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Five children packed together laughing in the doorway of a red wooden house

East Greenland

Village Life in Kuummiit, Greenland

August 2015

These 2015 photographs document Kuummiit, known as Kuummiut in West Greenlandic, a settlement in the Ammassalik region of southeastern Greenland. Founded in 1915, Kuummiit stands on rocky ground deep within Ammassalik Fjord, approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Tasiilaq and 21 miles (34 kilometers) north of Kulusuk. Statistics Greenland recorded 228 residents on January 1, 2026, making it the largest settlement in the Ammassalik area.

Wooden houses, community buildings, a cemetery, gravel tracks, and a small harbor are distributed across the exposed bedrock. Fishing remains central to the settlement. A fish-processing plant established across the water in 1964 originally produced dried and salted fish but was later converted to freezing catches. During the fishing season, local fishers deliver cod and halibut from small boats.

No roads connect Kuummiit with other communities. The settlement is accessible by helicopter throughout the year and by boat during the summer navigation season. Travel within and around Kuummiit is primarily on foot or by boat in summer, with dog sleds and snowmobiles used during winter. The photographs preserve a 2015 record of the settlement’s housing, waterfront infrastructure, and daily community life.

Colorful houses of Kuummiit scattered across bare rock between snow-streaked mountains
Red, blue and yellow timber houses on a rocky shore, small icebergs drifting offshore
Open boats moored off a blue waterfront building, glaciated peaks behind
An older man grinning from a red quad bike as a boy wheels a bicycle past
Boy in a dark sweatshirt pushing an orange bicycle across gravel
Children laughing on a grassy slope beside a lichen-covered boulder
Five children packed together laughing in the doorway of a red wooden house
A man with a cordless drill fixing new timber framing, cigarette between his lips
Wreathed white cross on a whitewashed grave above the harbor and moored boats
Two older men in outdoor jackets sitting against a red plank wall, one with binoculars
Gravel track winding between red, turquoise and blue houses on the rock
Bright red house on concrete footings, its weathered porch door standing open
Sheds, stacked lumber and household clutter crowded on rock behind village houses
Red gabled building lettered "Hendrik Abelsen" on bare rock, with a red stepped walkway
Couple in winter jackets walking a gravel track past painted houses, white dogs at the roadside
Weathered red house behind wooden drying racks holding a boat hull and an orange buoy
Red wooden shed marked with white graffiti, a heart and the years 1996 and 98
White wooden crosses and plastic flowers in a hillside cemetery below snow-streaked slopes
Blue and red timber houses above a field of cotton grass, a sharp peak behind
Cluster of blue, green, yellow and red houses with peeling paint on open bedrock
Grey-haired man walking away along a gravel road toward snow-streaked mountains
Man carrying a shopping bag walks past a red house, a child riding on another man's shoulders behind
Grey plank shed above a bay of small motorboats, blue industrial sheds on the far shore
Stacks of wooden shipping pallets on the waterfront beside a red shed
Red and blue houses stepped up bare rock above the shoreline, a yellow boat upturned on the grass

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