The north side of the Nuuk peninsula, out past the airport, used to be a wild place of rocky hills and valleys sloping down to the fjord, a place where people went to hike, camp, picnic, and to test their weapons at the start of the hunting season. Yes, the latter two activity shared the same space as the former.
A few years ago, I went there with my family to camp – our oldest son then eight – along with our son’s best friend and his mother. We drove out past the airport to where the road ended at the construction site for the new prison. We collected our camping gear and walked out past the half-constructed buildings toward a low peninsula beyond which we would camp by the fjord. Half way there, trekking down the hill, I pointed back up the slope at some passing hikers and joked to my son, “Hey, there are people in our area.” To my horror, he turned and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Get out of our area!”
Now the prison is completed and in full operation. It’s difficult to imagine that there is a prison anywhere with a better view – one of the best also in Nuuk. It’s walled grounds slope down toward the fjord so that just about every vantage point, inside and out, has a spectacular view of the fjord and of the mountain – Sermitsiaq. The prison was built so that Greenlandic prisoners housed in Denmark could be returned and so that Greenland could take care of its own. Unfortunately, solving one problem has created others. Aside from the shortage of prison staff, there is also a shortage of space. The prison, which can hold around 150 prisoners, is already at capacity and there is a waiting list (yes, a waiting list) of more than 60 convicted people who, as it stands, walk free until a place is available for them to serve their sentences. This includes people convicted of violent crimes including crimes against children.
People still come out to this area to hike and camp. But there are a lot more people ‘in our area’ now, and somehow there needs to be room for more…
