There’s no dock in Qaanaaq. So the forklift truck drives into the sea to pick up small containers off a small pram sailed into the beach from the supply ship. The supply ship comes once at the end of July(ish) and again in the beginning of September. The Christmas trees – from Denmark – are on the September ship.
The trees are sold in a lottery – first come, first served – and then kept in storage. You can imagine what happens when you pick up your tree at the end of November… as soon as the heat inside the house hits it, all the needles fall off. We did not buy Christmas trees while living in Greenland. Also being delivered is the new ambulance – the bright yellow van at the bow of the ship.
But the beach is the most exciting thing about this whole operation – all those lovely growlers and bergy bits just… beached! Love it!
Ice is a fantastic thing, and these lumps of ice are impossibly old, straight off a glacier.
But we’ll finish off with another photo of the ship!
Chris
Wouldn’t buying a plastic Christmas tree, once off and storing it, be more economical than shipping a tree every year from Denmark, just to have all the needles fall off?
Hi Elentarri! Yes, and we did that. We had it sent by air freight in August, it spent Christmas in a supply depot “somewhere in Greenland” and we got it in February. 🙂 However, we have used it every year since.