Steaming mist is covering the bay in the morning, heavy graphite-colored rain clouds are in the sky, the leaves of the birch trees are lemon-colored and the heads of the yellow boletus and the orange birch bolete are boldly popping up from the ground. Autumn has arrived on my doorstep and also bronchitis – confident of her victory – is galloping by on her brown horse and strikes me down.
While I have to stay in bed with different kinds of cough syrups, a nasal spray, a hot-water bottle and tea, I trawl through all files on my computer until I come to the pictures of my holiday on Greenland. Greenland is one of the countries I was fascinated with most. Not only do I like the northern countries due to their cold climate which I get along with much better than with tropical heat, but I also like their vast and open but nevertheless hilly landscapes. And already during my first days in Greenland I could explore this kind of landscape during my hikes around Kangerlussuaq.
On one of my first walks through Kangerlussuaq, I pass by a house which has several vegetable patches in front of it. I am so fascinated by the fact that somebody is trying to grow some vegetables in this harsh climate that I don’t see the head of a musk ox that is lying on the roof for drying. I notice this head only after I came home from the holiday and downloaded the pictures on my computer.
Unfortunately, I didn’t see any musk ox during my stay in Greenland but I saw a complete musk ox hide in a souvenir shop and I couldn’t help but had to comb through the wool with my fingers. It feels gentle and soft and the wool is so thick that it is easy to image to sleep in a sleeping bag made out of musk ox fur during the arctic winter nights without freezing. But I didn’t dare to ask how much a complete musk ox hide would cost because 50 grams of musk ox knitting wool costs already 50 Euros.
Indeed I didn’t notice the musk ox head on the roof of the house in Kangerlussuaq at first sight, but it was impossible to overlook the polar bear skin that was hanging on a balcony in Sissimiut. And also at other houses, I could often see meat, fish or hides which were hanging there for drying. Everywhere it was visible that hunting and fishing still plays a much bigger role here in Greenland than in Europe.
After some days in Kangerlussuaq, I took a propeller-driven aircraft and flew to Sissimiut. Finally, I met my first Greenland dog in Sissimiut. The dog was lying in a muddy pool in the middle of the town and tried to cool down. Otherwise, all the sled dogs can be found outside of town. The Greenland dogs are tough and sturdy and are living outside the whole year round, usually without access to a dog house. The puppies are allowed to run free until they are six months old and I met them quite often on my hikes outside of town. But none of those animals showed neither signs of aggression nor any timidity. Quite on the contrary, every puppy was quite curious and happy to be petted.
Besides from the local museum in the middle of the old city center, you will also find some old buildings from the colonial times there. In addition, there is a souvenir shop where they are selling carvings made out of walrus tusks. A coffee shop is in an adjoining room of the souvenir shop and I was sitting there drinking a cup of tea and reading in an old book about dog sledding in Greenland when a group of American tourists entered the shop:
Tourist: “Is this piece of jewelry made out of BPA-free plastic?”
Shop assistant: “No, it is made out of walrus tusks.”
Tourist: “So you don’t sell BPA-free things here?”
Sissimiut
Although I am not very interested in art, I do notice all the pictures, paintings, carvings and graffitis here in Greenland because all of them reflect the old traditions of the Inuit.
I took the ferry from Sissimiut to Ilulissat and I was really excited when I saw the first iceberg. I have never seen before an iceberg and, therefore, I wasn’t disappointed at all when the first iceberg I saw was rather a small hill than a big mountain.
Ilulissat is a little bit smaler and less noisy than Sissimiut. But in both towns the houses are painted in bright colors. Ilulissat is the city of icebergs and as soon as you look at the sea you can see them in all different sizes.
The Icefjord of Ilulissat is situated just outside of town. There is a walking path along the fjord and, therefore, you can get quite close to the calving of the glacier. The Icefjord originates at the glacier Sermeq Kujalleq which is the fastest flowing glacier in the northern hemisphere. The glacier moves at a speed of 40 meters per day and, therefore, it is quite easy to observe the ice calving.
I have spent many hours at the fjord and was watching the movement of the ice. Here you can experience a deep calmness that you almost never find in the stressful every-day live in Europe. But anyway, there was always a prickling excitement. Which piece of ice will separate next from the glacier? I could have spent much more time at the fjord watching the movement of the ice, but even the longest holiday goes finally to an end. But I am pretty sure that this was not my last holiday in Greenland.