greenland

But the ship makes it easier to cope with! What isn’t easy is figuring out what comes first. A few posts from now – yes, I’ve scheduled it – if you’re following this blog, you’ll read about the ice being so strong it had to be broken up by a bigger ship to make a channel, and all the problems that caused. But I’m writing these posts with photos plucked from the same day in the same month over seven years. So on this day in May, the smaller ship that brought supplies to Uummannaq could get to the harbour as the ice was already breaking up. They did dynamite some of the ice by the dock, but that’s another story.

Anyway, when the ship did arrive, each day we would discover new things on the shelves. Sweets were often the first thing to be put out, and the kids could suddenly be seen, cheeks bulging, with a lollipop or two in their mouths. Cola was also gratefully received!

It might be strange to think about, but cola and other fizzy drinks would disappear by March, sometimes earlier. That first cola after a long winter was quite a rush!

Chris

I’ve mentioned before that most houses in the more remote areas of Greenland are built on stilts and basically bolted into the rocks. Ours was no exception, as this photo also shows.

However, what it also shows is me preparing a rack for drying fish!

The fish factory in town had big, deep plastic bins full of fish heads and assorted gore, goop, blood, and slime. Lovely! But the fish heads – halibut – were usually the size of a football, or bigger. They could easily weigh four or five kilos, and feed a couple of dogs. The factory gave them away for free and Jane and I would carry them in backpacks up the hill – backbreaking – and then keep them in the shed over the winter.

Winter is quite simply the easiest month of the year in Greenland.

The short spring and long summer, however, are just hard work. While the fish heads were frozen in the shed all winter, they needed drying in the warmer months. I would knock the teeth out and hang the heads on the nails to dry. The heads I preferred were the size of a large hand and 4 or more made a good meal … for the dogs! They eat less in the summer as they are far less active.

The summer of 2007 was our first summer with dogs, and we would quickly get to know flies and ravens as they took their share of the dog food! The flies were a pain, but the ravens were crafty. They would steal a head from the rack, or distract the dogs, standing at limit of the dogs’ chains to be chased, while another raven swooped in for the head.

The dogs, Simba in particular, also had a habit of burying the heads in a cache. So I knew they had enough food when they were nibbling one head and burying the others.

It was the beginning of May and I was already looking forward to the winter!

Chris

And family! Jane’s twin sister and brother-in-law helped us immensely during the seven years we lived in Greenland. Everything is expensive in Greenland, and it’s just not possible to get some things. Toilet roll, for example, can run out. So during the year, Lise would buy stuff for us in Denmark. Sander would pack it – expertly I might add, and then, when Jane visited, they would drive it to the docks to be shipped north.

Lise and Sander made life that much easier with the supplies they sent once a year. We weren’t the only ones getting stuff shipped to Greenland, and often joined others to share the shipping costs of things like a year’s worth of frozen vegetables.

It sounds crazy, but a good chest freezer is essential in the Arctic if you want a varied diet! It’s also far cheaper to ship a year’s worth of stuff than it is to buy groceries in the store.

Our stuff came on the same ship anyway, so it all worked out in the end!

Chris

 

It’s the law to keep sledge dogs on a chain in the sledge dog districts of Greenland. Exceptions include bitches with pups, and puppies until they are six weeks old, or when their tails drop. It’s one of the things that really makes it clear that Greenland Sledge Dogs are working dogs.

They are also tough dogs.

While this storm – a little one – looks cold, it’s really not much more than a few degrees below zero. Healthy dogs with a good coat of fur, a nice layer of fat, and plenty of water, can cope with temperatures down to minus 50 Celsius. But in those temperatures, seal blubber is an important supplement to their diet. I gave chunks of blubber to my dogs when it dipped to the minus 20s.

My dogs were on chains about five or six metres long. They had dog houses, but rarely used them.

Chris

I’m not going to defend whale hunting on this blog. But neither am I going to support it. Personally, I would love a world in which whales were not hunted, but I’m not blind to how important whaling is in Greenland and to the majority of Greenlanders. It is also very different to the supposedly scientific whaling carried out by other countries for the sake of research.

Hmm, as Maratse would say.

However, if you’re interested in the Arctic you’re going to come across whaling in the history books, museums, in daily life, and when walking your dog on the sea ice.

I’ve mentioned the tiny lump of rock I dubbed Whale Island in an earlier blog. Well, this is why. when Nansen and I visited the island, he was spoiled for choice, grabbing one bone, before dropping it for a bigger one, only to find an even bigger one a few steps later.

I told him he couldn’t bring them home.

So he rolled in something instead! Perfect!

Chris

Jane was in Denmark when Hidalgo and Balto came into the world. She soon got to know them.

Chris