tub is 500 DKK so you can fill up your cigarettes yourself.
It's not like people in charge don't know about this. I've seen the royal jet come and they go to a ceremony at the sports hall and then fly away. How can people allow their own subjects to live like this? That's the most disturbing aspect of all. Especially after the forcible relocation to Qaanaaq from Uummannaq where they lived before Thule Air Base began construction in 1953. The agreement with the US that everyone is talking about from 1951 was the same agreement that planted the seed for the nightmare that is modern Qaanaaq 75 years later. Total train wreck with broken people that have been through enough and keep getting the pressure put on them with no relief. That's what doesn't get through in the news cycle.
The people from the district are a different ethnic group from the Western Greenlanders and East Greenlanders. They're the Inughuit and they have a distinctive dialect that is much closer to the northern Baffin Island dialects than anything else in Greenland. People can't understand them and most don't bother. It's hard to relate to a group of people that are isolated and living with conditions that the vast majority of the population cannot relate to. For instance, most of the hunters here are hunting narwhal with kayak and harpoon. That's not something done anywhere else in Greenland. Partially because the narwhals don't like noise and ship traffic and because the profit motive is much stronger the further you go south in Greenland. It maxes out in Nuuk.
It’s crazy. I don’t think I’ll be back and that’s sad. I hear from anthropologists that these towns have these awful cycles and eventually they’ll bounce back again. Maybe after some of the evil people pass on to the next life but before some of the good ones expire, I’ll consider going in winter.
I will say though that there are a few hunters that are working hard to maintain the culture of kayaking. Niihi and Kuuka. They’re the best. If you do end up going to Qaanaaq just ask for them. He is an amazing carver and a big hunter. They took us to the narwhals and I saw at least 60 of them but he chose to not catch one with us because the tusks weren’t impressive enough. He is not going to waste quota on a small one.
Those guys and their families and the Kristensen clan in both Qaanaaq and Savissivik and the Avike and Oshima clan in Siorapaluk are everything to me. I’m more motivated now after seeing the disparity between the remote towns in Greenland. I don’t need to go and be there again until it stabilizes. But I can fight for them without being physically located there. A lot of work needs to be done. That gives me some hope.
I hope these photos are useful. It’s a fascinating place and beautiful but lots of work is now in progress.
