There's something about what's happening here In Greenland. I keep having unforgettable days. On Thursday we changed our modus operandi in a direction I really did not expect. The helicopters were totally booked up with shuttle service to Kulusuk and for some more local science projects up on the Helheim Glacier. Abbas the ever inventive therefore chartered a boat to take us to Isortoq, about 20 minutes by helicopter to the south, but 2 hours by boat. Again here in Greenland we had another absolutely unforgettable day.
With help from Meredith Nettles from LDEO we got our equipment all the way down to the harbour for 9:30 in the morning, where we met Bendt. Bendt works for Tele-Greenland, the national phone company. Abbas had arranged to install a receiver in their hut at Isortoq. Bendt has the boat and a nice boat it is too. I was worried that we were going to go in some pokey little open whaler for several cold hours. Nope. It was a 30ft+ cabin cruiser that Bendt uses for the summer months to take his family on vacation. It had pictures on the bulkheads done by the youngest of his three kids and fluffy toys scattered here and there. As far as Bendt was concerned he was happiest on the boat. "Life is good" he remarked. He bought the boat a couple of years ago and it really does have all the toys. 4 propellers, GPS, Radar, Sonar, Radio, Satellite Phone, CD and DVD player. We cruised out of the harbour heading east. He put the throttles forward and there was a suitably impressive push in the back as we got up to 20 knots skimming over the pond-smooth bay water. Out into the open sea the swell wasn't bad, and we turned north to go and get the rest of our gear from the airport at Kulusuk. In went a CD and to my surprise the music that has been drifting to my hotel room at 2 in the morning from the local "Klubenn" emerged from the speaker. So for the 30 minute cruise to the pier at Kulusuk we had Shakira – My hips don't lie, Fergie – Fergalicious, some other Black Eyed Peas (something about a hump) and some newer Madonna (the one with the Abba sample at the start of it) as accompaniment on loop. Not much chatter on the radio and not so much wildlife on the way to Kulusuk, an occasional northern Fulmar but that was about it. At Kulusuk the tide was low and we had to do a decent climb to get up on to the pier. A quick walk inland to the airport got us loading up more of our GPS gear into the ground crews trucks and back down to the pier. It gave the ground crew a chance to mash the pedal to the floor in the vans so they were happy,
Back on to the boat and more chattering with Bendt, as we headed back south. Bendt showed us on the charts where we were off to and explained some more about the holidays that he's taken his family on. The farthest south was on a fishing trip to Skjoldungen, Per the pilot's old village area. Bendt and his family have had to stop at various places depending on the weather and the ice conditions. When ice was bad a couple of years ago it took them 12 days to do the distance to Skjoldungen, last year when there was almost no ice they did it in 36 hours. Bendt feels strongly that his kids should grow up in a similar way to the way he did, so he keeps them involved in hunting and fishing. We talked a lot about whale hunting. Some people will disagree with Greenlanders hunting whales, but Bendt points out that most people locally do it in the traditional, respectful manner with harpoons, and that they take one or two a year locally. It takes 5 boats to just do a hunt, it's a community effort, and every single bit of the animal is used. "My favourite way of cooking the whale is barbecued on the grill with my special secret marinade." Bendt said with obvious relish. As we headed south we went past a Humpback whale, right there, just there, a few meters away. The locals are annoyed with the humpbacks, they don't hunt them, they're too big and just get in the way. They crowd into the bay and you have to spend your time constantly avoiding them, you cannot go anywhere in a straight line and have to zig zag your way to where you want to go. They're especially annoying when they're asleep, taking up space. Its kind of like sheep on the road in Scotland and New Zealand, they slow the traffic, but are tolerated, because after all, they could be a potential food source. When depth sounders on the boats are activated the whales often head off in a hurry. I've been whale watching a couple of times, in Canada and New Zealand, but here it's a fairly everyday occurrence I guess,
As we passed the mouth of the fjord that is fed by the Helheim Glacier the number of icebergs increased dramatically. Most of the time we gave them a wide berth, at this time of year they are apparently prone to rolling over. Hmm, maybe kayaking close to that berg on Sunday was not the smartest thing I have ever done. But as I said, there's something about them, the weird shapes, the colours ranging from white to grey to green blue to blue to BLUE!! (Yell that last blue as loud as you can and you get an idea of the sheer blueness of them).They're chunks of time floating on the ocean, and they constantly change with the light. The soundtrack changed and stayed on the next CD for the rest of the day. Tina Turner, I think the greatest hits. What a weird weird soundtrack to be racing down the east coast of Greenland dodging icebergs to! Thomas and Bendt got to talking about Duluth and the vicinity where Bendt had been visiting an Australian friend who worked for Greenpeace here a couple of years ago and Thomas had been to University. They knew the same lakes and same towns. It truly is a small world. The ocean swell had grown significantly, but was nothing like as big as the last time I was on a boat in the Arctic in Spitsbergen in 1996. Still, the wave pattern was enough to give us a serious shaking about, the waves coming from the west hitting the bergs and cliffs and reflecting and refracting in all sorts of strange unpredictable patterns. That plus the occasional strange twanging sound as we ran over small bergy bits made for a boat that was still hustling south, but maybe not that smoothly. I couldn't help but think that my dad would love to be here. Possibly not my mum though! I don't get motion sickness, but there was still the occasional "am I getting motions sickness? But I don't get motions sickness!" moment as we headed into impossible corridors of icebergs.
