Kangeq

Kangeq or Kangek (Kalaallisut: "Promontory") is a former settlement in the Sermersooq municipality in southwestern Greenland. It is located on the same island that formed the first Danish-Norwegian colony on Greenland between 1721 and 1728.

Kangeq Håbets Ø
Kangeq, ca. 1890
Kangeq Location within Greenland
Coordinates: 64°07′00″N 52°04′00″W
State	Kingdom of Denmark
Constituent country	Greenland
Municipality	Sermersooq
First settled	before 1000 CE
Abandoned	1973[citation needed]
Time zone	UTC-03

History

A map of Haabet Oe and Baal's River by Hans Egede.

As a coastal settlement, Kangeq was positioned on the migration route of the ancient Inuit peoples. Archeological finds from the Dorset culture era have been found near Kangeq.^[1] The Dorset people had vanished from the Nuuk region prior to 1000 CE.^[1]

The island of Kangeq, dubbed Håbets Ø ("Island of Hope"), formed the site of Hans Egede's first settlement in Greenland after his landing on July 3, 1721.^[2] The settlement was relocated to the mainland by Major Claus Paarss in 1728.^[3]

Tupilak, woman and man by Aron of Kangeq.

In the mid-19th century, it was also home to the artist Aron of Kangeq (1822-1869), a Greenland Inuit hunter, painter, and oral historian.^[4] In 1854, Kangeq became an official trading station, and an official residence was built for the assistant representing the Royal Greenland Trade Department.^[5]

Today the ruins of Kangeq are sometimes visited by historically oriented tourists.^[6] In 2009, the old houses of Kangeq were used as a backdrop for the Eksperimentet film, with the settlement emulating the look of Nuuk in 1952.^[7]

Geography

Kangeq was located in an island at the mouth of the Nuup Kangerlua fjord,^[8] on the coast of Labrador Sea, approximately 18 km (11 mi) west-south-west of Nuuk, the capital of Greenland.^[5]

Former notable residents

• Aron of Kangeq (1822-1869), painter and oral historian^[9]

References

1. "Human History". Nuuk Tourism. Archived from the original on March 10, 2010. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
2. Saabye, Hans Egede; Fries, Georg; Lloyd, Hannibal Evans (1818). Greenland: Being Extracts from a Journal Kept in that Country in the Years 1770 to 1778. Boosey and Sons. p. 73.
3. "Hans Egede". Missionariesbiography.com. Retrieved 21 September 2016.
4. "Suluk 2007 No.2" (PDF). Air Greenland. Archived from the original (PDF) on 7 September 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
5. Gulløv, Hans Christian (1997). From Middle Ages to Colonial Times: Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Studies of the Thule Culture in South West Greenland 1300-1800 AD. Commission for Scientific Research in Greenland. p. 412. ISBN 978-87-90369-21-7.
6. "A sailing adventure to the abandoned fishing village of Kangeq". The Fourth Continent. 2013-06-19. Retrieved 31 August 2013.
7. "Kangeq med i film". Sermitsiaq (in Danish). 21 July 2009. Archived from the original on September 12, 2010. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
8. The Atlantic Walrus (Odobenus rosmarus rosmarus) in West Greenland. Museum Tusculanum Press. 1994. p. 6. ISBN 978-87-635-1227-5.
9. Nuttall, Mark (12 November 2012). Encyclopedia of the Arctic. Routledge. p. 158. ISBN 978-1-136-78680-8.