Land of Ice and Fog: Ch 2

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Friday 8-8-08

Today we are awakened at 6:30 with a humpback whale sighting. Amanda and I bundle up and trip out into the cold air (38°F, a mere 4°C). On the observation deck, a Scandinavian in shorts and tee-shirt (he does admit that it is cold) points out the sighting. I race down to the bow of the ship, joining Richard the bird-man and the voyage photographer Kevin. There I watched a humpback and a minkie surface, blow air through their blow holes a few times, float about, and then dive once more. According to Richard, this behavior is typical of the humpback, a baleen whale. We also see its fluke print, a bubbling made on the surface when the whale beats its tail underwater. Two icebergs glide by, one on the stern horizon and the other off to starboard. Our current ocean depth is 3-400 meters, or about 9-1200 feet.
It’s misty now so that there exists only a small circle of ocean around us before sight is lost. Because of the currents, the ocean is striped in different colors, and that, along with the mist, tricks my eyes. I see land . . . I see an iceberg . . . and yet the charts say there is nothing here but 1000 feet of water. In the bridge I meet Freddie and Amurillo. Amurillo serves as the look out, but Freddie and I chat. He has sailed with Lindblad for twenty years and on National Geographic’s Endeavor for six. He shows me our current position— both on the chart and on the GPS— our depth, and the monitor. It displays a color-coded, up-to-date chart. We’re at 65'N and 31'W; I’m halfway between home and the Arctic Circle.
As we are in the middle of the Atlantic, talks and light activity fill most of today. I join the yoga class and learn some great new positions. Karen asks Amanda and I if we can lead tonight’s debriefing. We agree, and Amanda and I decide that after Jes’ talk, we’ll spend the afternoon doing research. Jes debriefs us about Greenland, but my good intentions fade and I spend some time working on my story (a fantasy novel, nothing to do with this trip). I completely lose track of time and have to scramble to learn about icebergs. I manage it, though, and many people have told Amanda and I that our talk was great. (We also explained about the Kalpana Chawla scholarship and introduced ourselves). We met Thor Heyerdahl and his wife (whose name I am embarrassed to say I couldn’t pronounce). We eat with Jonathon and Jill from California, who have kids in college and are very kind. We chat with several other people and then CT comes over to give us each a picture of a humpback mother and calf. She had lent us a grey whale ear drum and a piece of baleen, which have proven to be excellent conversation pieces.

Saturday 8-9-08

Icebergs and fogs: Greenland is a land of these two things, or so it appears this early morning. As we press ahead, the mist just before us lifts, revealing yet another berg or hostile brown peak. Coming closer yet, we pass around a large berg. The ocean beneath it is the sort of blue usually reserved for palm trees and white sandy beaches. Bergs are fascinating; each side offers a new visage, so that from a different angle, it is hardly recognizable as the same iceberg. This one rides above water on two parts. The lower is smooth, worn so by water, while the other part is jagged, broken ice and snow. Richard explained that this berg must have flipped. As we sail into a small harbor, Mike and CT give me some hints for picture-taking: underexpose to bring out glacial blues, but overexposure to capture bright whites.
The town of Tasiilaq (Dah-SEE-lock) clings to the cliffs like bright wooden birds. The houses, in red and yellow and blue and green, mirror the colored boats below. House colors here used to mean something. Red was reserved for houses or official buildings, yellow for hospitals, blue for communications, and green for power plants. These meanings evidently aren’t followed so closely any more, for we see houses of each color. The houses are heated using oil furnaces. One paved road runs through the town and branches into two; all other roads are hard-packed dirt. Amanda and I crawl into an old house built of wood and covered with a thick layer of stone and dirt. Weeds and flowers are allowed to cover the walls, so it looks rather like an arctic hobbit hole. The house has one room, smaller than my dorm room, and housed 4 families, of up to 8 members each. Harbor sealskins line the sleeping areas— each of which is maybe 4 foot wide and may have held up to eight people. A soapstone lamp works overtime to light the dim, crowded room, with some help from two nearly opaque, alcoved windows. The people would live inside this tiny haven for four (pungent) months.
Tasiilaq has a short (European) history. Historically, Europeans had believed that the Norse were still in Greenland, even though no expedition to find them had been successful. One priest (1721) decided to convert the catholic Norse, but when he reached Greenland, he couldn’t find any, either. He seems to have been an equal-opportunity evangelist, however, for he converted the Inuit to Lutheranism instead. In 1884, the Danes finally managed to penetrate the ice-fields of the east coast in a vain attempt to find their missing Norse brethren. They came from Greenland’s southern horn, Cape Farewell, and rode the East Greenland Current to Ammasulik (Tasiilaq) in umiaks (women’s boats). Instead of Vikings, they discovered Ammasulik, an Inuit settlement of some 420 people. The Inuit were promised a trading post, but it was delayed for some time when the little ice age struck.
Amanda and I wander through the town taking pictures. At a pretty little creek, we notice that we are being watched; three dark haired, moon-faced children peer at us from over (and under) a broken porch railing. We wave, they wave, and I climb up the bank to play. As I do, the boys hide in the grass, just as though we were hunting each other. We swing around on a pole until a taxi comes and the boys run off, excited by this new distraction. Amanda and I continue on with Mike until we run into CT and a pack of dogs. The animals are smallish, even the parents (40 ish pounds). The two pups are half grown, and all are very friendly. We let them swarm us on the rocks for a while and then we head back for another tasty lunch on board.
Next comes kayaking. It takes Amanda and I some time to work out how to steer, but we have a good time exploring the small harbor. The water is remarkably clear, considering that Jes had told us this morning that each household’s waste is disposed by a truck that collects the slop bucket or tank, the contents of which eventually end up back in the sea.
Just before we reboard the Explorer, we see the iceberg in the harbor implode. It falls to pieces in a series of loud cracks and grumbling crashes, sending big waves against the harbor rocks, setting the dogs to howling, and flinging growlers and bergy bits into the ocean.

