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 01: Flying high to Greenland

Air Greenland wing, flying over the west coast of Greenland. Image copyright Margaret Sharrow, 2008

I decided early on that the Air Greenland fleet was the handsomest fleet of airplanes I'd ever seen. They were all candy apple red, with a ski for a wheel (no, not that, I'm thinking of the Beach Boys) and just as lusciously shiny as a childhood treat, sprinkled with a logo of white dots forming a snowflake. In a rebranding that was the stamp of the dashing new CEO, the airline bent over backwards to give its passengers a first-class experience, which helped in a great measure to offset the first-class prices. In an ideal world I would have flown as far north as it was possible to go, Qaanaaq, but my entire grant wouldn't have covered the airfare. As it was, for the cost of the flight from Copenhagen to Kangerlussuaq, and from Narsarsuaq back to Copenhagen was more than a round the world ticket. But they were very generous with the food (quality, quantity, cutlery), the wine, the film (a Swedish drama that climaxed on the massive bridge spanning the Baltic from Malmö to Copenhagen), the courtesy. And overgenerous with the views on descent. Having come through rather unnerving turbulence over the icecap, the parting of the clouds alone would have resulted in joy. However, the ever-changing views of the rocky coast resulted in a sort of photographic ecstasy, of which more tomorrow.

26 August 2008 12:32 GMT -3 recalled 5 January 2011

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