Greenland blog 19: A tale of one ferry

Town just south of Sisimiut, Greenland. Image © Margaret Sharrow, 2008

Once past Hamborgerland, we stopped at or passed a few more settlements on the way to Sisimiut. Again, photographs show settlements clinging to an edge between steep mountains and the sea.

 

The ferry was gradually losing its tourists here and there, one man wearing army fatigues having gone ashore with a massive pack that probably weighed as much as I did. He was clearly equipped for wild camping. At each stop we collected an increasingly Greenlandic clientele, bearing enormous amounts of luggage including large electrical appliances and oversized children’s toys. By the time the ship turned southward on 31 August, it was clearly the end of the tourist season, as the only non-Greenlanders remaining on board were myself, a Danish woman who was having a tour of the country at the end of her time working in the Home Rule government in Nuuk, and, briefly, the man who had been wild camping. The ferry service used to extend further south, to Nanortalik, but now goes only as far as Narsaq and Qaqortoq; it also used to go much further north, to Upernavik, 72 degrees 50 north, beyond which there are hardly any settlements except Qaanaaq and its few satellites. And there are no ferries at all linking the few isolated settlements and the massive national park on the east coast; aside from flights from Reykjavík to Kulusuk (including a mad day-tripper service), all east Greenlandic transport is pretty well by helicopter, private boat, or, in season, dogsled. There are limits even for the mighty cargo ships; in Greenland, the weather ultimately determines everything.

 

What do people do if they want to move white goods in winter? Insanely, flying is the only answer. And yes, they do have refrigerators in Greenland.

 

30 August 2008 17:43 recalled 22 January 2011

 

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Greenland blog 14: arts centre med kaffemik

Folk dancing, Nuuk arts centre, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

I always like to check out galleries and arts centres when I travel, not just because I’m an artist (although that is the main draw), but also because they often have good places to eat with an interesting atmosphere. I must admit to being spoiled, living as I do with the Aberystwyth Arts Centre on my doorstep, with three galleries, an excellent and filling salad bar in the main café, and even better treats in the Piazza Café downstairs, such as the salmon and cream cheese wraps and tasty pizza. And no visit to the Tate is complete without either shooting up the elevator to the fabulous views of the Thames over a mocha at Tate Modern, or, ideally, savouring devilled kidneys on toast with a glass of wine at the Rex Whistler Restaurant at Tate Britain (to say nothing of the possibilities of a drink on the sunny terrace overlooking Porthmeor Beach at Tate St Ives!) So naturally, when I stumbled on the ultramodern arts centre in Nuuk, with its distinctive exterior, undulating waves of smooth wood simulating the face of a glacier, I had to investigate.

And boy was I rewarded: the interior atrium, with its soaring ceiling and glass walls, was as funky as its exterior. There seemed to be a full programme of cinema, mixing popular releases with a few more arthouse offerings. However I never made it upstairs in search of galleries because I was detained by the cafe. I chose something from the tempting array of cakes, a moist carrot cake I think, but the star of the show was definitely the hot chocolate. Served in a tall glass, heaped with whipped cream, the chocolate was rich, the cream was the excellent Danish silky dairy, and there was more than a note of nutmeg. I honestly have never had such excellent hot chocolate in my life, thick as a sweet soup without being in the least cloying.

The next day I was back, late in the afternoon, wondering what cake to choose to accompany other glass of heaven. In the kind of dumb luck that is often a tourist’s serendipity, I didn’t have to choose: it turned out to be a demonstration of Greenlandic folk dancing, accompanied by that wonderful Greenlandic tradition of the kaffemik, the coffee-chat, usually taking place in people’s homes and thus difficult for the foreigner to encounter without tourist office mediation. But here was something obviously laid on for families and friends who had come to see the dozen or so dancers, ranging in age from about thirteen to retirement. And what a spread! Tables groaning with the full range of the cafe’s best cakes, accompanied by endless flasks of strong dark coffee. Here was a blessed chance to compare the fruit tarts, the rich chocolate cake frosted with dark chocolate, and the light heaven that was the raspberry pavlova (probably my personal favourite).

