Our hosts were a Danish-Greenlandic couple, Anders and Ellen, who have lived aboard the Kisaq for decades. They sail up and down the west coast of Greenland, with the occasional jaunt down the Eastern Seaboard into the Carribean. Anders is a tall, quiet, and resolute Danish man, who seemed most talkative at breakfast . His silence and proclivity to morning instilled confidence in me—these seem to be fitting traits for a maritime man. Ellen, on the other hand, was a bit more lively, a dry Greenlandic woman, a mother and a grandmother, a wonderful cook, and the obvious master of the ship’s domain. Throughout the weekend we enjoyed her delicious homemade bread, cream-based seafood soups, and perfect pot roasts, all complimented with healthy doses of boiled potatoes . I asked her the first night who the worst guest was that the Kisaq had ever hosted and she immediately told me it was a group of heli skiers who brought along their own “master chef” for the trip. It was obvious that being relegated to sous-chef in her own kitchen would be Ellen’s worst nightmare. I liked Ellen, though—she seemed to be a woman who has her priorities straight. When we sent a chair clattering down a stairwell during a rousing game of spoons one night around midnight, she barely batted an eyelash; on the other hand, when I tracked about a tablespoon's worth of snow into the main living area, she gave me a thorough reprimand. I guess when you live on a boat, you care about the things that really matter—like dry socks.
This past weekend Ken and I were lucky enough to be invited by some friends from Aapakaaq (the local climbing club) on a weekend boat trip into the fjord aboard the good ship Kisaq. It was a great trip, complete with skiing, hunting, and beautiful (albeit cold) weather. Our hosts were a Danish-Greenlandic couple, Anders and Ellen, who have lived aboard the Kisaq for decades. They sail up and down the west coast of Greenland, with the occasional jaunt down the Eastern Seaboard into the Carribean. Anders is a tall, quiet, and resolute Danish man, who seemed most talkative at breakfast . His silence and proclivity to morning instilled confidence in me—these seem to be fitting traits for a maritime man. Ellen, on the other hand, was a bit more lively, a dry Greenlandic woman, a mother and a grandmother, a wonderful cook, and the obvious master of the ship’s domain. Throughout the weekend we enjoyed her delicious homemade bread, cream-based seafood soups, and perfect pot roasts, all complimented with healthy doses of boiled potatoes . I asked her the first night who the worst guest was that the Kisaq had ever hosted and she immediately told me it was a group of heli skiers who brought along their own “master chef” for the trip. It was obvious that being relegated to sous-chef in her own kitchen would be Ellen’s worst nightmare. I liked Ellen, though—she seemed to be a woman who has her priorities straight. When we sent a chair clattering down a stairwell during a rousing game of spoons one night around midnight, she barely batted an eyelash; on the other hand, when I tracked about a tablespoon's worth of snow into the main living area, she gave me a thorough reprimand. I guess when you live on a boat, you care about the things that really matter—like dry socks. The Kisaq sleeps 10, in five tiny 2 person cabins. Upon entering our 1 meter by 3 meter cabin, full of clever cubbyholes and space-saving features, Ken, ever the minimalist, remarked, “Architects could learn a lot from boats! They’re so space efficient. We could live in this cabin forever and never need more space.” As I searched in vain for an open surface on which to set my backpack, I chose to ignore his comment. But he does have a slightly valid point. Tracks! On Saturday, we had a great day of skiing/touring. Shortly after leaving the boat, we saw about 5 reindeer running through the valley below us—my first large land mammal sighting in Greenland! We skinned up about 2500 ft (~760 m) to a great little peak with a beautiful panoramic view of the surrounding peaks and fjord system, then skied back down to shore on some decent (although variable) snow. I enjoyed the lower angle runs as we got closer to the boat—better snow, and easier on my old telemark setup (on which I am incapable of making anything but parallel turns). Ken, Aili, and I then did an additional lap up to a 1500 ft (~455 m) saddle to get in a few more turns and one more view. The snow was great on the ski back down and it was a beautiful run to end the day. We had bluebird skies and cold, but bearable, weather—about 0 deg F (-18 deg C). Cracks in the snowpack. On Sunday, most of the party went hunting for ptarmigan and arctic hare, but lacking rifles and know-how, Ken and I opted to ski. The weather was a bit more unpredictable, and Anders (the captain) warned us at breakfast that white-out conditions could be upon us by midday. With this in mind we took careful GPS waypoints on a short hike (about 1500 ft/455 m) up the backside of a peak with a mellow slide path on the front side that we were thinking of skiing. When we got to the saddle we were thinking of skiing down from, Ken became more cautious and I stood by while he ventured toward the slope to assess the snowpack. About 2 meters out he heard a “whoomph” as the snow on the face settled, and cracks went shooting up, down, and out from the protected place were Ken stood. He quickly scurried back to me and we debated for a while whether we should set off the slide, but decided not to and skied back to the boat down the backside, following our skin track. Pretty exciting/sobering for me, but also nice to have exercised a bit of caution and see it pay off. The ski back down was uneventful save for a small touch of white frostbite that appeared on my nose-- spotted by Ken, as usual. Thank goodness for balaclavas! After returning to the boat we met up with the hunters, who had a good haul for the day—about 35 ptarmigan and one beautiful arctic hare. A Belgian Ph.D. student on the trip, Lorenz, regaled us with the tale of how he, rifle-less, had come upon a wounded ptarmigan and finished it off by ripping off its head. Greenland really has a way of bringing out the wild side in people. Cost for this trip, with all meals included, was about 300 USD per person, and well worth it. Ken and I have a similar trip coming up tomorrow through Sunday aboard another boat, the Minna Martek, and we’re excited to see how it compares to the Kisaq. Stay tuned for a full report and in the meantime, check out more pics from our trip below (mostly taken by Ken).