Sunday August 10

Here, it is easy to believe in giants. The early morning mists have again parted (reluctantly) to reveal icebergs, bergy bits, and growlers on a swelling sea, as well as tall craggy cliffs, folded and pressed by the dance of the plates, crumbled and worn by wind, water, and ice, and colonized by hardy little plants. The rocks, mostly granitic or meta-granitic, seem to lie here, not as a non-living backbone of the land, but rather like sleeping giants that have laid still long enough for flowers to grow in their beards and on their bellies. The mists that guard this land are their frosted breath, blown out into the cold morning air.
This morning I again wake early, for the ocean had been rough last night and I had gone to bed early (they had had to turn the stabilizers off because of the low-visibility and the ice. Without their stabilizing, a window in the library had torqued and broken, various drawers and doors had come ajar, and some of the wine bottles had crashed.) We sail into a cloud bank that hovers right above the water. Behind us, the sun lights the suspended water vapor and turns it into a bright cloud, and before us the sun’s light creates a bridge of light, a rainbow that has not yet grown into its techni-color maturity. Thus, we sail out of a glorious sunburst and towards a luminescent arch that we would never cross beneath.
We, brave and intrepid explorers that we be, board our zodiacs and land in the Realm of the Black Flies. This land, though of spectacular beauty, belongs wholly to them. I join the photography crew, seeking to capture some of the flies’ world, and I have many beautiful pictures of fireweed, stream-combed algae, and water bubbling over rocks, but it’s really not possible to capture the spirit of this land with one dimensional images. We soon set sail once more, and I get some really great shots of the fjord’s cliffs, the Explorer, several icebergs, and various combinations of the above subjects. It is amazing what works of art nature can create.
I’ve seen two seals today.
We do more photography with Sissy this afternoon. She explains that a short lens is good for wide angle shots, a long lens good for close-ups, and that shooting from the shade is good for increasing color density. She also adds to what Mike and CT had told me earlier about the aperture; the larger the number (say F22), the smaller the hole, the less light and the greater the depth of field. A small number (say F2) has a bigger hole, lets in more light, and has a smaller depth of field. I try to relate this to what I know of a human eye, but the technical aspects of photography are still a bit above me.
The ship starts rolling as we leave the fjords and I take another Meclizine. We have several presentations today, and then Robert shows a useful little map to me and Amanda. It shows the current ice densities (in percentage of area covered) of Western Greenland. We chat a little, and Steve and Karen join us. Karen kindly offers to put my photos on CDs so that I can have more room on my memory stick.

