Etah is an abandoned settlement in the

Avannaata Avannaata (, ) is a municipality of Greenland created on 1 January 2018 from the bulk of the former Qaasuitsup municipality. It encompasses an area of 522,700 km2 and has 10,726 inhabitants. Geography In the south, Avannaata is flanked ...

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

in northern

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

. It was a starting point of discovery expeditions to the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

and the landing site of the last migration of the

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

from the

Canadian Arctic Northern Canada (), colloquially the North or the Territories, is the vast northernmost region of Canada, variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three territories of Canada: Yukon, Northwest Territories a ...

Geography

The village was located on the shores of Foulk Fjord near Reindeer Point. The fjord is about wide and several kilometres long with cliffs on each side. Brother John's Glacier terminates at the eastern end of the fjord. At the foot of the glacier is Lake Alida, a small body of frozen fresh water. The northern end of

Baffin Bay Baffin Bay (Inuktitut: ''Saknirutiak Imanga''; ; ; ), located between Baffin Island and the west coast of Greenland, is defined by the International Hydrographic Organization as a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is sometimes considered a s ...

west of the former village, narrowing into

Nares Strait Nares Strait (; ) is a waterway between Ellesmere Island and Greenland that connects the northern part of Baffin Bay in the Atlantic Ocean with the Lincoln Sea in the Arctic Ocean. From south to north, the strait includes Smith Sound, Kane Basi ...

between Greenland and

Ellesmere Island Ellesmere Island (; ) is Canada's northernmost and List of Canadian islands by area, third largest island, and the List of islands by area, tenth largest in the world. It comprises an area of , slightly smaller than Great Britain, and the total ...

, is usually frozen from October to July.

History

Last migration to Greenland

Etah lies on the ancient migration route from the north of the Canadian Arctic with several waves of ancient migrants passing through the area from the northbound Independence I and Independence II cultures 4,400 and 2,700 years ago, respectively, to the southbound

Thule culture The Thule ( , ) or proto-Inuit were the ancestors of all modern Inuit. They developed in coastal Alaska by 1000 AD and expanded eastward across northern Canada, reaching Greenland by the 13th century. In the process, they replaced people of the ...

migrants less than a thousand years ago. It is also the point where the last migration of the Inuit from

Baffin Island Baffin Island (formerly Baffin Land), in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada, the second-largest island in the Americas (behind Greenland), and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is (slightly smal ...

reached the coast of Greenland in 1865. An Inuk

shaman Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

() named Qidlaq led the migrants from Baffin Island alongside the coast of Ellesmere Island for seven years, crossing the strait to Etah. The group split there, with some returning to

Pond Inlet Pond Inlet () is a small, predominantly Inuit community in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada, located on northern Baffin Island. To the Inuit the name of the place "is and always has been Mittimatalik." The Scottish explorer John Ross (R ...

in Canada at a cost of many lives. Inhabitants of Pituffik, later relocated to

Qaanaaq Qaanaaq (), formerly known as New Thule, is the main town in the northern part of the Avannaata municipality in northwestern Greenland. The town has a population of 646 as of 2020. The population was forcibly relocated from its former, traditiona ...

, are partially descended from this last group of Arctic migrants to Greenland.

20th century

Etah was used in the past as a base camp for several Arctic expeditions, including

Knud Rasmussen Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen (; 7 June 1879 – 21 December 1933) was a Greenlandic-Danish polar explorer and anthropologist. He has been called the "father of Eskimology" (now often known as Inuit Studies or Greenlandic and Arctic Studies) ...

's expeditions to the northern coast of Greenland,

Robert Peary Robert Edwin Peary Sr. (; May 6, 1856 – February 20, 1920) was an American explorer and officer in the United States Navy who made several expeditions to the Arctic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was long credited as being ...

's failed attempts at the North Pole, the ill-fated

Crocker Land Expedition The Crocker Land Expedition took place in 1913. Its purpose was to investigate the existence of Crocker Land, a huge island supposedly sighted by the explorer Robert Peary from the top of Cape Colgate in 1906. It is now believed that Peary fraud ...

of 1913, the Humphrey Expedition of 1934–35, the MacGregor Arctic Expedition in 1937–38, and the Haig Thomas Expedition of 1938. Descendants of Peary and the local Inuit still live in Qaanaaq. Etah was once the most-northerly populated settlement in the world, while Annoatok, located approximately to the north, was only a seasonally-occupied hunting camp. The village was abandoned with the Inuit moving south to Pituffik due to the harsh climate. In 1984, a group of Greenlanders from Qaanaaq moved to Etah in an attempt to repopulate the village. The attempt failed, with the hunters unable to support themselves and their families with income from animal hides, as well as their inability to sever connections with the settled life and the amenities of Qaanaaq. The huts of the former village are still standing. Today, Etah is seldom visited except by occasional hunter visitors in the summertime because of an abundance of

walrus The walrus (''Odobenus rosmarus'') is a large pinniped marine mammal with discontinuous distribution about the North Pole in the Arctic Ocean and subarctic seas of the Northern Hemisphere. It is the only extant species in the family Odobeni ...

es and

polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a large bear native to the Arctic and nearby areas. It is closely related to the brown bear, and the two species can Hybrid (biology), interbreed. The polar bear is the largest extant species of bear ...

References

{{Authority control Former populated places in Greenland Avannaata