A small and sacred space

The tide is low as we creep through thick fog toward the small harbour of Napasoq, a tiny settlement on a rocky island fifty kilometres southeast of Maniitsoq on the west coast. We pass the deserted pier jutting out from the rocky shore, towering over the still shallow water, and pull up alongside a ramshackle floating platform that serves as the wharf for the handful of fishing boats. The platform is not much more than a collection of wooden pallets strapped together in a row. It rocks gently as I step out to moor the boat. We edge past piles of plastic fish boxes, nets, fuel drums, toward the rickety wooden stairs that lead up over seaweed-draped rocks to the steep shore. My son and I both pause to look at a giant bloated fish of a type that neither of us recognise, left to rot on the wooden boards, its dead eyes bulging, its flesh secreting a pungent deathly odour.

At the top of the stairs we follow a rough path that leads away from weather-worn buildings by the wharf, their coloured paint peeled away by the wind and the rain, toward the smattering of small wooden houses cast across the rocky island. It’s the church I want to see. I’ve always loved churches. Their cool, quiet spaces seem ready to to accept anything or anyone – the crowds of a Sunday congregation or the presence of a lone pilgrim, silent reflection, joy, grief.

Our boots crunch on the gravel path that leads us past houses, past the small school, past a council office – all apparently empty – directly to the church. The new church, a tall blue and white building with a shingled roof, adjoins the old white-washed stone building. The door is locked. Peering through its traditional arched windows, it’s dark and quiet inside. But the door through the annex to the new church is unlocked and we step inside, greeted by an expected breath of cool air. But unexpectedly, the small space inside rises dramatically up to a high peaked ceiling lit by shafts of brilliant sunlight pouring through the skylight that I had not noticed before now. The wood-panelled walls are covered in paintings of Greenlandic scenes – worshippers in traditional dress standing on rocks by the sea, in kayaks or fishing boats on the water, on skis or dog sleds on the ice. They are surrounded by the natural world – by reindeer drinking from a silent pool, by a whale diving in a churning sea, by a vista of rocky snow-covered peaks, an eagle soaring overhead. The artist has gathered the immensity of the Greenlandic world just outside the door we have stepped through and portrayed it perfectly in this small and sacred space.