I have just spent well over an hour browsing old photos from mainly Greenland on the Arctic Images website.

Arctic Images is an archiving project run by the Danish Arctic Institute (Arktisk Institut) and the Danish Polar Centre (Dansk Polarcenter) with the aim to make their collection of photos from the Arctic available online.

The collection includes photos from as far back as 1860 and provides us with an important glimpse of life as it was in the Arctic and of a hunting culture now at high risk of being destroyed completely by climate change.

The website is in Danish only, and browsing the photos could be made a lot easier. You can either perform a search (in Danish) or just leave the search box empty and hit the search button to browse the entire collection. You navigate with the ‘næste’ (next) and ‘forrige’ (previous) links at the top of the page and can view large versions of the photos by clicking on the individual photo.

Like I said the navigation structure leaves something to be desired, but as it is such a unique collection, I found it worth the trouble. If you don’t speak Danish here are links to a few of the search results I received:

• Hunters
• Hunter blowing air into his hunting float
• Traditional dress – men
• Traditional dress – women
• Igloos
• Kayaks
• Dogsleds
• Landscapes
• Ice
• Seal hunting

Link: Arctic Images