I just had time to settle myself into a corner with a good view of the action when the dancing started. The music was not dissimilar to what you would hear at a Scottish reel, a lot of jigs and toe-tappers in 3/4 or 6/8 time. They jumped, they jigged, they do-si-doed, they did a variant on strip the willow, they stamped, the held hands and galloped in a circle. And me? My hands flew over my shutter and zoom, quickly rejecting freeze frames that captured people in the uninteresting junctions between movements in favour of an evocative blur. I’m still thinking of how to weave them together in a video. I know, it’s been over two years, I should just get on with it. But first, I’ll need to track down suitable music. Luckily I know just the person to write to... but that will have to wait for another posting.

29 August 2008 16:37 recalled 18 January 2011

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Greenland blog 13: frantic construction and quiet hygge in Nuuk

Candles, Timerlia, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

Still enjoying lazy mornings in my landlady’s flat-cum-B&B in Nuuk’s trendiest suburb, I luxuriated in the views out all the large triple-glazed windows, looking at the ragged mountain overseeing the ‘motorway’ and the colourful scattering of apartment blocks, marvelled at the plethora of cranes, busy construction that reminded me of living in Toronto in the late 1980’s, when every day saw new bank and hotel towers springing up like bamboo. I sat on the sofa with its seal fur cushions, admired her collection of Greenlandic naive paintings of moonlit snowscapes with polar bears, peered at family photos taken at swimming pools in tropical places, and a single black and white photo of what was probably my landlady as a toddler, being held by her mother in front of a wooden house.

And everywhere, there were candles, on the tables, the window sills, the cabinets. In shops everywhere in Greenland, there were extensive displays of candles, with ample stocks even in the smallest settlements. This is a Scandinavian thing, best summarised by the Danish word hygge, which translates roughly as ‘cosy’. Hygge means that though the nights are long and the winters cold, inside it is warm, with plenty of food, and plenty of golden light from loads of candles. So there they were in Timerlia, waiting patiently through this end of the summer, for the nights to draw in so they could cast their healing glow again.

29 August 2008 09:26 recalled 17 January 2011

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Greenland blog 12: experiencing Ultima Thule via the telephone directory

Complete listing for Siorapaluk, Greenland telephone directory. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

In a place where there aren’t a huge number of entertainments, everything available becomes interesting. The most extreme example of this phenomenon I have yet encountered was not in Greenland but in Shetland, where some years ago I stayed for several days on the remote island of Foula, where there were no public buildings aside from the shed that is the airport, and a brand new school-cum-community centre, which served two pupils and some thirty other year-round residents as well as a trickle of bird watchers and archaeologists. Each field, farmhouse, raggedly unshorn sheep, horse, child, angry bonxie (great skua) defending its oversized teenage young, puffin, waterfall and rainbow became precious, as did my domestic arrangements (an unrennovated summer hut where I spent most of my time drying my clothes, and eating the food I’d brought on the gut-wrenching two hour rough crossing). And I needed to have brought all my food: the island had no shop at all, except for one house that sold knitwear. It was there that I bought the beret you see me wearing in the photo that adorns my North Pole competition entry (http://www.blogyourwaytothenorthpole.com/entries/166). I took that photo on the Greenlandic coastal ferry, proving that the hat travelled with me round Greenland.

