The former name Scoresbysund derives from the English Arctic explorer and whaler William Scoresby, who was the first European to map the area in 1822. The name "Ittoqqortoormiit" means "Big-House Dwellers" in the Eastern Greenlandic dialect. The region is known for its wildlife, including polar bears, muskoxen, and seals.
The time zone in Ittoqqortoormiit is UTC-02:00, the same as most of Greenland's population.[5] Until March 2024 it had previously been one hour ahead of most of Greenland.
Ittoqqortoormiit was founded in 1925 by Ejnar Mikkelsen and some 80 Inuit settlers (70 persons from Tasiilaq and four families from western Greenland). They were brought on the ship Gustav Holm and settled 400 kilometres (249 miles) south of the last known Inuit settlement in northeastern Greenland (Eskimonæs at Dødemandsbugten on the south coast of Clavering Ø, 27 km (17 miles) southwest of later Daneborg, 1823).
The settlement was encouraged by the colonial power Denmark which at the time had a growing interest in Northeast Greenland. At the same time, the colonization was intended to improve declining living conditions in Tasiilaq, from where the settlers were more or less voluntarily[clarification needed] transferred. The settlers soon prospered on the good hunting conditions of the new area, which was rich in seals, walruses, narwhals, polar bears and Arctic foxes.
Before that, the area itself had been home to a dense population of Inuit in the past, as testified by ruins and other archeological remains.
Local hunters have made a living from whale and polar bear hunting for generations, and it remains, up to the present, a significant cultural-economical factor in the area. Meat and by-products play a direct part in the economy of the hunting families. Income is gained by trading these products, but these options are seasonal and variable.
Ittoqqortoormiit lies near large populations of shrimp and Greenland halibut, but the presence of sea ice prevents the exploitation of these resources year-round, and as a result fishing has never been extensively developed in the municipality.
Tourism, on the other hand, is growing in importance because it is of interest to researchers and extreme Arctic expeditions on land and by sea. Ittoqqortoormiit is the closest town in Greenland from Iceland and its ecosystem, hunting culture and remoteness are of interest to a growing number of travelers primarily from Europe. A local company, Nanu Travel, owns the only guest house in the settlement and arranges tours and expedition logistics for visitors. The Guest House was featured in the hotels.com #RemoteAF campaign in 2018 because of its status as one of the most remote hotels on earth. The buildings at the abandoned Uunarteq settlement, also known as Kap Tobin, 4.3 miles south of Ittoqqortoormiit, are used for various purposes all year by the inhabitants of Ittoqqortoormiit.
Ittoqqortoormiit features a tundra climate (KöppenET) with bitterly cold winters, chilly summers and no monthly average even close to the 10 °C (50 °F) threshold that would allow tree growth. This coupled with an average annual temperature of −5.0 °C (23.0 °F) makes Ittoqqortoormiit one of the coldest permanently inhabited locations on Earth.
In the afternoon of 22 February 2005, the time of year that is normally the coldest, the temperature in the village briefly reached +15.9 °C (60.6 °F)[8] due to a combination of exceptionally warm airmass and a strong foehn effect. This is only 5.1 degrees different from their all-time record high and surpasses the record high of September, the fourth-warmest month.
Climate data for Ittoqqortoormiit, Greenland (1991–2020)
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