Nukannguaq visited Greenland’s first inhabitants

Clear signs that people have lived here. Photo: Nukannguaq Mathiesen

In an Arctic desert

During her studies, Nukannguaq became very interested in archaeology and immigration. When the head of the department informed the students that there was an opportunity to participate in scientific fieldwork in one of the northernmost corners of the country, she applied immediately – and was chosen.

She is now in Wandel Dal in Peary Land, less than 1000 kilometers south of the North Pole. The area is now an Arctic desert. It’s hard to believe, but people used to live here.
People who lived in tents all year round, that is. The researchers are investigating the remains of their settlements.

The people belonged to the prehistoric Independence culture, Dorset and Thule, who migrated into Greenland from Alaska and Canada. They were the first people in Greenland, and when they migrated in 4,500 years ago, they settled here at Jørgen Brønlund Fjord and Independence Fjord. They lived off musk oxen, hares, birds, and marine mammals.

So why did they disappear? Was it due to climate change? The researchers will also investigate this by taking sediment samples – samples of deposits – from the bottom of the lake.

Nukannguaq’s task was, among other things, to document traces of people, as she does here. Photo: Nukannguaq Mathiesen

Rocks telling ancient stories

At the end of July, the group set off. For four weeks, they will be on the road. The journey will take them from Nuuk to Kangerlussuaq, to Copenhagen, via Oslo to Svalbard and Station Nord. The last stop is the camp at Wandel Dal, where they have now landed.

They put up their tents, and the researchers sail further into the fjord in rubber dinghies in the morning.

The archaeologists are there to document ruins, meat depots, and other places where human activity has occurred. They also have to collect samples and take pictures. And the traces of the people who lived here thousands of years ago are evident. In fact, they don’t look long before they see stones lying where tents once stood. The tents are gone – but the rocks in formations on the ground tell them that many generations ago, people lived here and survived by their ability as hunters — people who lived and depended one hundred percent on being able to read nature and understand it.

Behind the Wandel Dal Project

The Wandel Dal Project is not entirely new.

Researchers were also in the area two years ago, and the site has also been mapped previously. But we still lack answers as to why what might have been the northernmost living people in the world disappeared. 

Therefore, the current research team will re-document the area with new eyes.  

An archaeologist looks at human traces, and a palaeoclimatologist investigates the climate of the past. 

By involving researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, the researchers hope to finally be able to put the puzzle of Peary Land together. 

History right below your hiking boots

One day, Nukannguaq Mathiesen sat outside the tent overlooking a lake. When she looked down, there was a flake right next to her hiking boots. A flake that was struck by a stone by another person many years ago – and this made her mind explode:

“I can’t even describe with words how crazy it was,” she says with a small smile.

“How did they communicate? What was their worldview like? We were far away from everything, and a lot of things happened in a short time. So, of course, I started reflecting on how thoughts disturb modern people. We have high expectations, we are stressed. We need nature after spending a long time in a big city.”

“I’m not saying it was a simple life they lived back then. But it was a life.”

Flake of black stone – a person worked with the stone many years ago. Photo: Nukannguaq Mathiesen

Sharing experiences through generations

I believe that experience is shared between generations. There is knowledge behind everything. As a child, I sat at my grandmother’s house in Ilulissat and watched her sew in skins and furs. I was observing. That started my interest in sewing, and when I was in my early 20s, I found myself at the national dress school, Kalaallisuuliornermik Ilinniarfik, in Sisimiut.
“Here, I started to think about why and what was behind the patterns, the stitches, the colors, and the materials. Why did they look the way they did, and what culture had shaped them?” she says.

That’s why Nukannguaq went to university – and why she’s now trying to understand the first people of Greenland as she stands among the stones that once held their tents.

The first people in Greenland are gone forever. Yet they might teach us something many generations later – about the climate and living and surviving in balance with nature.

Right now, Nukannguaq is waiting for the samples they collected to be analyzed.

Would you go again another time?

“For sure! Of course I would!”