NUUK, GREENLAND

We are on a tour of Nuuk today, and will report tomorrow with photos.  For now:

• Nuuk is the Greenlandic word for cape.
• Known as Godthab in Denmark, a name used until 1879, when home rule was established.
• Capital and most populous city with 20,298 people, or 36% of Greenland.  The population has doubled since 1977.

• 
  First occupied by pre-Inuit Saqqaq culture as far back as 2200 BC.
• Norse settlers came around 1000, but disappeared  for uncertain reasons during the 15th centtury.
• City established in 1728 by Danish-Norwegian  royal governor Claus Paarss and missionary/merchant Hans Egede.
• Moravian missionaries came in 1733.
• Paarass's colonists were mutinous soldiers, convicts and prostitutes, and most died of scurvy and other ailments in the first year.

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  In 1733 and 1734, a smallpox epidemic killed most of the native population, as well as Egede's wife.  
• Hans left Greenland to return to Denmark in 1736, leaving son Poul Egede (right) to continue his work.
• Godthab became the seat of the Danish colony of South Greenland around that time, and took over the whole of Greenland in 1940.
• American and Canadian consulates were established in 1940.
• During World War II, there was a reawakening of Greenlandic national identity, led by Eske Brun in Nuuk.

• 
  The Greenland Home Rule government renamed the city of Godthab to Nuuk in 1950.
• Nuuk has the highest percentage of aboriginal people of any city,  85-90% Inuit.
• Has the highest proportion of Danes than any town in Greenland, 10% to 15%.

• 
  Sits at a latitude of 64.18 N, close to Reykjavik at 64.1 N and Fairbanks, Alaska at 64.8.
• While fishing has declined, almost half of Greenland's fishing fleet call Nuuk home.
• Also contributing to the economy are zinc and gold.
• Electricity is primarily hydroelectric.

• 
  Has the only university on the island, the University of Greenland, also known as Ilisimatusarfik University.
• Established in 1987.
• About 200 students and 15 academic staff.  Many guest faculty.
• Many locals instead go to universities in Denmark.

• 
  Greenland's first shopping center opened in Nuuk in 2012.
• Has an international airport, built in 1979 and modernized in 2024. Averages 13 flights/day.
• No roads connect Nuuk with other parts of Greenland.
• Greenland welcomes up to 150,000 international visitors, but it is unclear where they go.  Cruise ships complicate the tally.  There are around 560 port calls/year with nearly 94,000 passengers.
• Historical Nuuk attractions.
• Hans Egede's House, built in 1721, Greenlands oldest building.
• Nuuk Cathedral, built in 1849 and tower added in 1884.
• Greenland National Museum is in Nuuk.
• Moravian Brethren Mission House.

• Katauq, their cultural center.

• Nuuk Center.  Greenland's first shopping center.

We took a bus tour of Nuuk today.  I'll share a few photos.  It was a bright sunny day, but at 45 F.  St. Johns, Newfoundland, our next stop was in the 60s and Montreal in the mid-70s.  Montreal is 1290 miles more south than Nuuk.  As videos take forever to convert to You Tube, here is one I found on the internet, A Day in Nuuk, Greenland.  Another:  The SHOCKING Truth About Greenland's Largest City -- Nuuk.  And, yes, orchids do grow in Greenland.  According to Google AI:

Greenland is home to a few native orchid species, such as the northern green orchid (Platanthera hyperborea) and the small white orchid (Pseudorchis albida). However, true wild orchids do not literally grow and bloom out of melting snow fields in Greenland; early-blooming arctic-alpine mat plants like purple saxifrage typically fill that role.

I'll close with Lala, the hurricane that smacked Honolulu, leaving hundreds of thousands still without electricity yesterday  She is now leaving the state, but remember my warning about a sudden right turn north what occurred with Hurricane Iniki?  Note that Lala, which was a tropical storm when she left the Hawaii region, has moved further west, and today rebecame a hurricane, and is set to soon become a Category 2 hurricane tomorrow while projected to suddenly move north.  If this had occurred a little earlier, as happend with Hurricane Iniki, the State of Hawaii would have been in serious trouble.

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