A place

Hvalsey

2 stories from this place.

The Footnote June 25, 2026 · Nuuk, Greenland

The First European Dictionary of an Inuit Language Was Compiled by a Lutheran Pastor Who Had Sailed to Find Vikings

Hans Egede arrived in Greenland in 1721 expecting to find the lost Norse community. He found Inuit. Over the following fourteen years he learned the local Kalaallisut language well enough to compile the first European dictionary and grammar of any Inuit language — published in 1750 by his son Paul.

Read the story →

The Cabinet June 24, 2026 · Mülheim an der Ruhr

The Earlier Solar Minimum That Lasted Ninety Years and Helped Empty Norse Greenland

The Spörer Minimum was a period of unusually low solar activity that ran from approximately 1450 to 1540. It overlapped with the catastrophic late-medieval collapse of Norse Greenland, the worst phase of the Little Ice Age in central Europe, and the agricultural crisis that preceded the religious upheavals of the Reformation.

Read the story →