Monday,
September 11th. Qaanaaq,
Greenland
When we
woke up and headed up to the breakfast deck, we found ourselves in a magical,
gorgeous environment of icebergs, mountains looking like chocolate bunt cake
frosted with snow, calm blue-turquoise water and approaching a small village
populated with buildings of red, blue, green, and orange. Amazing vistas. After
taking a bunch of photos, we had breakfast while they anchored the ship and
offloaded the zodiacs. Then we returned to our room for an early zodiac ride to
the beach at Qaanaaq, Greenland. The town and its surroundings were really a
beautiful way to start the day. After a short walk about, we visited the
culture centre/gym where we were hosted by a few locals who put on a show and
demonstration for us. There was an elder who told stories in his native
language, which was translated for us and then he sang and played the drum. There
was a hand made kayak and a sledge on display and a hunter put on a slideshow
of his hunting by dogsled. He was hunting muskox and narwhal. He described how
hard he had to work to catch them. Later we had a demonstration of a couple of
the sports of the Arctic Games. Then we walked around town and visited the
local church, the museum of Thuli culture and history, and the women’s sewing
building where they make clothing out of animal furs and skins. I walked about through
the town by myself and back down to the beach where I met John, and we went
back to the ship. We learned later why all the Greenland Inuit towns are so
colourful. The Danish government provides prefabricated building in several
colours for strategic reasons. Each colour designates the building’s use and
the employment of the inhabitant: red: community structure (churches, schools);
green communications; blue; fishery related; black: police and courts; and yellow:
health care related. After lunch there were three talks: 1) with Inuit Joe who
talked about the animals that the Inuit traditionally hunted, how they caught
and killed them, and what they used them for. 2) Sean talked about the ‘The
Pollution of the Arctic Food System’ and how persistent organic pollutants like
mercury, arsenic and cadmium (to name a few) that are created in the southern
industrial area of North America are migrating and concentrating in the Arctic.
These traces elements are evaporated into the atmosphere where they blow north
and fall as acid rain and are then evaporated again (in what they call the
grasshopper effect) further north. They concentrate in the north because it’s
not warm enough there to evaporate them again. The elements are in the water
and on the land where they are ingested by small creatures, which are eaten by
larger and larger creatures Because they are fat soluble they concentrate in
the bears and people at the top of the food chain. Scientists are studying
breastmilk of the Inuit and are discovering much higher levels of these toxins
which are being fed to the next generation. There are studies and worries about
health and cognitive development. Efforts were made to encourage them to eat
market food (food imported from the south) but it is much too expensive for
most people, and their bodies and systems have developed to eat a high fat
animal protein diet. The men of this culture have traditionally attained their
pride and self worth by hunting and providing for theirs. Consequently, the
dieticians and other officials are encouraging them to eat their traditional
foods, which sometimes causes animal activists to react negatively to Inuit
hunting of things like narwhal, beluga and polar bears. Finally, 3) Suzie
taught us all about the three types of pinnipeds (seals) of which there are 33
species; a) earless or true seals (phocids), b) eared seals or sea lions and
fur seals (otariids) and c) walrus (odobenids). Scientists have noticed that
seals expel air before they dive which is counterintuitive. It turns out their
blood is thicker and richer in oxygen than ours and they can slow their
breathing and heartrate while diving, swimming, and eating. Walruses in the
extreme can dive to 2 kilometres and slow their heartrate to a beat per minute.
Really an interesting talk with video clips included. Then before dinner we had
the daily briefing. After that there was a team game where clues were read to
us, and we had to identify which member of the expedition crew it applied to.
Two examples I can remember: ‘he lost 25 pounds rowing across the Atlantic’; ‘he
took seven years of ballet lessons’… kind of fun, but really more fun for the
staff than the passengers. Then we had a social and Bruce and I sat and talked
to Ken, a retired emergency doctor from Montreal and Alex who is an office
employee of Adventure Canada who dealt with my travel agent Denise when John,
Bruce and I were booking the trip. Interesting evening. Off to bed by 10.
Really interesting post, with stunning photos! a very different 9/11...thankfully.
ReplyDeleteHighly informative post today, Joe, regarding the town and the locals and the troubling levels of pollutants present in the northern environment and peoples. That one shot that you label "What a View" is most certainly a magnificent capture.
ReplyDeleteFascinating Joe horrible how the acid rain affects this area
ReplyDelete