This digression should help explain, not just why I sported a tan mohair/wool beret on the ferry through Greenland’s coastal fairyland, known as Hamborgerland, but also why I found it interesting to look at the Greenland telephone directory at my landlady’s flat in Nuuk. Yes, the entire country’s telephone numbers are contained in one slim volume (the population is around 56,000 - that’s the population not of Nuuk, but of the whole country). And yes, Greenland (and the world’s) most northerly civilian town, Siorapaluk (population 68), boasts a listing that can be encompassed by a third of a column. That includes around ten business numbers, as well as residential numbers. I have a feeling that not everyone needs to have a land line. After all, if there was an emergency, one could always knock on a neighbour’s door... If I had been able to go to Qaanaaq, the town created when the US military displaced the population en masse from Thule so that a base could be built, Siorapaluk would have been a short dogsled ride, or, considering that it was summer, a fifteen-minute helicopter ride away. And why would I have wanted to do this? People in Nuuk, and points further south, all raved about the far north every time it was mentioned. Nuuk was not the real Greenland, I was told. ‘What are you doing staying here?’ said the bus driver who took me into town from the airport, peering puzzled through his reflective sunglasses, cool in his Manchester United shirt with short sleeves while I stood bundled in two pairs of thermal trousers and a mock-fur down lined jacket purchased in Wyoming. ‘You want to go to Ilulissat, go dog sledding.’ And another man in the hostel in Narsarsuaq went into a rapture of nostalgia, speaking the name like that of a lover, ‘Ah, Thule’, pronounced like a lapping brook, ‘TOOL ah’.

So, unable to journey to the Ultima, I had to content myself with seeing the telephone numbers of the people I might have encountered in near round-the-clock daylight, eager to talk to any unlikely visitor, offering hot dogs and sled dogs that were not packaged for tourists but part of daily life. And, yes, it also meant that although I would be achieving a new ‘personal north’, I would not have that feeling of having gone as far as I could go, before turning around with a feeling of satisfaction that I had seen all there was to see. Is it any wonder that I want so much to stand on the North Pole and feel the entire earth turning beneath me?

29 August 2008 08:11 recalled 16 January 2011

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Greenland blog 11: a fascination with cemeteries

Moravian cemetery, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

During my time in Greenland, I became fascinated, rather unexpectedly, with cemeteries. For an island with almost no trees, there was a surprising preference for wooden crosses rather than stone (which Greenland is full of) to mark the graves. Many of the crosses were very old, and in any case the wood was certainly imported. And there is always the fascination of the stories contained in cemeteries: even without being able to read, it was interesting to see the mix of Danish and Greenlandic inscriptions, or no inscriptions at all (not as much of a priority in a place where everyone knows everyone). Also the preponderance of Danish rather than Greenlandic names: it is very common for ethnic Greenlanders to have Danish rather than Greenlandic first names, and often surnames. I do not know whether this custom began with the missionaries in earlier centuries, or whether it is more to do with trying to fit in to a society where many of the top jobs were being held by expat Danes - I am just speculating here.

Whatever the names of the people buried within the wooden fences that enclosed the cemeteries, I enjoyed the quiet atmosphere there, both in the one squeezed between industrial warehouses and across from the internet cafe in the centre of Nuuk, or the one by the Moravian church overlooking yet another of Nuuk’s jagged sunset-facing bays.

27 August 2008 20:27 recalled 15 January 2011

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Greenland blog 10: humanity and nature

Beach by hospital, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

Here is an image that, for me, shows the relationship between humanity and nature in Greenland. We are tolerated, but on the edge, nearly invisible against an overwhelmingly enormous landscape. A short walk down a street branching off the main road through Nuuk brought me to the hospital, an enormous two or three storey building, buttercup yellow with dark red trim, three wings extending off the main structure in an E-shape. A large number of rooms faced the beach, the view extending into the bay with studded with small rocky islands, framed by distant mountains, occasional icebergs and fishing boats drifting by, a spectacular view of blue skies during the day and golden syrupy sunsets in the evening. If I am ever hospitalised, I want to come here. The views alone, even when covered with snow as they are for much of the year, are enough to make anyone feel better.

27 August 2008 13:51 recalled 14 January 2011

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Greenland blog 09: Time in Timerlia

Greenland’s only ‘motorway’, Timerlia, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

Yes, that’s right: Greenland’s only road with more than two lanes is right here, running from Nuuk’s town centre out to the airport and back, a distance of less than two miles. The airport bus runs the same route, back and forth and looping round the town centre, all day long. Number 3, I think. Of five (one of which is a school bus, and I never saw number 4). It is very hard to get lost in Nuuk, though the distances are greater than in other settlements. 

