Greenland · GL

Austmannatjern

Austmannatjern is a small, remote Arctic lake set in the high wilderness east of Nuuk, in Greenland's Sermersooq municipality. Its name is Norwegian—essentially "the Eastmen's tarn," from *austmenn* (Norsemen/eastmen) and *tjern*, a word for a small mountain lake—echoing the Norse-named landscape of the surrounding valleys. There is no village, road or visitor facility here. Austmannatjern is a destination for serious backcountry travellers rather than casual sightseers: a quiet meltwater tarn lying inland among the glacially carved terrain that Fridtjof Nansen crossed on his 1888 ski journey from the ice sheet toward the west coast.