Monday 8-11-08

Today has been wonderful. We start the day in Prins Christian Sund, a beautiful fjord system that cuts across the southern tip of Greenland. The fjords are a dazzling march of lofty granitic peaks, with tidewater and alpine glaciers carving valleys and capping mountains. We see several bearded seals at one especially large glacier. The glacier is not smooth, but chaotic and broken by its flow to the sea. At its base are several arches where sub-surface glacial rivers empty their freshwater right into the sea. Steve explains that the salinity gradient mixes the water and ensures an upwelling of nutrient rich waters.
As soon as we leave the glacier, the low clouds and mist that I am coming to believe are standards of Greenlandic weather close in upon us once more. Steve explains that this is because there is often a local high pressure system over glaciers. Jes enlightens me as to why the ice turns blue— its natural color is blue, but inclusion of air bubbles scatters the light and makes it appear white. As the ice melts and gas escapes, the ice goes blue. Also, he tells us of tuttulik, a rare mineral that supposedly looks like reindeer blood has dripped onto the stone. After much searching, I find mention of this mineral in the Greenland guide, though the story given there is of a girl who gave birth alone in the mountains and her placental blood stained the stone. Mike, Steve, Kevin, Amanda and I remain on the bow for some time, singing the Beatles, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, and other greats—we do not sing well, but we have a great time.
As we continue through the P.C. Sund, CT helps me transfer photos onto a CD. She’ll also keep a backup copy on her computer. She suggests that Amanda and I create a presentation of photos/thank you, and so we spend our noon-ish hour looking through our pictures.
Our landing in Nanortalik (Nan-or-dah-lick) is greeted by a crowd of children and villagers. Four are dressed in traditional sealskin clothes— very practical looking but also beautiful. I learn that Nanortalik means “place of the polar bears”; there is a story of three bears that arrived in the village one winter by way of icebergs. Amanda and I look in their lovely, little church and walk though several buildings that had been used to cure fish, press blubber, house the movie projector, etc. We see some great examples of kayaks (man’s boat) and umiaks, as well as an interesting rock with big crystals of quartz, some pyrite, and a coco-cola colored mineral named “aqerlussaq bylgians” from Tunu (East Greenland). This rock is harder than my fingernail, forms cubes, fractures at angles like calcite, and has a platy cleavage. A wonderful old man named Claus (I’m not sure of the spelling) teaches us a bit of Greenlandic.
Kakkak= mountain
Imuk= sea
Anuk=girl
Aneech=girls
Inuk=man
Inuit=men/people
Takuus (dagoosh)=see you later
Beyond the cluster of museum buildings lie the remains of a winter igglu (“igglu” means house; it doesn’t have to be made of snow), a tupit (two-bit) or tent made of sealskin, and a fresh pot of meat. This meat has the texture of beef, the taste of fish, and when alive it was cute and mischievous. Aap (yes), it is seal. We wander around with Steve, the camera guy, in tow. It is a great little town. Our last stop is the little grocery store, where I buy some Pringles, Raed Hunds (Swedish Fish in dog form), Hindbær (a raspberry drink), and Guld chocolate (with Helnød, or nuts).

A little bit of history might be appropriate here. I’d learned in school that scientists believe that Native Americans had come from Asia, crossing the Bering Strait. Steve Maclean clarifies that these people went south and became Native Americans of South, Central, and southern North Americas; they were not the ancestors of the Inuit. The people of the far north probably sailed over after the Bering Strait was submerged (some 4000 yrs ago) and settled. The first of these was the Dorset culture, but the late-coming Thule became the dominant culture with the help of the Umiak and the toggle-head harpoon. The people of the north called themselves “the people” or “Inuit”. They called their land “Kalaallit” (kah-lah-shlit). Steve Maclean explains that “Inuit” is used collectively for all the people of north, though Alaskans are technically Inubiyak. Alaskans will call themselves Eskimos, but in other parts of the North it is politically incorrect because the word “Eskimo” is a French bastardization of an Algonquin word meaning “eaters of raw flesh”. Archaeological excavations have unearthed similar tools to those of prehistoric Europe.

