Kap York, Greenland (aborted due to weather)

Beautiful ice.

More chocolate bundt cake.

A very different iceberg with three pieces all on the same base beneath the water.

That is an iceberg floating by the ship.

These three pictures are from Dylan's presentation... the incredible wolverine...

the pyscho killer ermine.

The wily incredibly successful red fox.

The 'country' food being prepared for our sampling.

Yum yum!

Finally, a beautiful sunset....

 

Tuesday, September 12^th. Kap York, Greenland (aborted due to weather)

When we went up for breakfast this morning at seven, we found ourselves facing the hills of Kap York, Greenland on a very grey, windy, wet and foggy day. It looked pretty grim out there and not very inviting for a landing and hike to the glacier as planned. As we ate our expedition leader came on the intercom and announced that they had cancelled this landing. At first, I thought it was because of the rain, but as he explained it was because of the fog and the lack of visibility which made it impossible to set up our bear guard perimeter. This consists of a group of people with rifles staked out around the area they propose us to be. We are not allowed to land anywhere without it. The danger of polar bears is just too much of a threat. So, we set sail south and cruised past a series of incredibly beautiful icebergs on our way to our next destination. Plan B, the Greenlandic Film Festival hosted by David Reid. It consisted of three films all less than 10 minutes long. The first film was called ‘Greenland – Another World … Yet So Close’. The film explained and bemoaned the disappearance of the culture of hunting and dog sledding. The second film was called ‘Passing It On’, and focused on a grandmother who was upset that she cannot pass on her knowledge of dogs to her grandchildren. The third was ‘The Hunter’ about one young man who has inherited his grandfather’s hut, never learned to read and write and has chosen to be a hunter. All three movies were about the changing nature of the culture in Greenland. When we were in Qaanaaq I noticed that there were dogs all through town. But, I also heard that there were many more in a large pen outside of town. Dogs and sledding goes to the heart of their cultural identity, but things are changing. The young people are being better educated and encouraged to stay in school and many adults now have full time jobs where they are expected to be at work for a regular workday. The dogs are very noisy neighbours that interfere with people’s sleep. Therefore, they are being moved to the outskirts of the towns. There used to be twice as many dogs in Greenland as people, but they are now in decline as people move on to other jobs. The dogs are not pets, they are wild dogs and work animals. It was interesting watching the hunter running his dog sled, as the dogs run in a fan hitch formation rather than the two-by-two-by-two dog teams that we are familiar with. This is because up here there are no trees to navigate around, and the dogs can just run as a pack. The hunter explained that he prefers dogs to snowmobiles because dogs don’t break down and snowmobiles always do. Dogs also have eyes and ears for spotting prey and run faster when on a fresh scent and they sense weak or dangerous ice, unlike snowmobiles. Greenland dogs will eat each other if necessary whereas Alaskan dogs won’t. Next up was James Raffan talking about his life and experiences in the north and his book ‘Circling the Midnight Sun’. He is a very literate, articulate, and engaging speaker. He has lived an incredibly rich life of adventure and exploration. He was inspired by Michael Palin’s travels, including one where he circled the globe along the equator; so, James decided to travel through the north along the Arctic Circle. It took him three years to travel through, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Alaska, Russia, and Norway. I talked to him about that, and he said Palin obviously had a large budget provided by the BBC and a full team scouting for him and filming his every move, whereas James had to return home a few times to make enough money to continue. I also asked him about buying books as opposed to Kindle, and he told me he does as well or better with Kindle purchases. That made me happy, as that is my chosen method for reading two of his books. JR showed a short video made by a group of students in the north called: Two Breaths, One From the Ocean. It was an in-your-face public service announcement about climate change and telling people to get on with it and deal with it. Dylan White was up for the last presentation about ‘Arctic Predators’. He was introduced as a ‘professional environmentalist and consummate guide’. He spoke of the four family types of land-based predators in the Arctic: bears, weasels, cats and dogs. All three types of bears are present in the Arctic, black, brown and polar, and their ranges do overlaps at some points, but the black bear is at the southern end of the area and the polar bear is at the more northern end. Weasels are represented by the incredibly tenacious wolverine which is afraid of nothing and will challenge bears and wolves; and the ‘psycho-killer’ ermine, which is a small carnivore about the size of a small squirrel. It will take down Arctic hares that are much larger than itself and will chase lemmings through their tunnels under the snow. The only cat in the north is the lynx which lives on Arctic hares and can leap from the snow into trees to grab squirrels. The dog family has three members here: the red fox, the arctic fox and wolves. The red fox is a very successful animal and is spreading further north each year with climate change. The Arctic fox is camouflaged in winter white and lives by following polar bears and eating their leftovers, but in the spring and summer changes to a grey or brown colour and will hunt lemmings, birds and eggs and any other small prey. Wolves of course are very successful because they hunt in a pack and can therefore take down prey much larger than a single wolf could manage. Good presentation with some excellent photos. Then we had lunch. After that there were a number of workshops that I wasn’t really interested in, and I decided to go to the room and type up my blog stuff. Bruce was there reading, but he fell asleep, so I turned off the light for him, and I fell asleep shortly after. We were woken up an hour later by Scott’s announcement that there was ‘country food’ available on the back deck, so dress warmly. Bruce, John and I went out and sampled seal liver, caribou heart, minke whale meat, caribou, frozen arctic char, dried muskox, beluga blubber, and dried arctic char. The only one I didn’t like was the seal liver. The rest were doable, but chewy. The best was the dried muskox which tasted like biltong or pemican. We hung out talking to a woman we had met, Colleen and her mother and two friends. After that we had the daily briefing. A number of things were interesting. One was that there is a similar expedition on the east coast of Greenland that has run aground, and the Danish coast guard won’t get to them for three days. They are not in any danger, just stuck, but it does make you think about the remoteness of where we are. The other item was that COVID aboard ship is going up. Although no one is really sick it is worrying for me on two fronts: one, I don’t want to spread it to Mom and Dad at Mom’s 90^th birthday party the day we get back and two, Shayna is about to get cataract surgery and I don’t want her to get sick and have it cancelled on her. I had a long talk to her about that this evening. At dinner we were a little upset by the COVID situation but with a little wine, we managed to have a good time and forget it. We went out after dinner and got some shots of the first sunset we have seen on this trip, and maybe the first since the first day of the Alaska cruise! In the evening we hung out and listened to four of the staff playing acoustic guitars and piano and singing. Off to bed by 10.