Before we got to Isortoq we passed through an iceberg graveyard, where many more bergs than is normal come to rest and spend their final days. They're the oceanic equivalents of a suburban cul de sac – once there you can never leave. The bergs were crowded between sheer cliffs of Precambrian gneiss and the water was glassy smooth making for some mind blowing reflections. Isortoq is an extremely isolated community by today's standards, although they still have the internet. The town has a pretty ramshackle appearance with many buildings having been damaged during high winds but never rebuilt. Abbas said that the settlement had gone through some rough times and one of the Greenland Geological Survey guys we know had commented that there had been a lot of internal strife there. However people who wanted to leave have left and those that want to stay have stayed, making for a stronger community. There was a tiny Pilersuisoq store, a fuel center and a community hall. Kids and dogs everywhere, with the kids playing baseball with a plank of wood and a ball. I felt as though we had invaded. Three weird guys, one walking around with a lamppost over his shoulder, walking through the village. But everyone there just smiled, waved and said hello. As Thomas and Abbas went back down to the boat I started unpacking our gear at the telecom repeater station at the top of the hill. An older gentleman came up to me, swigging from a can of coca-cola and smoking a cigarette. He said something in Greenlandic and I said that I couldn't understand him.
"Snakke Danske?" he asked.
"Ickke Danske, Engelsk?" I replied. Hoping that I said I didn't speak Danish (its hard to say you don't speak Danish, in Danish, when you don't speak Danish) – I vow to learn Danish.
A pained expression passed across his face.
"Little Danske," he said showing me with his hands how much.
"Ickke Danske" I again said. Maybe I was saying I spoke Danish? I am not sure.
"What this for?" He asked in halting English.
With much talking using hands I pointed and gestured and hope I got across that the lamppost I was working on was for an instrument to weigh the ice sheet over there. The blank look on his face suggests I failed miserably. He shrugged, smiled and ambled off to the Telecom shack, which he then unlocked. Took a look around, pulled out his cell phone and proceeded to talk in Greenlandic, pointing at me, shrugging, and getting a little upset. He then slammed the door to the hut, very emphatically locked it and walked off. Oh no, did I just annoy our local contact who was supposed to let us into the hut?
Abbas and Thomas came back from the boat with more gear. "Was there a guy here with the key?" asked Abbas. I explained there was an older guy here, red goretex jacket, dark glasses who had opened the hut, locked it and left. I didn't know where. Thankfully here comes Bendt (also with a key) and the older guy, coming up the hill. We finally got access. And boy, it was a digital wonderland in there. A couple of bunks, TVs, radio, routers, switches, cell phone doo-daas and microwave thingies, all blinking and flashing away in this weather beaten hut on top a hill miles away from anything. I always wonder in that sort of situation, "Who's here to tell if the wrong light is blinking?"
Cutting the story a bit shorter, the installation went well, we installed a taller tower than normal with the antenna on top. It had a wondrous view of hundreds of icebergs smashing into each other with thunderous rumbles punctuating the quiet. We ran the cables through what looks like a vacuum cleaner tube Abbas brought along (a lurid fluorescent green and clear affair) and locked-up shop. On the way down the hill we passed to very new looking log cabins. They looked lovely and are maybe a sign that like most things in Greenland, the view on the surface is not quite the same as reality. What looked like a ramshackle little village was actually doing okay, as the community was strong and people actually wanted to be there. I asked Bendt how long it would be until someone shot the antenna – he said it wouldn't happen but that the system would not be there by next year – "the lamppost looks wimpy." I pointed out that the posts are pre-stressed aluminum that can handle cars crashing into them. "Well the thing on top isn't, it'll be gone," he said, matter of factly. Here's hoping that he's wrong. We had yet to experience the ferocious piteraq katabatic winds he was alluding too.
The install at Isertoq took a bit longer than we had planned, not budgeting time for carrying equipment from the dock to the top of the hill, and installing a monument type that I had no experience with. Even so it went well. On our way back down the hill a villager helped carry some gear. I think he was with Tele-Greenland as Bendt gave him a lift back to Tasilliq. I know I called it Tasilliq not Angmassalik. Bendt said the towns called Tasilliq. Per says Angmassalik. Maybe because Per lives in the air and Bendt lives on the water? I don't know.
The way back north was rougher but the sun was beginning to go down. The entire landscape took on metallic tones. The sky was leaden grey, shot through with gold sunlight, the water was a hypnotizing quicksilver again with molten gold highlights. The icebergs were anything from steel grey, to gunmetal blue to the colour of sapphire. Thomas and I both found that standing outside was easier than trying to brace ourselves at the coffee table in the cabin, although it soon started to get quite cold. I went back inside for a while, Thomas stayed in amongst the fishing and hunting paraphernalia outside. Once when Bendt swerved a couple of times to miss bergy bits, during a particularly steep swell we all pretty much took off. I looked back to see Thomas sprawled on the deck with a grin on his face. We passed through the iceberg grave yard, and Thomas noted that the place needed an operatic soundtrack, not Tina Turner!
"Kill the Wabbit, Kill the Wabbit"
"Sword and Magic Helmet,"
"Sword and Magic Helmet?"
"Sword and Magic Helmet!, And I will give you a sam-powl."
We cracked up that we both knew the words to the opera in the best Bugs Bunny cartoon ever, "What's Opera Doc"