Tuesday 8-12-08

This morning we sail into a mild fjord in which stand some fabulous ruins. According to both Jes and Vinnie, these ruins were inhabited by the Norse until early in the 15th century (this is when the last recorded wedding took place at the church). The settlement, now little more than scattered stones, is presided over by the old stone church. It stands without roof, its walls four or five feet thick and built of local stone, now covered in lichen. The windows are narrow on the outside and widen on the inside to provide that special “cathedral lighting”.
Beyond the church lie the stables, mead hall, houses, and workshops of the settlement. But for the hall, these last are little more than stone foundations covered in centuries of lichen, grass, and sheep dung. Interestingly, all of these buildings seem to be connected by a sunken pathway of sorts, rather like a stone-lined and grassed over series of fox holes and trenches. Rasmus explains that these might have been covered to provide winter protection. Fifty to one hundred people lived here with their livestock (goats, sheep, cows, horses), hunted and fished, went to Catholic mass— all of this for nearly five centuries. As we continue on, Karen points out that with the lichen thickness, amount, and type of plants, we can guess that this area was de-glaciated much earlier than barren Tasiilaq. There are grasses, ground willow, and birch (these “trees” usually don’t even lift their heads an ankle’s depth above the soil), butterwort (a carnivorous bog plant), sphagnum moss, arctic blueberry, hair-cut moss, lichens, potentia (white five-petal flower), yellow rattle, juniper, fern and fireweed (these last two only in areas protected from sheep and the elements). The rock here is a mixed bag, with an appreciable amount of the dark ferromagnesiates. We also see two sheep skeletons, two ravens and some longspur. To the east lie a farm and a series of antennas. It is a beautiful, sheltered spot.
Our next step is the town of Qaqortaq (Gah-gore-dock). (Note that the Q is a guttural sound that I have represented with Gs). This is a booming metropolis of three thousand— as many as were ever in Greenland during the settlement period. This town has a hospital with five doctors and twenty-nine nurses, a school, a university (one of three in Greenland), an old folk’s home, and a home for the handi-capped. They have planted trees here— arctic willow and some sort of broadleaf— that actually rise above my head. Juniper grows on the rocky outcroppings, fireweed (River Beauty), buttercups, dandelions, daisies, poppies, and lupine line the streets and flower in people’s yards. The houses, as in every town, are brightly colored and have clotheslines in the back or hanging below a window. I see a row of houses painted in pastel, and it strikes that that these— the only colors here that would be acceptable in the states— look bland and weak amidst their bold fellows. All over the city, as I have said, are rock outcroppings, and in 1993 a local artist organized a project to create sculptures out of the local stone. Some twenty-four now decorate Qaqortaq. Their subjects range from scattered hearts to people to abstract designs. I swear I saw a man sitting on a giant bosom.
The museum is a tarred-black building full of art. There are the carved bone figures of grotesque creatures and drum dancers, the sealskin and eiderdown handicrafts, as well as some Inuit-inspired abstracts of birds, people in kayaks, etc. On the floor above stand brightly colored furniture and, one floor above that, two brightly painted and eaved rooms. One, the “Blue Room”, housed Charles Lindbergh and his wife for a few days. Here I buy a comic-book adaptation of the story of Kassassuk. It is a good story, though the ending catches me by surprise because the moral is very different from the didactic sort of tales I’ve grown up with.
We go to a local restaurant where the owner has laid out a variety of Greenlandic foodstuffs: dried whale, sea duck, seal, dried cuttlefish, whale, dried fish of some sort (cod is in the name but Steve says they aren’t related to Cod at all), smoked halibut, matoq (whale blubber with skin), seal blubber, shrimp, reindeer jerky, etc. I try a bit of almost everything (I am not brave enough to try the seal blubber and the whole, dried fish) and wash it down with sugared crowberries. Amanda and I then join CT and Mike to check out the fishing boats and whalers. All of these boats are old, faded, and none longer than sixty-ninety feet. They have fish filets drying from the rigging, nets and bright orange buoys flung about the docks, and big harpoon guns with coiled line behind them. Most look like the fisherman’s boat in Jaws; they look like one feisty whale would sink them.
On board that evening, we have a special treat. A venerable old man performs several drum dances for us. The first tells the story of a raven that falls in love with a migrating bird and tries to follow it over the sea. The raven , however, can’t swim, and so the old man interrupts— or illustrates— his narrative with the raven’s cries, which become increasingly desperate as the story progresses until finally, glug, glug, glug, the raven drowns. It is the same story Jes had told us (with minor differences). The old man (originally from East Greenland, where drum-dancing was able to survive the Christians’ purging) then performs a dance dedicated to his daughter, and finally a third about avoiding rocks while sailing. He beats the rim of his drum and twists it out from his chest rhythmically, bobbing up and down all the while. As dancing goes, it is not much, but his facial expressions, illustrative gestures, and tone of voice convey his meaning very clearly. Around his head, he wears a band with strings of white beads hanging over his forehead. His grey hair is cropped close and his white shirt is nondescript. I thank him afterwards—quyanasuak— and he beams.
At dinner, I meet Tim’s father, Tony, who was a lecturer on expeditions— mostly Russian icebreakers— and had had a BBC series about seabirds. After dinner, we see two short films that take place in Alaska and were directed by Steve’s son. The first— Seal hunting with Dad— follows an Eskimo father and son as they go seal hunting. Modern snow mobile and rifle meet ancient hunting as the father teaches his son how to hunt and skin the animal and shares its liver with the boy. The son says very little throughout the film and there seems to be a tension between the old ways of the father and the new ways of the son. The second film— On the Ice— is the story of a man who sees a murder on the ice. It is implied that there is alcohol involved. The murderer begs for justification, for falsification of the crime, and cites all sorts of social reasons. In the end, however, he sees the dead man’s face and quietly allows himself to be driven back to town.

