- Ship
- 1 Breakfast, 1 Lunch, 1 Dinner
Green fields, farms and sheep are not the first thing people usually think of as typically Greenlandic, but in Qassiarsuk, agriculture has been the way of life for over a thousand years. Qassiarsuk is one of several settlements in Southern Greenland which subsist by sheep farming since the 1960s, and the rolling meadows could easily evoke Scotland or Norway, if not for the icebergs drifting past. Qassiarsuk lies in the heart of Norse Greenland, home of one of the most famous Norsemen of all, Eric the Red, who founded the colony in Southern Greenland around 985. Eric was fiercely pagan, but his wife Thjodhild was a devout Christian. The Sagas say that she demanded her husband build her a church; Eric refused, but Thjodhild refused to share his bed until he relented, unwittingly constructing the first church in North America, on the condition that it be out of view of his hall.
Today, Eric's house and Thjodhilds church are outlines in the turf of the modern town, but extensive archaeological investigations have shown a once thriving community centred around the church. Today, one can visit faithful reconstructions of Eric's hall and Thjodhild's church, and gain a stunning view over the fjord from the bronze statue of their son Leif Ericson (the first European to visit the North American Mainland), as well as enjoying the hospitality of the locals, who are proud of their idyllic town and its epic history. Several sites in Norse Greenland including Brattahlíð are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Three kilometers off Yukon’s north coast, only Workboat Passage separates Herschel Island-Qikiqtaruk from Ivvavik National Park. The low-lying treeless island of 116 k2 was Yukon’s first territorial park. Herschel Island-Qikiqtaruk has been declared a National Historic Site of Canada in 1972, was classified as a Nature Preserve in 1987, designated a Natural Environment Park in 2002 and as an example of the technologies and techniques used for living and construction over the past several millennia. It is now also on the tentative UNESCO World Heritage Site list! Itilleq is an important area for Ice Age fossils.