On arrival I discovered that there was a flaw in my meticulous planning: although all my transport was booked, most of my accommodation was not, as I had figured it would be easier to deal face to face with the tourist office on arrival. What I hadn’t bargained on was a huge circumpolar conference that had booked out most of the hotels in Nuuk, as well as the hostel. I spent quite a while in the tourist office (the staff were excellent, and spoke fluent English) and had to come back later - the plan being to contact a lady who offered bed and breakfast, but it was necessary to get through to her at work, or to wait for her to come home, or something like that. So it was that I ended up in an ultramodern flat in the suburb of Timerlia, with a view out one side of the living room, through triple glazed fully insulated windows, as seen in the photograph. Mine hostess’ English was far better than my Danish, or my French even, and she was very generous and welcoming. I had the run of the fridge for my breakfast, which I got round to eventually after a slight hiccup that first morning. 

Still on British time and excited after tumbling early to bed the night before, I woke up extremely early (well before six). Having watched the dawn light touch down from the summit of the mountain presiding over Timerlia, I crept round, desperate to figure out which door was the bathroom but not daring to try any. I even tried the door of what turned out to be a utility shed on the balcony outside the flat, as if a place blessed with underfloor heating would have some sort of Victorian British outside loo. I couldn’t remember if she’d said what time she had to go to work, but there was no sound from her bedroom. Finally I knocked, and she had indeed overslept. Needing to get a taxi to work instead of the bus, she kindly gave me a lift into town. In the coming days I came to realise just how much Greenlanders value their sleep - certainly this woman did. She spoke about how much she enjoyed weekends, when she could sleep as much as she wanted. (A woman after my own heart!) She could sleep for Greenland, I remembered thinking. So for each of my remaining mornings with her, I made sure she was up in plenty of time. 

27 August 2008 08:17 recalled 13 January 2011

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Greenland blog 08: Housing old and new

1960’s apartment blocks, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

I spoke a bit yesterday about Denmark’s early colonial period in Greenland. One legacy of Danish colonialism, still very evident in Nuuk, is the apartment blocks that were built in the 1960’s, which are now increasingly run down. Again, the intention behind them was probably well meant: in the 1960’s many Greenlanders were still living in sod huts, often without plumbing or any modern conveniences. While perhaps more ecologically sound, they were certainly not as comfortable as the apartment blocks when they were new. Yet the traditional ways of life persisted, despite mass transplantation to ‘modernised’ dwellings: in this photo the balcony is transformed into a curing ‘shed’ for caribou antlers and an array of drying fish, bones, etc. However, bringing people together in single large dwellings was also a means of social control. Living in a place with mains services such as electricity and water requires paid employment, rather than a hunting and fishing economy, and in Greenland many jobs have an apartment included in the contract. This is why local newspapers frequently print photographs of employees who have worked for the post office etc. for over twenty years - quite young people who have obviously had the same job since they were teenagers. When I was there it was obviously people with better jobs, such as my landlady (an administrative assistant) who were living in flats in the new suburbs such as Timerlia - her building was less than three years old and obviously a model of energy efficiency. Those who are unemployed, in lesser jobs and/or succumbed to alcoholism (endemic in Nuuk) have been left in the crumbling blocks in the town centre. And yet there is no sense of danger - the few drunks I encountered were harmless and just wanted to chat. In fact the only thing approaching harassment I had on the entire trip was from a Norwegian pan-Arctic conference goer who had obviously been celebrating with large quantities of Tuborg on a boat outing. After I declined an invitation to join him at a party that evening his Marlene Dietrich-soundalike colleague actually said, without a trace of irony, ‘She vants to be alone.’

26 August 2008 15:47 recalled 12 January 2011

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Greenland blog 07: Colonial legacies

Statue of Hans Egede, old harbour, Nuuk, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008.

