Page "Disko Bay" Paragraph 10

It is uncertain when the Inuit first started venturing into Disko Bay, and Norse accounts have the area uninhabited when they first explored.

Further, Norse accounts document an eventual trade arrangement with the Inuit who came from the north and west.

For a time, both parties made peaceful use of the bay.

Later accounts report fighting and massacres on both sides.

However, the Norse left the Greenlandic settlements mainly due to the Little Ice Age that started in the 15th century.

There was such a massive shift of temperature that Disko Bay became inaccessible in the warmer summer months.

This destroyed the livelihood of the Greenlandic Norse.

Even the Eastern settlement, which was below the Arctic Circle became too cold for inhabitation.

After this time, until Danish colonization in the 18th century, the Inuit controlled the Disko Bay area, although English and Dutch whalers sometimes visited the area after it was charted during John Davis's third Greenland expedition in 1587.