(Greenland)...This place is massive. Greenland measures 2,166,086 square kilometres, of which 755,637 square kilometres forms its massive ice sheet, the middle of the world’s largest island. Its coastline also is staggering, being some 39,330 kilometres in length, which is roughly the size of the Earth's circumference at the equator. On this huge piece of land live approximately 60,000 people.
That is one person for every 36 square kilometres of land. Of course, the people—Inuit; outsiders are known as qanuallit—can live only on a much smaller piece of land, along the coasts. Ilulissat was the farthest I was north, at 69°10'N/49°45'W, some 350 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle. It is a pretty place, but no doubt harsh at many times of the year. The sound I will remember is of the 8,000 dogs here, howling away as I went for a walk at 5 in the morning, unable to sleep because of the perpetual light.
Every one of them was chained by a five-foot length of chain, which meant that they had a circular span of 10 feet, which is good to know, for they certainly are not pets. They are related to husky dogs and are not allowed south of the Arctic Circle (other breeds, in turn, are not allowed north) in order to keep the breed strong and pure and ready as working dogs. Also given the Danish name of grønlandshund, the dogs work hard, but during the summer they just sit around, not being fed too much in order to keep them fit. I walked around Ilulissat many times, between the rows of brightly coloured wooden houses. All the wood needs to be imported from Canada or Denmark, Greenland’s mother country. When the road runs out, a small trail winds along the coast, passes several fishing boats and ends at the beginning of the great glacier here. A hill here is where in olden times the elderly, no longer wishing to be a burden on their families, would throw themselves off to their deaths. Only those who contributed could live, was the unwritten rule, seemingly.
The glacier, called Sermeq Kujalleq, is the most active in the northern hemisphere, each day discharging into the icy sea more fresh water than New York City consumes in a year. It is spectacular, and the temperatures dropped noticeably when one is close to an iceberg, which here are immense. Think very large, and then think again. The scenery constantly changes, due to the migrations of this ice. One morning I awoke (I hardly got to sleep, really), and two Minke whales slowly passed by my window amid a few icebergs and a few more patches of floating, condensed snow. Two days later, and the whole bay—which stretches to Disko Island—was cluttered with ice. It was as though some giant had moved the hotel overnight. Equally of interest to me were the huge expanses of tundra. One could either jump from grassy tussock to grassy tussock or huge stone slab to huge stone slab. Rivers occasionally meandered from one small pond or lake to another but mostly quickly disappeared into the damp sod. Ravens jumped around. I walked for quite some time and found myself at the cemetery, which views icebergs from a distance. Who knows how many here died as a result of the elements?
A Greenlandic saying goes, If you do not fear the sea, you will not last one year in Greenland, and even in July, the water was frigid. One local told me that the only way to survive a soaking is by not panicking and being young to begin with. He told me of three young men who somehow let their boat drift away as they were out hunting. One of the men jumped in to retrieve it, but the current moved the boat faster than he could move towards it. His friends ran to get help. An hour later, the man was plucked out of the water, having survived by grabbing hold of a small lump of ice. The air ambulance was called, but apparently after being cared for on the boat, he promptly walked straight past the ambulance crew and was seen later that evening down the pub having a beer.
The town—it has 4,800 people and is Greenland’s third-largest settlement—is known also for being the home of Greenland’s greatest explorer, Knud Rasmussen (as I write another Rasmussen is currently leading the Tour de France cycle race, although as I revise this, he has now been thrown off for irregularities concerning drug tests), and by his childhood home, now a museum, was going on a kayaking competition, in which competitors manouevered around a set course (small Inuit boys guided them by waving red flags) before lifting their long, heavy kayaks on their heads and shoulders and running approximately a kilometre before doing it all again and again and again.
I had no idea how many laps constituted the race; one competitor was Spanish. I know this because I replied to him in his language after hearing him swear at dropping his kayak upside down in the water. He was not about to put his hand in the water to re-right it, not without at least a pint of Spanish jerez inside him. His name was Xavier, and being the only qanuallit competitor had become quite a celebrity. He had been given an Inuit name, for the locals could not pronounce his Spanish one.