ABSTRACT
29 While the ice visually and practically dominates life in north-west Greenland most of the year, people living and moving about in the region have also depended very much on its open waters. The North Water, one of the so-called Arctic oases, i.e. patches of the otherwise frozen sea that is open for the better part of the year due to a particular algae production, has always been an important part of the resource basis of the people. Due to the rich micro-fauna, and a mass of fish and birds congregating by the North Water, larger marine animals such as the bearded seal, the walrus, the narwhal and the polar bear have been found within and around it, as have (human) hunters since times immemorial.
