Etah

Etah

Located in the Avannaata municipality in northern Greenland, Etah is an abandoned settlement. It was the landing place for the last Inuit migration from the Canadian Arctic and the starting point for expeditions to the North Pole. The village was located on the shore of the Foulk Fjord in the vicinity of the Reindeer Point. The fjord, with 610-meter-high cliffs on either side, is about 2.4 kilometers wide and several kilometers long. Brother John's Glacier ends at the eastern end of the fjord. At the base of the glacier is Lake Alida, a small frozen freshwater lake. From October to July, the northern end of Baffin Bay, which narrows into the Nares Strait between Greenland and Ellesmere Island, is usually frozen. Etah lies on an ancient migration route from the northern Canadian Arctic, where several waves of ancient migrants passed through the area. This is where the last Inuit migration from Baffin Island reached Greenland's coast in 1865. In the past, Etah has served as a base camp for a number of Arctic expeditions, including those of Knud Rasmussen to the north coast of Greenland, Robert Peary's failed North Pole attempts, the unfortunate Crocker Land Expedition of 1913, the 1934-35 Humphrey Expedition, the 1937-38 MacGregor Arctic Expedition, and the 1938 Haig-Thomas Expedition. Etah was once the northernmost inhabited settlement in the world, but the harsh climate caused the Inuit to abandon the village and move south to Pituffik. The former village huts are still standing. However, they are rarely visited due to the abundance of walruses and polar bears.