I mentioned about Greenland’s relationship with Denmark. Having lived much as they had for five thousand years (although there were several different native Arctic cultures over this period), the Greenlanders encountered various Norse and Scandinavian attempts at settlement, beginning around the tenth century, one of which failed spectacularly. However by the 1800’s the Danish had established successful trading, whaling and even farming settlements in a number of places. Denmark claimed Greenland as a part of the Kingdom of Denmark in 1814, having built up the colony under the leadership of such persons as Hans Egede, depicted here in a statue overlooking the old harbour of Nuuk, which he founded and named Godhåb. Denmark’s empire also extended to the Faroe Islands, which explains why both Greenland and the Faroes have characteristically Scandinavian architecture, Danish as an official language, and the kroner as currency. On the whole being colonised by Denmark was about as well-meaning a situation as possible under the circumstances, but Greenland has been in a process of growing independence since the 1970’s. Although it is still part of the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland is now an autonomous country administered by a Danish home rule government - a situation roughly parallel to the process of devolution taking place in Wales and Scotland. Greenland is even the only country to have voted itself out of the European Union. And shortly after my visit, they voted for further steps towards self rule. Seeing the posture of Hans Egede thrusting his staff in gesture of progress and Protestant sobriety, I can’t help thinking there must have been reasons for the desire for home rule. Not everyone could have been so willing to accept Greenlandic culture on its own terms as the famous explorer Knud Rasmussen, known affectionately by the Greenlanders as ‘our little Knud’.

26 August 2008 14:40 recalled 11 January 2011

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Greenland blog 05: On Greenlandic airports, or, what to do in an emergency

Dash-7 propeller, Kangerlussuaq airport, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

I should say here that my change of planes was necessitated not just by the convenience of the Air Greenland network, but by geography: the reason that international flights do not go directly to the capital, Nuuk, is because of an almost complete lack of flat land in Greenland. There are only two places on the entire west coast with enough flat land to create a runway long enough to accommodate modern jumbo passenger craft: the deep fjords at Narsarsuaq and Kangerlussuaq. Thus anyone wishing to travel to Nuuk from abroad must first land at Kangerlussuaq, then transfer to a smaller plane that can land at Nuuk’s smaller airstrip. Said airstrip, blasted out of four billion year old rock, is the largest that can be built at Nuuk, not because there isn’t more land (a new suburb is springing up beyond the airport), but because there isn’t any more flat land. Like all the towns in Greenland that I visited, the mountains rise up pretty sharpish behind the last rows of houses.

The prospect of the next leg of my journey was made a little odd by the abrupt termination of my view of the interior of the plane by a wall, two rows in front of my seat. Somehow on a plane seating only around sixty I had been expecting to see the flight deck, to have some sense of where we were going. My unease was compounded by the on board safety cards. These depicted fabulous scenes of what would happen in the event of a crash, how one was to be bundled up, Michelin man-like, and await rescue sitting on plane seat cushions in the middle of a glacier.

The engines started, the propellers buzzed into action, and I prepared my 35mm camera, one of my medium format cameras, and my digital. There was no time for panic or disappointment. Like an understudy thrust into the spotlight, I was on!

26 August 2008 10:11 recalled 9 January 2011

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Greenland blog 04: Scrum in the fjord

Kangerlussuaq airport, looking down the fjord, Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

Having landed, my perspective changed back to that of a land-dweller, and I was dealt my first and only disappointment in Greenland: it suddenly looked all too much like the Scottish highlands. Why had I bothered to come so far, at such expense, I thought peevishly, when I could have stayed in the country I love and call home, and seen much the same scenery? Now this narrative is not meant to be about my own psychological blips and foibles, but forgetting that I’d spent a less-than-luxurious night on a bench in the food court at Copenhagen airport, my perspective was a little skewed at the sight of ruddy snow-capped mountains rising up on either side of the airstrip, a fjord stretching away very much like a sea-loch in Wester Ross. What wasn’t obvious from my perspective was just how long the fjord was (190 km, nearly three times as long as 65 km Loch Fyne, Scotland's longest sea loch), which accounts for the climate in Kangerlussuaq being somewhat warmer and more stable than almost anywhere else on the west coast, except for the similar fjord at Narsarsuaq, which is much further south.

