Christoffer Petersen

Authentic Arctic Thrillers

the shaman's house

Beautiful and Tragic

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This is Nuugaatsiaq. It has to be one of the prettiest places to live in whole of Greenland. It’s also one of the most dangerous. On June 17, 2017 a landslide slid off a nearby mountain, falling about a kilometre, before crashing into the fjord and sending a tsunami wave that wiped out the settlement of Nuugaatsiaq. Four people lost their lives. The settlement was evacuated, and I believe it is still unpopulated due to fears of further landslides in the area.

In 2008, Jane and I spent three fantastic days in Nuugaatsiaq, and I set much of The Shaman’s House in the settlement. We were in Denmark when the landslide happened, and I remember being very moved by tragic scenes of waves full of mud and ice crashing into the settlement, and houses floating away in the sea.

What happened in Nuugaatsiaq is a stark reminder of living on the edge in Greenland.

Chris

You can see our house from here!

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I climbed a little way up the side of the mountain behind our house one day. Just having fun in the snow. And then looking back, holding my breath when taking the photos to avoid steaming the lens.

So, the red(ish) dot is our house – not the four-roofed building behind it. That’s a storage building. The green(ish) dot is the police house – not the station, but the house provided for police officers living in Qaanaaq. I guess you could say this is where Maratse would live when taking temporary assignment in Qaanaaq. Fenna had a big fight in this house in The Shaman’s House. 😉

You can see the icebergs locked in the ice. It was always exciting to see which bergs would stay for the winter, hoping it would be an interesting one, as it was going to be part of the view from late October through to July, maybe later.

But through the long summer and pitch black winter, this was our view for two years.

Chris