The ruins of Garðar Cathedral — formally the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas — stand at the edge of Igaliku village, a tumbled outline in the green grass that would be easy to walk past without understanding what you are seeing. This was the seat of the first bishop of Greenland, founded in 1126 by Bishop Arnaldur, and for three centuries it was the ecclesiastical capital of Norse Greenland.
The cathedral was built of red sandstone quarried from a nearby hillside in a cruciform plan. Only the foundations and lower walls survive, but alongside them you can trace the outlines of the bishop's residence, a great hall, and farm buildings that together made Gardar the most important Norse settlement in Greenland. The site is part of the UNESCO World Heritage listing for Kujataa: Norse and Inuit Farming at the Edge of the Ice Cap, inscribed in 2017.