Greenland

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May 2–9, 2005

The only thing everyone knows about Greenland is where it is located. No one’s ever been here; it never makes the news. There’s just one TV channel, which only broadcasts for a few hours a day.

Eighty percent of its territory is covered by a giant inland ice sheet. Life is possible in some parts of the perimeter.

Greenland has been a part of the Kingdom of Denmark since the XVIII century. But that didn’t stop it from having it own parliament (since 1979), nor its own flag (since 1985). Greenland got itself a flag as soon as it withdrew from the European Community. It withdrew because it wasn’t happy about the fishing quotas. And it wasn’t happy about the quotas because halibut and shrimp are the mainstays of Greenland’s economy.

Longfjordtown (Kangerlussuaq)

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The flight from Copenhagen arrived in Longfjordtown airport. It’s a former US army base. They’ve got an excellent runway, which is where the Airbus 330 landed. From here you can take smaller planes to other towns. In Greenland the roads only run between houses, not between towns.

There’s a Volkswagen test site one hundred kilometres away. It was built to test new cars on the glacier year-round. The test site has been deemed loss-making and is due to close later this year, nevertheless, they’ve already laid the road leading up to it, which you can use to go to the glacier by lorry. To get there from other towns you’ll have to take a helicopter.

By the way, since the test site is semi-secret and the road private, there’s a boom barrier with a lock on it at the entrance. However, the locals have a key they use to take people up to the glacier.

There’s a stop on the way so you can marvel at the remains of an American training aircraft that crashed. The pilots took off, but then the weather deteriorated. They went round in circles for a long time, waiting for the weather to clear. Four of them flew back to base and landed, another three valiantly self-ejected. This was back in the mid-sixties, but the debris is still there, just lying there on the kerbside. All of the cool instruments had already been dug out by the time I got there.

In some parts the light passes through the glacier ice.

In others it’s reflected off it.

Almost all of the cars in Greenland are Toyotas. But you also see some unexpected exceptions that prove the rule.

Greenlandic number plate.

Foxdens (Sisimiut)

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On the approach:

Roughly five thousand people live in the town of Foxdens.

And just as many do not live there.

While in Foxdens the author of these lines got to ride a snow mobile for the very first time. It was a great taster of what was to come during the dogsled ride scheduled for the following day.

What do we know about dogsledding? That the sled is pulled by huskies. Nothing more.

That morning an Inuit (also known as an Eskimo) who knows two English words (OK and coffee), no more, no less, hitched the doggies to the sledge. The passenger then got in the back and sat there enjoying himself.

Your sled driving skills will be put to the test when crossing flat terrain, going uphill and downhill.

Going straight ahead and uphill is relatively straightforward. You just have to make sure that the dogs don’t get caught up in either your own or an oncoming sled. From time to time you’ve got to yell “Yoouk! Yoouk” and lash the huskies who’ve forgotten all about teamwork with a five metre-long whip. While you’re riding along, and readers will forgive me for the TMI, every five minutes one of the dogs will decide to take a shit. The dog has little time, only the amount it takes for the sled to travel the length of the bridle, in other words, two to three seconds. The poor thing must exhibit superhuman strength so as to relieve itself. In this photograph the Inuit is carefully adjusting the bridle to avoid it going under the sled runner. If the dog takes a just a little too long crapping it’ll get hit with a crop across the backside, sending it hurrying to catch up with its colleagues.

Draught horses never change their order once they’re harnessed in. Dogs are different. You’ve got to untangle the bundle of reins every twenty minutes or so. Meanwhile, the dogs fall into the snow and cool down, breathing in unison.

After about two hours your humble servant arrived in a place of breathtaking beauty with knockout views in all directions. By the way, the glowing ring around the Sun is not a photographic effect — it looked the same both with my glasses on and off. It’s a halo. It looks a bit like an eye.

The best bit is the descent. To prevent the sled from crushing the dogs a special thick rope is attached to the runners. Another such rope with a chain on it is attached at the back, that’s what the Inuit stands on as he tries to break with all his might. We make a pit stop. He says: “Coffee?” I teach him a new word: “Snickers?” After exchanging treats we head back to Foxdens.

Note that they only used four paint tins on all of the houses in Greenland.

This was a big day for the people of Foxdens: a market was underway at the local gym. For some reason everyone was buying paper towels in 21 roll packs.

The national dress museum is a building with just one room in it. There aren’t any guards, you just open the door and waltz in. There are exhibits from the late XIX — XXI centuries.

Icebergstown (Ilulissat)

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Next stop — the Icebergstown in the mouth of Disko bay. There are 5000 people living here as well.

In addition to 10 000 dogs.

There’s a port.

The roads are just like the ones back home.

Pedestrian crossing.

“Warning: sled” sign.

Around the corner is the fairly productive Jakobshavn glacier, which makes twenty million tonnes of ice per day. All of that ice floats into the bay in form of icebergs; it’s a sight to behold. But people have been living here since 1741, drawn to the place not by the singular view out the window, but all of the fish there is.

Strolling around the city, I decided to check out the port. An Eskimo, completely and utterly trolleyed, was coming my way. I made hand gestures asking him whether I could take his photograph, since he looked so great and all. He said, hang on a minute, kind sir. He proceeded to pull out a comb, fix his hair, then pull out a knife and pose, hat aslant. After that he noticed that he was holding a knife.

Then he comes at me. Grabs my jacket, pull my camera strap, and gets ready to cut it. I am now holding him by the arm that he’s holding the knife in. There’s nobody around. He’s short, stocky, and drunk. He’s saying something incomprehensible in Inuit. By this point he’s no longer aiming his knife at my camera, he’s aiming it at me. I somehow managed to push him aside, but he came at me again. I walk away; he catches up. I start running, so does he. The greater the distance between us the less I want for him to catch up to me at great speed. He trailed me for about three hundred metres, but I was soberer than he was.

I get to my hotel and ask where the police station is. I am informed that it’s on the other end of town and will only open at 9 p.m. So I wait until nine and get a cab to the police station (the town is the size of the distance between two metro stations, but they do have taxis here nonetheless). At the police station there’s a guy and a woman. So I fill them in on what happened, telling them that it’s a lovely town they’ve got here and all, however, I’ve never been attacked with a knife before, not even in Murmansk, which is beyond the Artic circle. Nor in Kolomna, where the drunks are peaceable. I turn on my camera and show them the photo I took. The guy takes a look and says: “Ah, that’s Old man Pete, we know him”. The women promises to file a complaint. Alright, I say, I’ll be going now, could you call me a cab? Of course we can, why not. I asked them if I could take their picture. They said sure, go ahead.

Then it occurred to me that if this were a movie at this point the policeman is supposed to pull out a gun and point it at me. But nothing like that happened.

I never did manage to find out what it was that Old man Pete wanted from me. The next day there were more icebergs.