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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Extract of e-mail from Nuuk

Today I had a lovely tour by taking the bus heading away from the city centre on the loop through the suburb where I am staying and then out past the airport to the new development and back again. Nuuk is one huge building site. I haven't seen so much construction since I lived in Toronto; in fact per capita there is probably a thousand times more construction here. Of course they can't do much in the winter... Everywhere there are new brightly coloured apartment blocks going up, and office skyscrapers of 8-10 stories, built into the solid 4 billion year old rock. Where I am staying is only two or three years old. The population of Nuuk must be bulging, also the apartment blocks from the 1960's are getting quite run down.

Today it was the same bus driver as the first day, still wearing gold reflective shades but with a different t-shirt today. I said something to him in Danish and he gave me that "Are you insane?" look I often get from people when I attempt to speak Danish. Then I pushed my own sunglasses up onto the top of my head and said something in English. He recognised me, and gave me a big smile. Today the rap music that had been playing on the last journey was replaced by country and western. At every stop he paused, so as not to get ahead of schedule, and carried on texting on his phone.

Speaking of music, the stuff they play on the radio here sounds oddly like the Welsh pop music featuring on Radio Ceredigion and for sale in good electronic goods shops everywhere: middle of the road, slightly-to-very country. Except here it's in Greenlandic.