7 Comments
I'm now back in Nuuk after a final month of work in Afghanistan. It's good to be back, and in the last week I've been skiing--straight out the front door-- four times. Pretty amazing. More on that later. For now, a short post. Today outside of Brugsen (the largest grocery store in town), I was delighted to find a Greenlandic woman selling papercutting silhouette art in the local sell/swap area. I took home the piece below for 50 Danish Kroner-- about 9 USD. It's a bit rough, but I like her style. She had a large variety of additional work in her backpack that she pulled out to show me after I made my purchase-- unfortunately, I forgot my camera today. In other interesting news, both major grocery stores in downtown Nuuk were completely out of eggs today. A definite blow to my evening baking plans.
Freezing rain on a dismal November morning. Ken takes to the streets on his teles. A rather anticlimactic video, but it allows you to admire our neighborhood.
This Sunday, Ken and I finally decided to hike to the top of Store Malene, the highest peak (760 m/2508 ft) easily accessible from town. Because there was a lot of snow this year, we were waiting for a good melt to set in before attempting the walk. I suppose we were also celebrating our new proximity to the trails outside town-- they're now only a 5 minute walk from our door. (This is even more exciting for the winter... we'll be in a ski-in ski-out condo!). The hike was nice, and actually a bit more demanding than I expected, involving some hands-and-feet-required scrambling. We had a great 360 degree view at the top and saw tantalizing peaks in the distance that we hadn't previously known existed. Well worth the effort. Hiking in the hills outside Islamabad last fall, in a highly inappropriate outfit. We saw about ten other hikers in the three hours it took us to complete the trip. There were a few Danish transplant types-- young blondes wearing Mammut coats--but the rest of the hikers were Greenlandic. My favorite was a duo of Greennlandic guys in running shoes and track pants. As they trotted up behind me, I stopped to catch my breath, clinging to a rock to stave off my vertigo, and turned to them to say, "Wow! You guys are fast!"--very much in the fashion of my mother. The elder of the pair looked at me and said, "YES! I HAVE ALREADY RUN UP THIS TRAIL 57 TIMES. IT'S GREAT!" I said, "Wow, that's specific. You're really a professional, huh?" (Insert smiley face in my intonation.) He replied, "YES! I AM!". Then he ran past Ken and said, "WELCOME TO GREENLAND!". When we got to the top, he and his companion (who I think was a protege of sorts) were engaging in what looked like little feats of strength, leaping in spasmodic bouts of energy from boulder to boulder. The whole thing was just laced with ENTHUSIASM. It gave me a flashback to last fall when I was working in Islamabad. On the weekends, we would sometimes hike in the Margalla Hills outside of the city. On the first trip, we got a little lost, and suddenly, out of the bushes, appeared a middle aged man in a full polyester track suit straight from the 1970s. "Hello!" he said. We asked him for directions, and he pointed us to a fork in the trail that we should take. Then he took off running into the bushes in the opposite direction, straight up the hill. "Where are you going?" we asked. "TO THE FIRE TRAILS!" he said. (Fire trails are the corridors blazed into the hills to help stop wildfires by creating a vegetation gap-- they go straight up and down the mountains, no switchbacks.) Then he disappeared, but for the next 45 minutes of hiking, he kept popping in and checking on us as we trudged up the switchbacks, taking shortcuts via the fire trails, always shouting things like, "DO YOU LOVE IT? IT'S GREAT! YOU MUST TRY THE FIRE TRAILS NEXT! MUCH BETTER!" "OH HOHOHOHOHO! I LOVE IT!" so on and so forth. When he stopped to talk to us, he jumped up and down the whole time, panting, his polyester suit fully zipped despite the 90 degree F (32 degree C) heat. Again... such enthusiasm! Such dedication to physical fitness! All this has gotten me thinking about "hiking" and what it means in different cultures. I think it's pretty well-defined in the west (Europe/North America). It's a granola-ish activity enjoyed by lots of people, especially those with money. Also, in the west I think it is most enjoyed by those who like being outside but aren't necessarily in great shape or have great physical fitness capabilities. (Those who have great abilities, I believe, get into true mountaineering/climbing/skiing (a category in which I do not include myself!)). On the flip side, in very poor developing countries, I think the concept of "hiking" comes across as pretty outlandish. When I worked in Guatemala as a trekking guide (the only clientele, of course, being Europeans and North Americans on holiday), this was painfully obvious. We'd be trudging up some village's main trail with our fancy backpacks only to be lapped a few times by an old man in flip flops