Where the sun never sets

[C Elegans]

Ice is the purest, the sharpest thing on this earth. The ice bergs are slowly floating in the bay like white and azure blue towers. The pack ice comes in the late afternoon, together with the sea fog that rolls down from the mountains like a veil. By then, everybody has to be back in the village.

I'm in the Arctics, where the ice and the wind govern human life. Surrounding the village is the mountains, and the glaciers that calve down in the narrow fiords between the steep rockface, creating black and white patterns on the slopes. There is plenty of seal, narwhale and polar bear in this area.

Today I came back to Tasiilaq from the small village of Ittoqqotoormiuk. Tasiilaq is the capital of East Greenland, and it feels like a metropolis compared to the small village where people still live as hunters. East Greenland is very different from the West coast, where I was 5 years ago. The West Greenlanders call the east coast "Tunu", which means "the back/rear side". The people from the west are viwed as old fashioned and primitive. Many here still live according to the old inuit traditions, and they dress and speak differently. Some also still belive in the old inuit nature religion, which is of course looked down at by the modern Greenlanders as "old eskimoo religion".

The hunting culture here is going down. In two generations, it will be lost. The young people don't want to live as hunters anymore. The West coast with the huge ice bergs of the Disko Bay is maybe a little bit more beautiful and more spectacular than this area, but culturally, the East is far more interesting. Apart from the spectacular scenery, the good thing with this holiday is that I have met so many interesting people. Not only the people who live here, but also the other travellers. There are no ordinary tourists like myself here, only people who are here for a specific purpose. So far, I have met three different kinds of antropologists here who have told me a lot of interesting things. One of them, a German antropologist, has lived 5 years with the Thule eskimoos as a hunter, and speaks both the Western and Eastern dialect. He also discovered a previously unknown cave culture in Asia on one of his journeys – he has published a paper about it, so I will look for it when I come home. I have also met an Italian social antropologist who has hade two documentaries about the people in this area. He is now here with his film crew to make yet another film. The day before yesterday I was out looking for fossiles with a lovely retired professor in mathematics from Kyoto. An amazing guy who is also a poet and a photographer. We found some intreresting specimen, and free climbing up the face of the sandstone mountains, I saw several beautiful jurassic and cretaceous sea animal fossiles. I brought some down to my Japanese friend, but fossiles are heavy so I could only bring a few!

Tomorrow, if weather and fortune permits, I will go deeper inside the fiord to the tiny village of Tiniteqilaaq. There are no roads on Greenland, so whereever you want to go you have to go by helicopter. Sailing is possible if you go with a local, the drifting pack ice makes it difficult and very dangerous. I was out with a young hunter the other day, and we got stuck in the pack ice a couple of times and had to pull the boat through. The day before I had traversed a glacial tongue without ice axe, so I decided to go sailing because I wanted to take a rest

I have no idea when I have an internet connection again, maybe next week if I go back here to Tasiilaq where there is an internet cafe. Contrary to Silur and HLD, I will not include any descriptions of the food in this travelogue, since I am sure you don't want to hear any details about boiled seal-meatballs.

For now, goodbye from Ammassalik, one of the few remaining untouched areas on our planet.

[Aegis]

I hope thats just my imagination thinking what those boild Seal Meatballs are...

[fable]

Fascinating, @CE. Please continue your report, when you have a chance. How are you managing with the language? I know that the area was settled by both native peoples, and later, Scandanavians before Greenland was hit by the Great Thermal Inversion of the 14th century (which also denuded many of England's forests; those references to enormous Sherwood in the Robin Hood sagas all refer back to before the Shift). But do they speak a Scandanavian variant that you can understand?

[Scayde]

It sounds truly breathtaking, I do hope you and Silur post pleanty of pics from these trips

[Maharlika]

...makes me feel like I would want to go there myself as part of my wanderlust.

Disko Bay?

Have you seen a Disko Frog too?

Oh, I forgot. That amphibian is found only in Alaska.

[Tamerlane]

Damn you people Oh what I'd give to be able to play in snow, unfortunately Antartica isn't an option for us down here.

Have an enjoyable time CE, and do bring back some photo's

[Xandax]

Originally posted by Tamerlane
Damn you people Oh what I'd give to be able to play in snow, unfortunately Antartica isn't an option for us down here.

