August 2024
Greenland
We had set off sailing whilst having our briefing last night to travel over 300Km south to Nuuk and I managed to have a decent nights sleep in my comfortable room, lulled by the gentle rocking of the ship.
As always on these trips, the food is pretty good and the buffet breakfast in this case did not disappoint. I ended up sitting with a number of the expedition crew who all seemed very nice – it was cute to see how excited they all were that there were strawberries at the buffet!
Today’s schedule started with ship admin – briefings about zodiacs, gumboot fitting in the mudroom and meeting some of the ship staff and expedition crew. Apparently, there are 174 passengers and almost 100 staff (not including the sailors) so not a bad ratio! They were also from all over the world including the Philippines, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Argentina, Columbia, Mauritius, Spain, Luxembourg, Germany ….
There was a very low cloud as we sailed into Nuuk so we could hardly see any of the approach and a balmy 6 C on shore for our visit. Thankfully the cloud lifted a little during our visit so I did manage to get a few decent photos.
Nuuk is the capital of Greenland, the world’s most northerly capital, and has a population of 19,000. There is evidence of Inuit cultures living in the area since at least 2200BC, and in around 980,, Norse colonists from Iceland settled in what they called the Western Settlement. They thrived here for a few hundred years before disappearing into history before Danish missionaries ‘re-discovered’ the country in the 1700’s. It is still clearly growing, as there is a lot of construction going on, much of this is in anticipation of the new airport opening later in the year.
Being the capital, we docked in the small port and were able to walk off the ship (this is not a very common occurrence in expedition cruising). We then jumped on a bus where we were taken up the hill and dropped on in the centre of town. From here we could explore at our leisure and either wait for the bus to return at 5.30pm, or make our own way back to the ship.
Not having done much research on things to see in Nuuk, I set off to wander aimlessly around town. I spotted some of the street art and wandered down the hill to find the ‘famous’ red church – which was covered in scaffolding. I then walked along to a view point but with the low cloud there was no view, and I then found the statue of the “mother of the sea” but as it was high tide, she was half underwater 😂. I am definitely making this all sound far worse that it actually was!
Let me take you back a little. The ‘red church’ is actually Nuuk Cathedral – . A wooden Lutheran church built in 1849 and it became the Cathedral of Greenland in 1993. It is one of the main landmarks of the city which is overlooked by a monument of Hans Egede, the Danish-Norwegians missionary who ‘founded’ the city (after Inuits had lived there for 2000 years)!
The ‘Mother of the Sea’ statue is based on the famous Greenlandic legend of the same name and sits just off the shore of the city. As the legend goes, the Mother of the Sea was bothered by the Inuits’ evil deeds at the settlement and as a punishment gathered all the animals the Inuits used to hunt in her fiery hair at the bottom of the sea.
A blind man combed her hair and tidied up until the animals came back to life! The moral of the story being is that people shouldn’t be greedy and so obey societies customs.
The cloud finally lifted a little and I got some nice views of the colourful houses around the city, contrasted with the newer apartment block style houses.
The Greenland National Museum in Nuuk is a must see. It has been part of a repatriation programme, returning 1000’s of items that Danish explorers have taken over the years. It has some great displays on the history and cultures of Greenland and their most important display is the freeze dried Qilakitsoq Mummies. They were thought to have been buried around 1475 and the 8 people buried showed strong familial ties. Little is known about what they died of but it is assumed they all died at the same time. That said, the bodies are so well preserved, they could identify tattoos on their skin and what their last meal consisted of!
As I wandered around the city, it seemed somewhat devoid of locals. Perhaps because it was Saturday? Perhaps because the weather was not great? Perhaps because they were all at home being ‘hygee’? 😝 A brief internet search informed me that I must enjoy a decadent drink at a café called Pascucci – I chose a hot chocolate, and the decadence did not disappoint.
