Heritage with Related Tags
Ilulissat Icefjord
Located on the west coast of Greenland, 250 km north of the Arctic Circle, Ilulissat Icefjord is the mouth of the Selmaq Kujallek glacier, one of the few glaciers from the Greenland ice sheet that flows into the sea. Selmaq Kujallek is one of the fastest-flowing and most active glaciers in the world. It calves more than 35 cubic kilometers of ice each year, accounting for 10% of all ice calving in Greenland and more than any other glacier outside Antarctica. It has been studied for more than 250 years, helping us to deepen our understanding of climate change and ice sheet glaciology. The massiveness of the ice sheet and the loud sounds of fast-flowing glacial ice streams calving into the iceberg-covered fjords combine to create this exciting and awe-inspiring natural phenomenon.
Vegaøyan – The Vega Archipelago
Vega is located south of the Arctic Circle and is surrounded by dozens of islands that form a 107,294-hectare cultural landscape, of which 6,881 hectares are land. The islands bear witness to a uniquely frugal lifestyle based on fishing and harvesting duck down, but in a very harsh environment. There are fishing villages, docks, warehouses, duck down houses (built for duck down nesting), agricultural landscapes, lighthouses and navigation marks. There is evidence of human settlement from the Stone Age onwards. By the 9th century, the islands had become an important centre for the supply of duck down, which appears to have accounted for around a third of the islanders’ income. The Vega Islands reflect how fishermen/farmers have maintained a sustainable lifestyle over the past 1,500 years, as well as the contribution of women to the duck down harvest.
Rock Art of Alta
Located in Alta Fjord near the Arctic Circle, this group of rock paintings preserves traces of a settlement dating from around 4200 to 500 BC. Thousands of paintings and engravings have deepened our understanding of the environment and human activities at the edge of the Far North in prehistoric times.
Putorana Plateau
The site, which matches the size of the Putolansky State Nature Reserve, is located in the central part of the Putolan Plateau in northern Central Siberia. It is approximately 100 km north of the Arctic Circle. The World Heritage-listed part of the plateau contains a complete set of subarctic and Arctic ecosystems in an isolated mountain range, including pristine taiga, forest tundra, tundra and Arctic desert systems, as well as unspoiled cold-water lake and river systems. A major reindeer migration route passes through the property, an exceptional, large-scale and increasingly rare natural phenomenon.
Kujataa Greenland: Norse and Inuit Farming at the Edge of the Ice Cap
Kujata is a subarctic farming landscape located in the southern region of Greenland. It bears witness to the cultural history of Norse farmer-hunters who arrived from Iceland starting in the 10th century and the Inuit hunter-gatherer and Inuit farming communities that developed in the late 18th century. Despite their differences, these two cultures, the European Norse and the Inuit, created a cultural landscape based on farming, herding and hunting of marine mammals. The landscape represents the earliest introduction of agriculture to the Arctic, as well as the expansion of Norse settlement outside of Europe.