For someone who grew up in 30 degree plus summers, with winter holidays involving slushy snow and sleet, the plethora of forms of frozen whiteness in Greenland is fascinating.
With two Greenlandic winters behind me, I am somewhat surprised to find that I look forward to them. Although it is a little heart-wrenching to watch the summer fade and feel the cold winds and rains of the autumn sweep in, when the snow actually arrives, rather than the expected feeling of loss, I am surprised by joy. That moment when the first fat flakes drift lazily down, there is a resonating silence as the snow dampens all sounds, and the presence of the natural world floods the air.
When the winter grows colder, the nature of the snow changes. As the temperature drops below about minus seven Celsius, something unique happens. The sound of footfalls in snow changes from a dull crunch to a singing squeak.
Colder still and something else happens.
“Let’s build a snowman”, I said to my son on a particularly cold mid-winter day. We bundled out in our down jackets and set to work on a bank of snow, where I discovered a problem I had not previously encountered. At twenty degrees below, the snow simply fell through my gloved fingers like sand. The best we could manage was a snow ‘pile’ with a couple of sticks for arms. My son was unconvinced.
The spring light brings new change. Though the snow and the ice remain, as March marches on there is the most dramatic transformation from heavy darkness to brilliant yellow light. On a dry, sunny, late March day the air can be filled with a billion dazzling ice crystals. Though on the flipside, when the wind is blowing, those same ice crystals are a billion miniscule icy projectiles, sand-blasting your eyeballs.
