Disko Bay
| Disko Bay | ||
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 Icebergs in Disko Bay |
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| Waters | Baffin Bay | |
| Land mass | Greenland , Disco Island | |
| Geographical location | 69 ° 0 ′ 0 ″ N , 52 ° 0 ′ 0 ″ W | |
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 Inuit in traditional kayaks in Disko Bay |
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The Diskobay ( Greenlandic Qeqertarsuup Tunua , Danish Diskobugt , English disco Bay ) in the Baffin Bay is a bay at the central west coast of Greenland in the disco island .
On the mainland side by the bay is the third largest Greenland city of Ilulissat ( Jakobshavn ) with 4,546 inhabitants (2010) as well as Qasigiannguit ( Christianshåb ) and Aasiaat ( Egedesminde ), while the municipality of Qeqertarsuaq ( Godhavn ) is on Disko Island .
Politically, Disko Bay belongs to the large commune Avannaata Kommunia , whose main town is Ilulissat .
The name is derived from its round shape (see discos ).
List of settlements
From North to south
Further south from east to west
- Qasigiannguit
- Ikamiut
- Akunnaaq
- Aasiaat
- In the bay on an island north of Aasiaat: Kitsissuarsuit
On the disco island
history
The oldest documented person living there was a member of the Saqqaq culture , who lived there about 4000 years ago. Its DNA , preserved in permafrost , of which 79 percent was sequenced, identified it as a relative of peoples living in northeastern Siberia today. Later, the ancestors of today's Inuit settled the area. There are finds from the early and late Dorset civilizations . From 1100 the Thule culture of today's Inuit established itself .
About two kilometers south of Ilulissat is the old settlement of Sermermiut, where finds from all three ancient cultures Saqqaq, Dorset and Thule were recovered. With 250 inhabitants, the settlement was the largest Inuit settlement in Greenland when Ililussat was founded as a Danish colony.
The first Europeans to reach Disko Bay were the ship crew of Erik the Red around the year 986. The Vikings did not establish permanent settlements there, but during the colonization of Greenland they frequented the area to hunt seals , whales and walruses in summer . These hunting expeditions, which supplied important trade goods, ended with the failure of the Viking settlement at the beginning of the Little Ice Age , a cool period from the 15th century.
The next Europeans active in the area were the Danes again in the 18th century, who set up the Jakobshavn trading post in 1741. Their economic interests concentrated on whaling, fishing and fur hunting for seals and walruses. There was a large factory in Ilulissat that made lamp oil from waltran . The Ritenbenk Kulbrud coal mine , which has since been abandoned, is located on Disko Island .
economy
Today fishing and increasingly tourism are at the center of economic activity. Disko Bay is the main travel destination in Greenland and is served by numerous cruise ships.
Large oil reserves are believed to be in Baffin Bay. In 2010, Cairn Energy made a natural gas discovery in Disko Bay , which indicates an oil deposit.
literature
- Bjarne Grønnow: Qeqertasussuk - the Archeology of a Frozen Saqqaq Site in Disko Bugt, West Greenland. In: D. Morrison, J. Pilon (eds.): Treads of Arctic Prehistory: Papers in honor of William E. Taylor, Jr. (= L. Mercury Series paper. 149). Archaeological survey of Canada, Museum of Civilization, Ottawa 1994.
- Bjarne Grønnow: Driftwood and Saqqaq Culture Woodworking in West Greenland. In: B. Jacobsen (Ed.): Cultural and social research in Greenland 95/96. Essays in Honor of Robert Petersen. Ilisimatusarfik / Atuakkiorfik, Nuuk 1996.
- Bjarne Grønnow: The Saqqaq Tool Kit - Technological and Chronological Evidence from Qeqertasussuk, Disko Bugt. In: B. Grønnow (Ed.): The Paleo-Eskimo Cultures of Greenland. New Perspectives in Greenlandic Archeology. Danish Polar Center, Copenhagen 1996.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Greenland in figures 2010. ( Memento of May 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) p. 9.
- ↑ ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Greenland venture 2009, p. 40.
- ↑ The original Eskimo from Disko Bay. on: derstandard.at
- ↑ The Disko Bay. on: groenlandinfo.de