NORDAFAR was a fish production company with a fishing port, located in Kangerluarsoruseq Fjord, 2 hours boat ride south of Nuuk.
The company NORDAFAR was started in 1953 and slowly expanded through the years.
In 1966 the production of cod fillets at the facility in Kangerluarsoruseq Fjord, reached its highest. At this point in time, it was the largest fish factory in Greenland.
Early in the 1970's the cod population declined due to overfishing in the North Atlantic Ocean. The cod fillet factory closed down in 1975 and the company tried to build up a shrimp production. However, NORDAFAR couldn't compete with the established shrimp production in other locations in Greenland.
NORDAFAR in Kangerluarsoruseq Fjord closed in 1985 and people who lived and worked there, left, never to come back. In 1989 the company NORDAFAR went bankrupt and the site, the dock and buildings were abandoned.
The name comes from Norwegian, Danish and Faroese partners who took the letters from the countries. NorDaFar.
Families, fishermen, sailors and seasonal workers lived and worked in the buildings. Signs of life and a busy fishing port in all it's forms, are still visible all over the facility.
A sticker on a door of a Smurf, is a indication of a child room.
In a room under a house, a box from Aalborg Akvavit, an alcoholic well known Danish drink is still to be seen.
A bottle of vinegar is left behind.
Wall paper is barely hanging on the walls.
Beds, couches, tables and chairs are still around. A destroyed piano is still standing.
Tools are left behind. A couple of old snow scooters, an excavator, machinery, compressors and a boat is left behind.
Most of the buildings are from the 1950's.
The location of the facility was far from civilazation. In the beginning, when it was decided to build here, there was no sewer system, no power station or drinkingwater. The weather, like in todays Greenland, was the ruler of what the workers could or could not build. In other words, it must have been such a huge task to set up this facility. Everything had to be shipped from various countries, to create the filet factory and places for workers to live.
I was there in September 2024 with my friend Jeppe. Besides a black arctic fox we spotted on the rocks near the water, when we landed on the shore at this abandoned facility, we were all alone. Alone and far from civilization, gave the experience one more dimension of loneliness and spooky feeling, that laid like an invisible blanket over the entire area. We could just feel that people had lived and worked here.
The disintegrating of the buildings at the facility is going fast. Once the roof is off a house, it will go even faster. What is going to happen to the facility in the future, is unknown. It is too expensive to clean up, too expenisve renovate and too easy to let nature do the dirty work. A long battle of responsibility was fought in the courts. I'm not sure who came out as a winner or loser. NORDAFAR is still there, 50km south of Nuuk in Kangerluarsoruseq Fjord, but for how long?
Links and sources:
Greenlands National Museum and Archive with photos from back in the days. (English and Kaallisut)
Full story about NORDAFAR and Færingehavn (Danish)
