Ivittuut (formerly, Ivigtût) (

Kalaallisut Kalaallisut may refer to: * Greenlandic language * West Greenlandic West Greenlandic ( da, vestgrønlandsk), also known as Kalaallisut, is the primary language of Greenland and constitutes the Greenlandic language, spoken by the vast majority of ...

: "Grassy Place") is an abandoned mining town near Cape Desolation in southwestern

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

, in the modern Sermersooq

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

on the ruins of the former Norse Middle Settlement. Ivittuut is one of the few places in the world so far discovered to have naturally occurring cryolite (Na₃AlF₆, sodium aluminum fluoride), an important agent in modern

aluminum extraction Aluminium (aluminum in American and Canadian English) is a chemical element with the symbol Al and atomic number 13. Aluminium has a density lower than those of other common metals, at approximately one third that of steel. It h ...

History

The area was settled by about twenty farms of

Norsemen The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the pre ...

, a district called the "Middle Settlement" by modern archaeologists from its placement between the larger Western and Eastern Settlements. It is the smallest and least well known of the three, and no written records of its residents survive, for which reasons it is believed to have been established last (and abandoned first) of the three. Investigations show a presence after 985 and with occupation continuing up to at least the 14th century. The town's cryolite deposit was discovered in 1799, and the veins of silver-bearing lead surrounding it were mined by the British engineer J.W. Tayler before the silver content was found to be too low to make the operation viable. Danish engineers began mining the cryolite itself in 1859, and in 1864 the Danish Kriolit Mine og Handels Selskabet was granted a monopoly on its extraction.Doody, Richard. ''The World at War''.
GREENLAND 1721 - 1953
. Accessed 28 Apr 2012. These early mines simply processed the cryolite for its direct aluminum content and for sale to the

Pennsylvania Salt Manufacturing Company Arkema S.A. is a publicly listed, multi-national manufacturer of specialty materials, headquartered in Colombes, near Paris, France. It has three specialty materials segments (or divisions); adhesives, advanced materials and coatings. A furthe ...

, which used it to create caustic soda. The 1884 establishment of the Hall-Heroult process, which depends on the rare cryolite but dramatically improved the extraction of aluminum from

bauxite Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO(O ...

ore, increased the deposit's importance. The Ivittuut mining operations were a major factor in the

American occupation of Greenland The fall of Denmark in April 1940 left the Danish colony of Greenland an unoccupied territory of an occupied nation, under the possibility of seizure by the United Kingdom, United States or Canada. To forestall this, the United States acted to g ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. After World War II, the cryolite was mined by the Danish firm Kryolitselskabet Øresund, which helped fund the establishment of ''Grønlandsfly'', today's Air Greenland. Cryolite was eventually synthesized, reducing the importance of the mine, and production was finally found uneconomical and discontinued in 1987.arsukfjorden.gl
The community was abandoned soon after. In 1924, it was a stopping place for the

first aerial circumnavigation The first aerial circumnavigation of the world was completed in 1924 by four aviators from an eight-man team of the United States Army Air Service, the precursor of the United States Air Force. The 175-day journey covered over . The team general ...

, during which new engines were installed in two American

biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

aircraft.

Climate

Ivittuut holds the record for Greenland's highest recorded temperature of , recorded on 23 June 1915. The lowest recorded temperature was in February. Ivittuut has a

tundra climate The tundra climate is a polar climate sub-type located in high latitudes and high mountains. undra climate https://www.britannica.com/science/tundra-climateThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2019 It is classified as ET according to Köppen ...

( ET) bordering on a

subarctic The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of humid continental regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and the Cairngorms. Generally, ...

climate (Dfc), with July having an average of . Summertime temperatures are cool with chilly nights, and wintertime temperatures are very cold with frigid nights.

Transport

Ivittuut and

Kangilinnguit Kangilinnguit or Kangilínguit, formerly Grønnedal , is a settlement and location of a former naval base in Greenland's Sermersooq municipality, located at the mouth of Arsuk Fjord in southwestern Greenland. The settlement had 160 inhabitants in ...

are connected by a road (which is roughly 5 km (3 mi) long).

References

{{Authority control Ghost towns in Greenland Former populated places in Greenland Norse settlements in Greenland Populated places established in the 10th century Mines in Greenland Geological type localities

History

Climate

Transport

See also

References