Wednesday 8-13-08

Today we sail to Qallasuaq (Kah-shloo-sue-auk), the probable site of Erik the Red’s settlement Brattahlid. The town lies scattered in multi-colored stillness over land that is much greener and richer than what we’ve seen so far. The same flora live here as in the rest of Southern Greenland, but it is lusher. About sixty-five people call this village home; between them they raise about 2300 sheep. As we walk along the single dirt road, we meet many sheep dogs, tractors, and a few horses. We see two little blue huts that house the water pumps. According to Rasmus, there is no running water in the winter and no piped water all year-round to the farthest farms, and so people come to these sheds for their fresh water. Arctic char, a slim grey fish with white tipped fins, swim in the little creek. They can live in both salt and sweet water. This is a great advantage, as once every two years or so the melt-water lakes beneath the glaciers on the southern side of the fjord will burst, flooding it with fresh water. If this happens in winter, the fresh water freezes and the fjord is iced over.
A statue of Leif Erikson presides over the town, gazing out towards Newfoundland. I wonder what compelled him to seek out new lands; did he care so little for the stony green land of his father’s discovery, or was he simply driven westward by some wanderlust. It was he, I am told, who brought Christianity from Norway to Brattahlid. His mother was Greenland’s first convert, and it was she who forced Erik to build the first church. We circle its footprint; it was a tiny structure, no larger than ten foot by 8 foot, I would guestimate, with the thick sod walls we’ve seen elsewhere. It held twenty people. We also see the long, narrow hall (its stone and sod foundation, at least) that was probably Erik’s home. The plants are lush here, with something very like a horsetail growing all over. More ruins like this dot the area. I join Sissy and Cotton as they talk with the historical actress, Edda. She lives here most of the year, eating wild greens (Sorrel and a type of pea that actually is not edible), fish that she catches, and some foodstuffs from the local shop. She teaches in Qaqortaq— where two of her children attend school— but she says she likes the solitude of this place. After only a few short hours, I have already come to agree with her.
On the return journey, we chat with Sissy and Cotton (who kindly buy me a cup of tea) and Alexandra. I am curious as to the details of her work. In short, she lives in the states while writing her book and trying to organize a conference that will bring together a hundred water experts, both fresh and salt, from all over the world (San Fran, next Nov.). I wish her all the best in this.
Today I am lazy. I watch a whale spouting, fall asleep curled up in the library with a book, and view a movie about Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-tiki expedition. This journey went from South America to the South Pacific on a balsa-log raft. It took a hundred and one days for them to reach an empty little island. They caught fish and drifted entirely ender the power of trade winds and currents. With this, Heyerdahl proved that travel and contact between S. America and the S. Pacific was indeed possible.
At dinner, we eat with Jes, and I am glad that I am able to get to know him better. He is getting a PhD in philosophy and biology— specifically, in looking at the ethics of how to treat animals and the natural world. We chat about various bits of Europe and America, his nieces and nephews, this and that, and even a bit of EU politics. Amanda and I continue talking about scientific ethics in our cabin, but the conversation quickly moves to Jane Eyre (Amanda is reading it for class).

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