Qaqortoq Coast

The coast around Qaqortoq opens into the fjords of southern Greenland, where Norse farms once stood on sheltered land above the water. At Hvalsey, a stone church witnessed the marriage of two Icelandic visitors in 1408; a certificate issued the following year at Garðar remains among the last written records of the Greenland Norse. In 1775 the trader Anders Olsen founded the colony of Julianehåb at Qaqortoq, making the harbor a new center for trade and mission in the region.