There wasn’t much time for negative thinking, as action was called for: we emerged down a staircase directly onto the tarmac (ah, this was what flying was like in the 1960’s) and walked less than a hundred metres to the terminal, passing a sign with fingerposts giving the distances to Moscow, London, Washington, etc. Once inside the claustrophobically tiny terminal there was no attempt at customs but an immediate scrum inside the duty free. Toblerones, cigarettes and especially alcohol flew off the shelves while staff at two tills stoically coped with queues bursting in and out the turnstiles. I was worried about my luggage in the hold, or missing my next plane, but needn’t have been; by the time I emerged clutching a single bottle of white wine (encased in some ingenious Scandinavian fishing-net type plastic mesh to prevent breakage) my bag had been magically transferred and it was time for a gentle stroll back onto the tarmac, and to board a Dash-7 standing ready, bound for Nuuk.

26 August 2008 09:49 recalled 8 January 2011


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Greenland - Travels in an Amazing Place: a lunchtime talk by Margaret Sharrow

View from the Greenland coastal ferry, heading north from Nuuk.

Copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2009.

Thursday 26 March, 1pm
School of Art, Aberystwyth University, room 206

What is Greenland like?

Isn't it awfully cold there?

What is it like to stand by a glacier?

Can you really tell if global warming is happening there?

These and many other questions will be answered in a talk illustrated with photos and anecdotes, by third year fine art student Margaret Sharrow.

Last summer Margaret spent over three weeks taking photographs and travelling up and down the west coast of Greenland, the world's largest island and one of its most remote cultures. Located between Iceland and Canada, straddling the cultures of native Greenlanders, its Danish colonial heritage, and the global media culture, Greenland is also the home of some of the world's most stunning scenery.

For more information about Greenland, click around this website.

For more information about Margaret Sharrow, visit her art blog, online portfolio, or public Facebook page, or e-mail her at sharrow-art@hotmail.co.uk

For a map showing the location of the School of Art, visit here.

27 March 2009

Many thanks to all those who attended my talk, and asked such good questions. And also thanks to the people who apologised for not being able to attend: your good wishes were much appreciated.I have enough material for many more talks about Greenland, so stay tuned to my blogs!

Alternative photographic processes portfolio

Nuuk 2, mixed media





Nanortalik 4, Van Dyke brown print

Nanortalik 5, mixed media on paper

Ilulissat 2, mixed media on paper

Nanortalik 6, mixed media

All images copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

Nuuk's colonial harbour

All photographs copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

Nuuk apartment blocks

All photographs copyright Margaret Sharrow 2008

Nuuk cemeteries

All photographs copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

A word on cameras

Self portrait in Greenland, 2008, copyright Margaret Sharrow 2009


George Eastman as a young photographer

During my travels I was carrying around a load of cameras, though not the level of photographic equipment that early 19th century photographers such as George Eastman were lumbered with. Here is what I packed:

- Pentax K-1000, 35mm SLR with 28-70mm zoom lens

- Fuji Finepix digital SLR with fixed 28-300mm zoom lens

- Mamiya medium format camera from the 1960's, borrowed from my ever-generous tutor

- Olympus u-ju 35mm compact camera with fixed lens and flash

- 110 film plastic toy camera

- Kodak Junior medium format camera with bellows, c. 1910

- Russian retro light meter

I didn't carry all of these cameras every day. In fact, I took a 'day off' in Nuuk by carrying only the compact 35mm and the 110.