Rather than wait for the buses, I decided to walk back to the ship, taking in the sights (and smells) around the small harbour. The cloud had risen further and I enjoyed the view across the harbour which was dotted with a few small icebergs. As we set sail around 6.30pm back into the mist, we fell into ship life routine of a recap of the day, briefing on the next day and an ala carte dinner with wine (and small icebergs floating by). As always on these kind of trips, there will be far too much food consumed.🥴
Sleep came easy with the gentle rocking of the ship and I was pleased to wake (as always way to early) to see that we actually had a view! I got up and headed up to the top deck to enjoy the beautiful dawn skies and dramatic landscapes as we nearer Kangaamuit, our destination for the morning.
Kangaamiut has a population of only 300 and live a fairly traditional life of hunting and fishing. Apparently, it is currently peak reindeer hunting season so many of the town’s men are away hunting. It is a beautiful town, with colourful, traditional houses perched on rock and overshadowed by large, odd shaped peaks.
Not surprisingly, our first zodiac departure from the ship was a mess! Half the people could not work out how to put on their life jackets and some struggled getting in and out of the zodiacs (the swells did not help). It ended up taking over 1.5 hours to get everyone to shore! I was in the last group to depart and sadly found myself in a boat full of Danish speakers. It was only a short journey so it should not have been a major problem, except for the fact that the zodiac driver was also a Danish speaker and she only gave instructions in Danish! Being THAT passenger, I had to keep asking for her to repeat it in English, particularly because she was giving safety information!
Traditional life started as soon as we got off the zodiac and saw seal hides brining in the salt water off the little pier! As I wandered around the small town, I did wonder if they often had accidents as the rickety old wooden staircases that join the houses as you walk up the hill look like they are about to collapse under me! Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to go up to the view point but I still managed to get some beautiful views of the picturesque town and the Eternity Fjord beyond.
It was then time to head to the church for a performance by the local choir, who are apparently famous in the area. They sang lovely local songs about how much they like singing, spring time and flowers that are blooming, life in the village and honouring their ancestors. Despite them being local songs, the music was very much like European hymns. I guess it should not be a surprise as we were sitting in a Christian church and thanks to Danish missionaries, almost 100% of the population of Greenland are Christian, 95% of those being Lutheran.
From the Church we moved down to one of the houses for some Greenlandic cake (more like a fruit bread but tasty never the less) and some more local entertainment. The first was a mask dance – a traditional dance dating back 4,000 years. These dances were forbidden by Christianity but were maintained in secret in the far north and west of the island. The dancer (or dancers) paint a ‘mask’ on their face and often put something in their mouth to make them ‘unrecognisable’. The colours of the mask represent numerous things including spirits of forefathers or animals, blood, love, purity ….
The dancer makes their way around the audience, making funny movements with their bodies and making animal like noises. Depending on the dance it can be used to invoke humour, fear or courtship. It was all rather odd!
Next was the Drum dance, another ancient tradition that can have social, religious or cultural significant. They use a qilaat or frame drum and sing and dance to tell stories about animals and people. This was also considered a heathen practice by the early missionaries, so we are fortunate to see that these practices have survived.
It was time to say goodbye to the village and back on the ship we set sail along the Kangerlussuatsiaq or Evighedsfjorden, Eternity Fjord in English. It’s name relates to the vast size of the Fjord – the Greenlandic name literally means ‘The rather large Fjord’ 😂 . It’s about 100 km long, surrounded by towering mountains and at the end, we spent some time exploring the huge glacier (one of two or three we could see).
It was cold but sunny and after some time on deck, I enjoyed being able to sit on my balcony and enjoy the view 💚. Did I get carried away taking close up photos of the ice? Absolutely lol.
After our briefing for the next day, we had a really interesting talk from one of our guides who grew up in Greenland and the Captain introduced himself and his crew.
We set off this evening for our crossing to Baffin Island in Canada, across the Davis the sea. Should I be worried that they had brought the balcony furniture inside before our ocean crossing … time will tell 🥴?
Cockneykiwi takes flight 