How Kiattua came to be here

When we started looking for a place for Kiattua, we spent a long time moving through the fjord system outside Nuuk. It’s the second largest in the world, and there is a vast amount of land that could have worked in theory. But we were looking for something very specific — a place that was quiet, with access to fresh water, close to the ice, and with the right terrain to build on.

We moved through the fjord over time, stopping in different places and trying to imagine what it would be like to stay there — not just to visit, but to spend days. Some places were striking at first glance, but didn’t hold the same feeling once you stayed a bit longer. Something was always slightly off.

At some point, I spoke to my mother.

She is Greenlandic, and grew up moving between the area around Saqqaq and the fjord system where Kiattua is today. Her family were hunters and fishermen, and they would spend periods of time in this area, setting up simple camps and moving out each day to hunt. It was not a place you arrived at once — it was a place you returned to, again and again, over time.

She suggested we go and see it.

When we arrived, it was clear quite quickly that this was the place. The view, the terrain, and the overall feeling of being there aligned in a way the other places hadn’t.

Kiattua is the original name of the area. It translates to “the warm place.” Not because of a noticeable difference in temperature, but in how the landscape holds itself — the vegetation, the way things grow, and the sense of being slightly more sheltered within the fjord.

For her, it was not a new place. It was somewhere she already knew through experience — through time spent there with her family, following patterns that had been repeated long before. Even today, there are traces of earlier use in the landscape, including both Inuit and Norse remains.

For me, it became something similar over time. Not just a location, but a place with a sense of continuity — something we didn’t introduce, but stepped into.

Kiattua, where my mother spent time with her family — now shared across generations.