Have an enjoyable time CE, and do bring back some photo's

Snow is highly overrated - naaa, actually it is loads fun


Sounds like youre having fun in the fridge CE

[C Elegans]

Now I am back in Tasiilaq, the largest of the East Greenland villages. It feels like a city now, there are actually a few cars here, there are people on the streets and there are asphalt roads!

When I left Tasiilaq last week, the helicopter was late as usual. This time because there was an inspector going around checking all the heliports. Apart from him, I was the only passenger – also as usual. We flew across the fiord and landed on a tiny rocky island where some wooden houses seemed to have been thrown out at the bare cliff. The place was called Isortoq. It looked like an Artic dream – or nightmare if you wish – just this little rock with some houses among the ice bergs and the chilling wind. It took me half an hour to walk around the whole island. Then we took off through the mountains, to Tiniteqilaaq. When the helicopter had left me standing in the dirt circle that was the landing spot, I really had no idea what to do. I started walking up the path between the wooden houses painted in bright colours that has long since been worn off. I met a young boy and started to speak to him. Of course he understood nothing of what I said, but he signed to me to follow him. I did, and we walked to the heart of the village, an open place between the water tank and the service house. The service house is a larger, more modern house, with running water, a kitchen, a workshop, a couple of washing mashines and a telephone. Here the villagers gather to do their laudry, have a shower or use the phone. The children gathered around me, touching my hair and my clothes. With the few Danish words they knew, the villagers wanted to know everything about me. Strangers are very rare and very far in between.
Then, my young guide took me to a man who speaks some English. This man in actually from the south of France, but 14 years ago he decided he wanted to become an inuit, so he moved to this place. Then he lived with a family for one year, learning to be a hunter, and since then he has lived in Tiniteqilaaq and also has a wife and two kids. The kids are not their biological children because his wife cannot have children, so they have got the kids as a gift from their neighbours who have many children.

Tineteqilaaq is just at the Arctic circle, situated at the east side of the mighty Sermilik fiord where the ice bergs float with the strong current like giant crystals and sapphires. The name means “The place where the water is shallow”. At night, you hear the dogs howl and the thunder of the ice bergs breaking. When the sun is blazing, the days are very hot. (Especially compared to Ittoqqortoormiak which is 500 km north of here.) The first two days were almost too hot to go uphill, so I went out with a kayak I borrowed from the French-born hunter. I went up a little mountain to see the ice cap, and it was so hot so it felt like a mirage when I saw the almost endless ice cap and the suspended glaciers. The the clouds came, so I could do some more strenous hiking the last days. One day I took the long trip up to the glacier and the rocky peaks that overlook the bay where the village is situated. From there, I could see both the ice cap, the mountains in the fiord and the sea with all the ice bergs. Going up alone and with no equipment was slow since I had to check for crevasses all the time, but going down the same route was the funniest thing I’ve done on this holiday, almost skiing the steep slopes with hiking boots.

In one way it was a sad feeling to leave Tiniteqilaaq, because I know that this will all soon be gone. The modern world has come to meet the old inuit traditions. The hunters walk around in thigh high sealskin boots and fleece jackets. Looking into their gardens you can see rottening seal blubber laying on the ground and old wooden shacks full of traditional harpoons and tools for taking care of the skin and meat of the animals, along with mountain bikes and colourful plastic toys for the children. Hanging outside every house is laudry, seal skins and fish for drying in the sunshine. If there is no wind, there is a smell of rotten meat all over the place.

For some reason, I am fascinated in these kind of meetings between the old and the new world. Such cultural clashes are so dynamic although they sadly also often induce social problems. The last angakokk (shaman) in Greenland lived in this village. It was many years ago his drum could be heard echoing in the vallyes benath the icy peaks. In 20 or 50 years this will be gone. But it feels like a privilege to have seen it now.

Oh, and I’ve now set a new benchmark for not-so-delicious food: dried seal intestinies. No further details, but it actually contains Vitamin C, which if of cause crucial in the Arctics. The taste is...undescribable.

[fable]

Then, my young guide took me to a man who speaks some English. This man in actually from the south of France, but 14 years ago he decided he wanted to become an inuit, so he moved to this place. Then he lived with a family for one year, learning to be a hunter, and since then he has lived in Tiniteqilaaq and also has a wife and two kids.

