Our seal hunter told us that this was the site of an old US Air Force base that was established during World War 2 after Germany had occupied Denmark, and the Americans thought that Germany might attack the US from the north through Greenland – so the base was set up to provide a line of defence. After the war the Americans abandoned the base and left thousands of drums of aviation fuel – some empty and some still full. In the years after the war, as the drums rusted, the fuel leaked out into the Ikateq channel and the surrounding fjords. Our hunter told us that for many years the waters were polluted and had an adverse effect on their hunting.