I had great plans for the Kodak Junior, which is small and slim and takes photos with great depth of field on negatives the size of Montana. Unfortunately, like all the great Kodak rollfilm cameras of the early to mid 20th century, it was designed to take 620 film, which is basically 120 film on slightly smaller spools (about 1mm difference, but enough to jam if you just load a modern 120 spool). So, the plan was to bring 120 film, two antique 620 spools, and a portable darkroom which is basically a black t-shirt with elastic sleeves and velcro closure at the bottom, in order to transfer the film onto the antique spools. Except it was only in Nuuk, in the bedroom of my B&B, that I realised I'd forgotten to pack the spare antique spool. Aargh! I tried trimming modern plastic spools with scissors, but they continued to jam. Lesson learned: double check all equipment before leaving home, and load all the cameras, too.

I took a significant quantity of each of the following films, as well as an 8gb memory card, and several memory cards of 2gb or less:

- Ilford 400 and 100 Delta (35mm and 120)

- Ilford 200SFX (the mock-infrared film, and its magenta filter, which I held in front of various cameras)

- Ilford ASA 50 film (a couple rolls of 120 only)

- cheap 35mm colour print film, expired for interesting effects, for the compact camera

- Fuji 110 colour print film (still available from 7dayshop) (4 rolls)

- Adox 100 black and white film, with the 1950's style chromatic sensitivity that makes reds, for example, very dark

- Three rolls of medium format colour transparency film (Fuji)

- Two leftover rolls of high speed 35mm film, expired (1600 and 800 ASA)

I estimate that in total I recorded somewhere between 7,000 and 9,000 images over 23 days, the majority being digital. I could have taken more, but I ran out of memory. I used up all my colour film and all the 35mm film except some of the Adox, and the 110 film. I had a fair bit of Adox 120 film and the ASA 50 film left, because it was usually impossible to shot the slower films without a tripod (mercifully left at home!), and the Mamiya being my only functional medium format camera and weighing in at 2 kilos, I was often tempted to leave it in my room.

One note on the photographs on this site:
Unless otherwise noted, they are digital photos and completely unmanipulated. So in terms of the light and colour, what you see here is pretty much what you would have gotten, had you been in Greenland on the day.

Just touching down at Kangerlussuaq

I wasn't going to stay. I was just passing through. I was on my way to Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, but it is not possible to fly directly to the capital, because the airstrip there is not large enough to accommodate jumbo jets on international flights. But the airstrip at Kangerlussuaq is, because the place was built as a US military base with an eye to catering for the supersized might of Uncle Sam.

And yet, it was to be my first moments on Greenlandic soil (or tarmac, to be more precise). After shooting enough aerial footage on the descent to mount an exhibition (there, I'd justified my trip already, I could relax [!]), the excitement levels were soaring way out of control, the closer we got to terra firma. And then we landed.



Hmm. The equipment on the ground looked much like any other airport round the globe, if the operators were definitely Greenlandic.



And those hills rising up along the valley - they could be anywhere in the north Atlantic, say... Scotland, where I'd been so many times? I had come to earth with a bump. Still, the airport was as tiny as any remote airport could be expected to be; and I had the duty free to negotiate.



The latter turned out to be far more arduous than customs and immigration (an empty desk). Having ascertained that my luggage was transferring from jumbo to Dash-7 of its own accord, I drew myself up and plunged into the scrum that was the duty free. Even with two tills working at full speed, it seemed to take forever until I could emerge, clutching my bottle of (relatively) cheap white in its peculiar string vest: a Scandi-invention that I realised provided grip when pouring while simultaneously preventing clinking in the shopping sack (should I have been so pecunious as to purchase more than one bottle).

Boarding the Dash-7 I thought again how handsome the Air Greenland fleet was, with its glossy candy-apple-red planes with the white abstract snowflake logo. Inside the single aisle terminated abruptly in a beige wall fronted by a row of seats facing away from the direction of travel. I figured that nobody would want to sit there, so I found a window seat opposite these but facing the correct way for my purposes. And I had plenty of room to open my day rucksack and pull out the first two cameras. The man next to me was lost in reading the paper (bilingual Danish and Greenlandic) and paid little attention to me, or, once we took off, the spectacular scenery. Which was just as well, because after a cursory look at the safety card (complete with nonverbal instructions on how to survive turning into an iceberg) I was glued to the window. My first journey with turbo props!