Moriusaq is an abandoned settlement (officially since 2012) in the municipality of Qaasuitsup, in northern Greenland. It is located about 42 km from Thule Air Base and about 83 km from Qaanaaq. It is a good area for fishing and hunting seals, walruses, narwhals and polar bears and where deposits of ilmenite have been discovered for which there are extraction projects.2
The settlement obtained official status in 1962 and reached its maximum population peak in the 1970s, when there were more than 100 inhabitants. The existence of better infrastructure and services in Qaanaaq caused most of the inhabitants to move there, initiating a sharp decline in the population in the 1990s. In 2009, when only four inhabitants resided in the settlement, there was a firearms incident and one of them died.4 This event precipitated the settlement’s closure.
Moriusaq offered its residents direct television and radio broadcasts, private telephones, and a small power plant. Moriusaq had a small shop, and a multipurpose building that served as a school (which closed in 2007 as there were no school-age children), a church and a library. Every year a doctor and a dentist visited this town. All of this added up to annual expenses of approximately DKK 2 million (about € 270,000).