Fascinating. It sounds a lot like the guide who led our tiny group in a dugout canoe down the Orinoco in the Amazon. He was an Italian who had left Italy during the 1950s, and moved to Canaima, Venezuela. Then, he went out into the tropical forest, and joined a small tribe that doesn't mind foreigners (which includes Venezuelans, to their way of thinking), but doesn't want anything modern civilization has. He proudly showed us his seven kids, and his wife (who was again pregnant). They lived in huts without any modern conveniences, and existed as hunter-gatherers. One could perhaps speak of cultural displacement in a new way, as a person or people who find themselves culturally displaced within the context of their own traditional culture, and go off to find one they fit in more comfortably. Curious.

[C Elegans]

@Aegis: Well, boiled seal meatballs are just - meatballs made out of seal meat, then you boil them...

@Fable: No, people here speak Greenlandic, which is an inuit language not at all reminiscent of the Scandinavian language. Since Greenland belongs to Denmark they learn some Danish in school, but here on the East coast it's swiftly forgotten and few people can speak it although they may partly understand it. So it's all very simple - I do not manage the language at all, so I just use the "international sign language"

@Scayde: I think Silur has already posted some pics from his holiday in Southeast Asia, but I will post some from this trip too. I am going to meet him in Reykjavik on Iceland in two days - it's nice to spend some part of your holiday together as well!

@Mahar: Here, you can hike in the mountains for days and days without seeing anybody except the occational musk oxe...it's wonderful. And the Disko bay...Disko means something in Greenlandic, but I have forgotten what

@Tammy: You would have loved to go down the glacier like I did! But you don't have to go far to play in the snow, Queenstown on the South Island of NZ has an airport where there are flights to and from Oz, I am sure.

@Xan: I love snow and ice. This fridge that belongs to your country is a lovely place, you ought to go here - it's not so expensive from Copenhagen.

[Xandax]

Originally posted by C Elegans
[B<snip>
@Xan: I love snow and ice. This fridge that belongs to your country is a lovely place, you ought to go here - it's not so expensive from Copenhagen. [/b]

Well - the cost of going there far exceed that of going to Copenhagen (why some would go there I know not either)

But I've seen plenty of ice and snow to last me a lifetime while I was in the army in the coldest winter in 30+ years, so I think I'll pass and use that money on something far better

[Scayde]

Originally posted by C Elegans
@Scayde: I think Silur has already posted some pics from his holiday in Southeast Asia, but I will post some from this trip too. I am going to meet him in Reykjavik on Iceland in two days - it's nice to spend some part of your holiday together as well!

Wonderful. I will have to look them up. I have enjoyed both of your commentaries on your vacations. Thanks for taking the time to share with us all here back home.....well, sort of home

[C Elegans]

Home and back at the lab again. The trip to Greenland was very rewarding, and it was fun to spend the last part of the journey with Silur at Iceland. Iceland has changed immensly over the 12-13 years since I was there last - everything is soooo organised now, tourism is now a big part of Icelandic economy. Places that were remote wilderness then, are now easily accessible by car and even have car parks and prepared walking trails! Felt strange...like another place altogether.

Originally posted by fable
One could perhaps speak of cultural displacement in a new way, as a person or people who find themselves culturally displaced within the context of their own traditional culture, and go off to find one they fit in more comfortably. Curious.

Yes, the concept is interesting. I have met several such people on my journeys, including both people who stayed in their new culture, and people who returned after a while. In any case I think it is very brave and open minded person who not only dream but actually goes through with such a huge step.

Originally posted by Xandax
But I've seen plenty of ice and snow to last me a lifetime while I was in the army in the coldest winter in 30+ years, so I think I'll pass and use that money on something far better

The famous azure blue ice bergs of Odense, eh? And the polar bears walking the streets of Copenhagen?

Originally posted by Scayde
Thanks for taking the time to share with us all here back home.....well, sort of home

I was actually surprised I even found an internet connection! I'll post some pics from Greenland here although I didn't have my good camera with me, so there are no really good pictures.

[C Elegans]

A beautiful beach near Tasiilaq, I was out an evening with the German antropologist and the Thai cook at the guest house where I was staying, and we had a picnic here

[C Elegans]

When I told Dottie I had cut my hand and was stiff all over from pulling the boat over the pack ice he asked me "But why did you have to pull the the boat across"?

This is why, the south of Jamesson land close to Ittoqqotormiuk. I was out with a 15-year old boy who was the son of a hunter, in his fathers boat. It was he who cooked me the boiled seal meatballs.