Board Game Backdrop

Jane and I played a lot of Settlers of Catan in Greenland. We often played with a Danish family when we lived in Uummannaq, and then in Qaanaaq we challenged each other, turning 3-4 player games into a 2 player where we both played two teams, but with a twist. When one of Jane’s teams was about to win – she was always about to win – we wrote her colours down on two scraps of paper. So, for example, blue on one piece and red on the other. I folded the paper with a piece hidden in each hand. If red had technically won the game Jane had to tap my hand with the piece of paper with red written on it. If she tapped blue then it was too bad, we played on, only red was not allowed to make any further moves or feed resources to blue.

Ingenious or simply mad?

Doesn’t matter.

If Jane didn’t tap the “right” hand I usually won.

But then, failing that, we just looked out the window for a bit.

This photo is taken from our lounge/kitchen in Qaanaaq. Our little wooden house was brand new, but designed for the Scandinavian summer house market. Also, the builders didn’t wait until the permafrost was at it’s lowest levels. So, when the ground froze and lifted each winter we couldn’t shut any doors. 🙂

Arctic Hares often ran past the window, sometimes running up to a hunter’s front door, bewildered by the lights, until it was lights out, and the hare was hung by its feet in the porch to be eaten later that winter.

You could call it Arctic take-out, delivered to the door.

Oh, and you can see Baffin Bay and Herbert Island on the far right.

Chris