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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'Qaqortoq' published by Gwasg Oriel Press

Gwasg Oriel Press announces the publication of Qaqortoq by Margaret Sharrow. Photos of this, the largest town in southwest Greenland, show it as 'a feast for all the senses'.

Browse and order now at the Gwasg Oriel Press website. 

Qaqortoq by Margaret Sharrow

Still on my mind

It's funny how I cannot recall what I had for lunch yesterday, but I can, with the tiniest prompting, expound at length, with staggering levels of detail, on my trip to Greenland last summer. About how people get by, with the high prices, by visiting amongst the often large extended family without ever paying for a hotel, but filling every spare inch of floor space with sleeping bags at Christmas. About people taking advantage of the lottery in Kangerlussuaq to hunt the quota of musk oxen, and sharing the carcass, storing it in their immense freezers (yes, freezers are ubiquitous in Greenland). How everyone lives by the coast, and knows someone with a boat, who goes fishing. How the magazines feature awards given to loyal workers at TelePost, for ten, fifteen or twenty years' service by quite young people, and how people tend to hang onto jobs, often for life (not surprising considering many of them come with accommodation). How a small supermarket bag of cheap pasta, tinned fish, yogurt, three 'Viking steaks', milk, a bit of fruit and something green will easily top £20 (US $35). How the banks don't take UK debit cards because of Danish banking regulations, but the people working there are very friendly and helpful, and outside the capital, all dressed very casually. How the fog comes down in Qaqortoq and erases the top half of the hill with its staircased streets of primary coloured houses. How the rain comes down and it is never really very cold in August and early September (except on the top deck of the ferry at 5am) and I am a fool to be carrying around thermal trousers (most of the time!). How the spines of the books in the public library where I shelter from the rain are all rebound in jewel colours, pink and yellow and lime green, paperbacks to be treasured forever. How the fish market is selling whale but I am too late to see it and instead photograph the remains of giant ribs, chest high, sticking out of the rubbish bin. How the tables are cold steel and spread with fish and seal sliced red, gold mother of pearl eyes unseeing as the camera lens. A man, grey haired with a flowerpot shaped hat and glasses, wanting to shake my hand, talk, tell me he is sixty today. A museum, in an old hotel that looks like a red school house from pioneer America, where I steam around, drying out and looking at amazing tupilak carvings in creamy bone by father and daughter Aaron and Cecile Kleist. Where upstairs I photograph the room where Charles Lindburgh and his wife stayed, photographs of them and the seaplane floating on its pods in the harbour. Where the national costume is displayed, yoked neckwear that looks like Shetland knitwear in photographs but up close is composed of intricate beadwork in reds, yellows, white, indigo, purple and blue. Where a series of medium format square photos are displayed of life in the early 1960's, faces that tell of childhood, festive dancing and proud truck ownership but also of locals sat round the table with colonial bureaucrats who built the new concrete housing blocks that today are so run down. A woman, smoking a pipe, toothy and wrinkled grin challenging me to understand.

What (Not) to Wear in Greenland

Approaching Paamiut, warmly dressed!

what I wore

• thermal ski trousers
• quick-dry thin trousers
• puffa down jacket with a fake fur outer
• ski mittens
• fleece gloves
• wool and cashmere knit beret purchased in Shetland
• low-cut hiking boots (no ankle support)
• long sleeved cotton tops by day, cotton t-shirts by night
• thick cotton socks
• sealskin insoles purchased in Nuuk
• fleece
• Buffalo sleeping bag
  

what I packed (and didn't use much or at all)

• mosquito repellent (fortunately, it was too late in the season!)
• thermal trousers (except on the deck of the coastal ferry)
• thinly padded reflective camping mat (used in Copenhagen airport)
• bivvy bag (thank God I didn't have to do emergency camping!)
• camp stove without gas canister (what was I thinking? that I would cook outdoors?)
• head torch (flashlight) (loaned by the same person who loaned bivvy bag and stove)
• compass (but wouldn't have gone hiking without it)
• mobile phone (used as alarm clock, but not for calls. The saga of telephones in Greenland deserves its own page.)
  
  
  

Qaqortoq e-mail extract

Ran up hill to hostel and back, have a couple more minutes to write. The library is very nice, people can drink coffee etc. here and most of the books have been rebound in a rainbow of nice colours. School is out but then kids seem to be wandering about the place most of the time. In Nuuk the school buses run all day, not just in the morning and afternoon but all day in between, and there are always kids going somewhere, or walking alone or in groups, in the most unlikely places, like way out by the airport, past the golf course (yes, there is one here, or rather, there!)

Tomorrow I have my first Air Greenland helicopter ride. Have already found the airport, by mistake, and confirmed my flight. Helicopters only, here, as in most of the small Greenlandic settlements. I may have to break off suddenly if the lady is ready to close the library.

In Greenlandic sentences are formed by adding more and more suffixes to just a few words, so the words are extremely long in print. People tend to read by running a finger along the line under the words. The purser on the ship handed out a questionnaire (not to me, it was only in Danish + Greenlandic) and all these elderly ladies were intently studying the first page, running a finger under the words. It seemed to take them a long time to read. The Danish lady at the hostel says this is typical. I have just had the librarian photocopy and article on the Greenlandic language issue for me from a new magazine called Greenland Today, new this year in Danish and English. Very interesting.

Much of the music on the radio sounds oddly like Radio Ceredigion, the Welsh middle-of-the-road stuff. I keep wondering why they aren't singing in Welsh! I have been eating kind of a lot of salami, at breakfast every day. I think I may get some pork chops tonight, for a change. Last week I got a slab of reindeer lasagne from the freezer deli section at the Brugsen supermarket in Nuuk. It was very good, made 3 portions. Sort of a more steak like hamburger.