carrying 30 kilos of wood with a head strap. Flexing his gigantic neck tendons, he would just look at us-- not with malice, but still with the obvious implication that we were idiots. Same story in Ethiopia, perhaps even moreso. But then there are places in the middle-- unique places like Greenland, which is both developing and highly developed (and also has a long cultural connection to nature/subsistence hunting/wilderness/etc), and places like Pakistan, which is quite impoverished but has a wealthy elite and highly developed, modern areas. (I suppose Guatemala has its wealthy elite as well-- I just never got close to those circles.) In these places it seems that among locals, "hiking" is viewed as a means to an end--fitness--possibly with the side benefit of a good view and some fresh air along the way. For those of us in the west who are trails enthusiasts, I think it's the opposite. When we get to the top, we don't leap around the summit continuing to bolster our fitness; we have a look, do some reflection, feel a little zen about ourselves and eat some chocolate, then begrudge the fact that now, we have to go back down. Ramblings aside, here are some pictures of our new backyard! June 1 real-time temps. Commas are actually decimals. 32.8 degrees in Nuuk. Anna isn’t happy with her blogging stats, so she asked me to intervene with a guest post about my work to stimulate the viewers. I’m working at Asiaq which is housed under the Department of Infrastructure and Environment in the Greenland government. It’s kind of like a mini-version of the USGS, but Asiaq also does some private consulting related to hydropower projects in Greenland. I also recently learned that their current weather page is the second most popular site in Greenland! You will notice that daily highs here continue to hover just above freezing. Perfect weather. There is a lot of science happening in the arctic for a lot of reasons. Sea ice extent and thickness is diminishing, which is a big change for a society which depends on the ice to travel, hunt, and fish. The melting of the Greenland ice cap is one of the largest contributors to global sea level rise. These freshwater inputs affect marine ecosystems and the fishing industry. Permafrost is warming up which has implications for infrastructure and natural resource development. All of these processes intertwined in Greenland’s political environment (potential bid for independence from Denmark) make it an interesting problem in a modern, developing country. The commute to work--boat + skis. Thus far, “work” has involved a lot of skiing, which is always a good thing. A few times each week from May-October I travel 20 minutes by boat through Kobbefjord. Part of the program includes an eddy covariance system to monitor carbon dioxide exchange. Basically, air is pumped through tubing to an analyzer which determines the concentration of CO2. Another sensor calculates the wind speed/direction 20 times each second. The values are stored and processed on the computer, and with some math magic you can determine if humans are causing global warming. Or something like that. About to ski back to the boat. It’s a nice place to work, especially during good weather. Each day I’ve attempted to finish my field work in time to ski a legitimate run before the boat comes to pick me up... this can make for a long night at the office, but it's well worth it. I've only been successful twice, once with enough time to skin up about 800 meters (2500 feet) of perfect corn snow. For the ski back down to the ocean the entire valley and fjord were empty, except for my boat driver coming in to pick me up and some whales spouting in the distance. Not bad for a work day, especially in June. Of course, for each one of these days there will be ten days of driving, freezing rain. Field work in Greenland is not always glamorous.
Ken has been gone the last three days in the field, and his two supervisors (both women) were kind enough to invite me on a skiing trip Sunday to neighboring Kobbefjord. So, Sunday morning I headed out with four Danes who live in Nuuk and an American scientist who is currently visiting ASIAQ. It was a nice group-- interesting academic types with great explanations of the landscape and natural processes we were hiking through, as well as a former school teacher who is now working for the Greenland schools administration, and also a fellow who works for the Greenland tourism agency. I looked forward to chatting with all of these people but unfortunately spent most of the day lagging at the end of the group, sweating, getting an incredible sunburn through the thick cloud cover (despite my SPF 30), and generally cursing the fact that Ken was not around to carry the things in my pack. (Our usual M.O. while touring--we like to load him down like a pack mule to even the playing field a bit.) Regardless, I wouldn't have missed this day for the world and it's the first time since moving here that I thought with conviction, "THIS is why we moved here."
