Contact Admin. Founded in , the town is now home to a campus of the University of Copenhagen known as Arctic Station. Qeqertarsuaq is the Kalaallisut name for Disko Island and is also now used for several other islands on Greenland, including those formerly known as Upernavik and Herbert Island. In , the town had inhabitants; [1] the remainder of the population of the island less than 50 people lives in the Kangerluk settlement, a few hours by boat to the northwest.
Traces of settlement between five and six thousand years ago have been found at Qeqertarsuaq; the settlers were paleo-Eskimos wandering south. During the 18th century, the first whalers came to Qeqertarsuaq, where they found a suitable anchorage; the town was founded as Godhavn by the whaler Svend Sandgreen in The name was sometimes anglicized as Guthaven [2] and the settlement was also known as Lievely [3] or Leifly. Whaling has been of great importance to the town over the past two centuries.
Hunting and fishing are still the primary occupations for the island's inhabitants. From an early date, [ when? In , a new law on municipalities was passed and the so-called Directions were introduced in Greenland; the primary task of the Directions was the administration of the means set apart for social purposes: The Directions also functioned as inferior courts in case of theft and other petty crimes; the Directions also took active part in the fight against the spreading of distemper.
In Godhavn, they founded a kayak school for boys and a sewing school for girls. With the end of government positions in town, the local economy focused more directly on hunting and fishing.
On 1 January , the former Qeqertarsuaq municipality was merged into the new Qaasuitsup municipality; this in turn was partitioned on 1 January , at which time Qeqertarsuaq became part of the new municipality of Qeqertalik.
