First…an apology. I wasn’t sure how to spell the local name for this country, and I meant to verify before yesterday’s blog got sent. Then we forgot and sent it anyway. So, the correct way to spell it is “Kalaallit”. My apologies for the misspelling in the previous post. (I am sure some of you are tormented by the error!)
We went to sleep last night to pitching and rolling. We woke up to the clunk and growl of ice berg bits being struck and rolling along the hull. They were mostly small “bergy bits”, probably 5 feet in diameter or smaller, but a few were over 10 feet in some direction (even more below, for sure). It was a great scene from the window! Recalling of course, that this is an “ice hardened” hull, which means the ribs have half the spacing of standard ship building. (Ice breakers have that AND at least double the skin thickness.)
Since our port of call was not due until 2PM, we had a leisurely morning, including a lecture on Greenland History (part 1 of 2) and one on the fishing industry in Greenland. Theresa had a nice nap, and I enjoyed a beer while finishing the blog from yesterday. I figured 11AM rounded up to noon. There were at least four distinct waves of people that came across the land bridge over the Barents Sea and far north Canada to Greenland, and two more from Norway and Europe. The first of these groups was named Saqqaq, after the community we visited today. They lived here from about 2500 BC to 800 AD.
[Community of Saqqaq, population 200]
[Lunch al fresco! Hot coffee, cold fries!]
We decided, given the scenery, we would have lunch up on the aft deck, outside, and enjoy the icebergs going by us. The scenery was amazing!! And we were all bundled up, so we were not really cold. We each got a coffee (spiked with various things), and then ordered lunch from the grill. Theresa had the burger, and I had grilled fish. Both were really good, but mine came with fries which did not stand a chance…and were barely body temperature by the time the plate hit the table and cold within two minutes thereafter. But, the coffee stayed warm.
[Lowering the first Zodiac to get ready for the landings]
We found a spot where Theresa could get a cell phone signal, and sent the blog. It was a bit of a challenge, but it finally went through!
[Posting the Blog. If only my cell phone could see that tower over there!!]
After lunch we headed out for the town. Saqqaq is a rather small community of about 200 people and will be our northernmost point of the trip at 70° Latitude. Given the 74 guests on the boat, we sort of overran the place! But, the dogs outnumbered us. It was clearly a fishing village, and odd to see little fishing boats amidst bergy bits. At one end of the community they had some seal carcasses hanging. The carcasses were skinned, and most of the meat and blubber was gone. They would be fed to the dogs, but until then, they hung there to freeze dry. There were other things reminding us they hunted seals throughout the place, and some large vertebrae on the beach, we presume from a whale hunt some time ago. A successful whale hunt would be a community event, and they would all come to the beach to strip it down. It might feed the community for several months. But, it might be years in between whales, so they relied on seal and fish for daily sustenance.
[Souvenir shopping!!! (note the seal carcasses hanging to dry in the background)]
[Longest sidewalk in Greenland?]
[Feeding time!]
[Fisherman]
[Check out the two holes!]
There was a little church there, so we stopped for a few minutes. Since there really isn’t any grain here, there wasn’t any bread until the last century. So, when Christianity was spread here, they changed the Our Father to “give us this day, our daily seal” because bread made no sense to them! Since Danish is so prevalent, the people are losing their native language. So, an artist created a simple Bible with illustrations and ONLY the Greenlandish writing. (I know “Greenlandic” is more common, but most of the guides here have referred to the language and words as –ish, not –ic.) All of the faces in this Bible were Greenlanders—the angels, the Wise Men, even Jesus. They also had a ship hung to remind them of the fishermen who go to sea and may or may not return.
[Inside the church]
[Soccer time!! (Anyone have some grass?)]
At the end of our time in the little community, there was a tasting of local food again. This time, they had crow berries, some fish cake, and a soup with rice and halibut. They had a few other things, but this represented what they eat now, not so much the traditional foods, as there were bread and crackers, which were imported, and the soup with rice (in a place with no rice) was an anathema. The crow berries were not bad. They are small (about 1/8 inch diameter) and a little tart, a little sweet, and staining (although I’m not sure what color). I think someone said they turn your teeth purple, so I’m going with that.
[Women in local garb (serving the food). There was a man but when I asked to take a picture, he took two big steps backward.]
Yesterday, in Sissimiut, we were told that some of the small communities were “closed” and the people moved to the “cities”. They did not explain at the time why, but in one of the lectures today, we learned it was due to some diseases. Because it was not possible to get health care to the people, some of the distant or smaller communities were “shut down”, and the people moved to an apartment in the city. These quickly became slums. So seeing this place and knowing one day it might be dissolved was poignant.
Back on board, we took a nice nap!! We got up and went to the daily briefing, where we learned more about the people and history of this place, and what comes tomorrow. Then at dinner, we sat with two couples, one of which we met earlier. We had a great time over dinner talking, laughing, and joking around. We didn’t leave until they started shutting down the lights.
[I just like that the boat, bird and berg, all in the same photo!]
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