Starting in Nuuk, we traveled by boat to neighboring Kobbefjord (about a 20 minute trip), anchored, and skinned up a nice, mellow drainage to a small peak named Aajuitsaq (855 m, ~2800 ft). About 14 km (8ish miles) round trip, give or take. Overall, it was a great trip with good skinning and a nice ski out, composed of mixed terrain that necessitated some pushing and skating, but enough pitch to get in a few turns here and there. A couple of our party were on cross country skis, I was on my old teles, and everyone else had nice mixed-condition dynafit skis, boots and bindings. If not for the extremely flat light on the ski out, I would have been in heaven-- the snow conditions were surprisingly good. Nice, dry snow. I'm not sure if this was just because we stuck to north-facing aspects on the trip out, but I was pleasantly surprised. After a very nice itinerary from Fairbanks to Nuuk that consisted of only 3 flights and an 8 hour daytime layover in Reykjavic (we went into town for a last taste of culture and sophistication), Ken and I arrived in Nuuk Saturday evening, April 30th. Despite a lost ski bag (which we've since recovered) the travel went smoothly. We even got exit row seats for the Seattle-Reykjavic leg. The descent into Nuuk (town not yet visible). After a full week here, all I can say is that Nuuk leaves me a bit speechless. The flight in was starkly beautiful, but all that beauty was laced, for me at least, with an element of terror. Looking down on a (literal) sea of ice and granite with a propeller buzzing next to your ear makes one keenly aware that a quick exit from Nuuk isn’t necessarily an easy feat. The place has a sort of lunar feel to it. Nothing but rock and ice, with buildings on the landscape that look very out of place. Sensible and stylish Danish design seems to have met its match here in the way of industrial building materials. Overall, the city’s architecture has a bit of an airplane-hangar-meets-country-cottage look. From certain angles, you can create a quaint panorama—but you can’t fool yourself for too long. To add to Nuuk's other-worldly aspect, we are currently living in a very nice high rise apartment building (11 stories). Greenland functions under a public housing system imposed decades ago by the Danes—a system which no one seems to fully understand. What we do know is this: as a two person couple, we are entitled to a three room apartment (two bedrooms, one joint kitchen/living space). However, due to the long waiting list for public housing, most people (including us) are first placed in temporary housing, which allowably provides one less room for an individual or family than the number to which they are entitled. During this time of temporary housing, apartments are rent free. (Big bonus, because when we finally move to our permanent apartment, rent will be around 1000 USD/month). However, right now we have been placed in “pre-temporary” housing , and have been told we’ll be moving to our official “temporary” housing in six weeks. But our current "pre-temporary" apartment has three rooms, the number to which we are entitled. Confused? Yeah, so are we. What matters for the time being is that we’re not paying anything, so we haven't asked many questions. Our dining room around midnight. But back to our current apartment. Although this is my first experience with public housing anywhere in the world, the place has vastly exceeded my expectations. Strike the mental images you’re having right now of Chicago’s Cabrini Green. Leave it to the Danes to decide that public housing should include heated bathroom floors, beautiful wood flooring, glass walled showers, in-unit washing machines, standard issue down comforters, dishwashers, and closet space beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. We’re told that our apartment is on the nice end of the public housing spectrum here, so I’m trying to keep my expectations for the future low. Still, it's an incredibly nice apartment. And when I stand at the sink doing dishes with a state of the art faucet, cleaning the counters and the brand-new glass stovetop burners with a few easy swipes of the sponge, it somehow makes Nuuk feel even more surreal and isolated. At times like this I feel like I'm on some sort of high tech spaceship, never quite able to forget the cold and empty wilderness lapping at the door. From what we've seen so far, Greenland is incredibly beautiful, and as remote a wilderness as I think remains in the world. We've already been skiing a couple of times, gone on small hikes to the edge of town, and realized that we're going to need to buy a boat to take full advantage of what is on offer here. But apart from the natural beauty, this is a strange and curious place. Most notably, it is a place of contrasts. Nuuk is extremely urbanized, with high density housing, an impressive bus system, and even its own suburb. Yet, real, live, bone chilling wilderness is only a 20 minute walk from any part of town. And the mixture of native people and Danes--some highly educated, some poorly educated, many living together in mixed income housing--in a country that has essentially been a colony of Denmark for 200 years weaves a very fascinating story that we're only beginning to understand. |