Exploring Greenland

After the magnificent and spectacular scenery of Prince Christian Sound, our trip the next day up an inlet to an abandoned mining town which is next to a small naval base was anti-climactic. The scenery was beautiful, though it did not compare which is only an example of “the enemy of the good is the excellent.” The town was not awe-inspiring. And, like the previous day’s journey, there was very little wildlife. The one exception (which I was unable to take a good picture of) was a small fishing boat with two people aboard that was surrounded by gulls. 

We finally were able to set foot on Greenland on our third day in the area, after three sea days. The town of Paamiut has a (declining) population of about 1300 which makes it the tenth most populous city of Greenland, so the ship’s arrival temporarily tripled the human population. The biggest population in the area was flies. Lots of flies. Even some of the locals wore nets on their heads (I improvised with the net bag that the ship uses for bathrobes and found it somewhat helpful). They were neither disease carriers nor biting flies, just annoying ones. 

Fortunately we disembarked early so we were able to explore the town when it was relatively quiet. The homes and other buildings are painted very bright colors which looked wonderful with the sunny skies and very calm waters the day we visited. Back in the day buildings were color-coded with red indicating a public building, blue a fish-related building, yellow a hospital or service building, and black a police building. Today the buildings are a variety of very bright colors that do not necessarily have a particular meaning. 

Like so many places in Norway and Iceland, it seemed that anywhere it was possible to build something there was a building….and the town was very hilly. We walked around quite a bit, climbed some of the hills, and I managed to find a bog the hard way — not a major problem, my feet and pants were wet but it was sunny and felt much warmer than the 10C/50F temperatures as there was no wind; after returning to the ship I did something I’ve never done (used a ship’s hair drier) and my shoes were dry by morning (yes, I have a second pair with me). 

Although it felt like we walked everywhere in Paamiut it’s clear we didn’t as we never saw the grocery store or a gas station. But we did see some interesting sights: the astroturf football (soccer) field with its hippopotamus garbage cans, a tree (presumably an old Christmas tree), and several homes with antlers outside (I did not get a picture of the van delivering antlers to a different house).

There was more “official” art. Several murals caught my eye (there were others that did not) — the eagle and muck ox were on the same building, the polar bear on a different building. And a pair of whale tusks outside of a park with a statue of whale tails. 

Except for the flies (did I mention them?), Paamiut was a very pleasant town to visit though I couldn’t imagine living in such a small, isolated location that gets very little light in the winter (its latitude is about N62). 

After Paamiut we had a very windy and rocky sail to the comparatively populous Qaqortoq whose population exceeds 3,000 and is the 4th or 5th biggest city in Greenland (with 57K total residents and 20K in a single location, it’s not mathematically possible for there to be too many places with over 10K or even over 5K people). It was cloudy there and we experienced a bit of precipitation, but there were far fewer flies and head nets were not needed. And after the previous day’s success of leaving the ship early (and learning that later in the day passengers waited two hours for the tender from the ship to the dock), we reprised our early morning departure for Qaqortoq. 

Like Paamiut, Qaqortoq’s buildings were brightly colored, though there seemed to be more color choices that were not primary colors here. 

The terrain in Qaqortoq was quite hilly. There were a few geocaches but as each required a significant hill we chose only one to approach (someone else in the group actually “reached” the cache, I merely “approached” it). It was interesting to see boats “parked” in a valley, and perhaps surprising because one would think that July would be prime boating season (er, the only boating season) in this area. As we approached the cache we were able to look down and see three bodies of water and (probably not visible in the picture) a mother duck with her brood of ducklings. 

Like in Paamiut, we spotted lots of ambulances, though none that seemed to be responding to calls. Unlike in Paamiut, we also saw several taxis and a few bus stops. We assumed the bus stops were likely for school kids but can’t confirm that. We entered both grocery stores in Qaqortoq and were surprised to see prices looked fairly reasonable, suggesting either some sort of government subsidies or a requirement that all stores that are part of the same chain must charge the same price in all locations Greenland is a territory of Denmark). The only Danish kroner I spent was on a bathroom (20 kroner or $3.13 according to my credit card notification) … because when in this part of the world one must budget for such functions. 

A couple of interesting sights in Qaqortoq, a heated “outdoor lounge” (it’s not quite half of a buckminsterfullerine molecule or a soccer ball as all of the shapes appear to be hexagons except for the vertical pentagons at the bottom) and a baby church that is unlikely to grow up to be the same size as the big church next door:

Perhaps the most striking features in Qaqortoq were the rock carvings. There were quite a few of them. Here are the fish and the musk ox. I’m not positive what the rock was for the fish, but the musk ox was definitely carved out of soapstone. I looked but did not see any soapstone items to bring home.  

For the most part, the flora in the places we walked around in Greenland were similar to Iceland. Lots of Iceland poppies (in both yellow and red … we also saw orange and [probably] white but I didn’t take pictures of those), dwarf fireweed (pink), the daisy-like sea mayweed, and alpine hawkweed (yellow). Although we saw lots of beautiful purple lupine, which is one of my favorite flowers, I’ve recently learned that it’s an invasive species here so I’ve stopped sharing pictures of it. 

 

I almost forgot to insert this picture of an iceberg taken from our verandah. We watched it on and off for a few hours and yes, it moved, though not very fast. I didn’t get a good picture of the iceberg with a large circle missing from it that we spotted while eating dinner. 

Greenland was fascinating. I wish we’d gotten to visit Nuuk — the big city of 20,000 people — because I’m sure that would have been a very different experience. And I wish I’d gotten to do the excursion to meet some local residents. As it was the only “local” experience I had was an elderly man who was walking down the steep hill as we were walking (slowly) up it who was kind enough to say, “Welcome to Greenland” as we passed. 

I wouldn’t mind returning, though I think it’s unlikely and I’m ok with that. I’m so pleased we got to see the incredible geology in the sound the first day, and it I’m glad we got to set foot on the largest island in the world. That said, I’m not sure that the number of sea days justified it (it would have made sense had we gotten to visit all four scheduled communities), but that’s neither her nor there. 

It still seems unimaginable to live in such an isolated location where the only ways to travel between communities are boat, air, or (in winter) dogsled/snowmobile, though I might feel differently if I’d gotten to visit Nuuk.