Photo: Sermersooq Council For some months now, the local authorities have been working on demolishing a rocky hill, crushing down the rocks into various sizes to use in the construction of the new harbour in Nuuk. It’s an ambitious and exciting project, changing the face of the town, and creating new infrastructure for a more …
Greenlandic food is an acquired taste. Our son discovered this the hard way at kindergarten. Like most Greenlandic kindergartens, his had a kitchen with a full time cook, a wiry, severe Greenlandic woman, not to be messed with. She dished up all sorts of Greenlandic fare including seal soup, fish, sea birds. For a time …
Everything in Greenland happens on Facebook. Everything. Political debate, school notifications, lost and found, business advertising, property rentals, private buying and selling. There is a Facebook group for just about any organisation, business, hobby, or interest you could care to think of, the vast majority of which do not have a website. If you want …
Greenland has a strong hunting culture and, as such, high gun ownership. In the late summer, Greenlanders head for the fjords to hunt reindeer, ptarmigan, muskox, and, on the east coast particularly, polar bears, for which guns are also essential protection. Guns are carried for bear protection more so only in Arctic Canada and Svalbard. …
Greenland is cold. You probably know that. One consequence is that almost all fruit and vegetables are shipped from Denmark. This means you need to be careful making your selection at the supermarket. A single aubergine might cost you eight dollars. Although the range and quality is still probably better than you might expect, visiting …
I had to laugh when I got this shopping bag from a supermarket in Finland. Not because of the weird language or any of the other super weird stuff that makes Finland the special country it is. But because when I bought my shopping, I had a choice of this paper bag, or a range …
*Photograph taken at Nuuk Art Museum, www.nuukkunstmuseum.gl If you visit a gift shop in Greenland you are likely to find tupilaks – small bone or soapstone carvings of strange other-worldly creatures. As my son pointed out to me, these aren’t really tupilaks, they are only carvings of tupilaks. Tupilaks are something much more disturbing and …
*Photo by Daniel Herwartz When the wind blows in Greenland, you know about it. The winter storms are terrific. ‘Terrific’ in that they induce terror. As I write this, the wind is hurling wet snow at our living room windows. Windows which, at times like these, I wish weren’t so large. When the wind really …
There are many Faroese folk who live in Greenland and our family are friends with some of these lovely people. The Faroese have many wonderful attributes, but their cuisine is perhaps not their highest cultural achievement. Faroese food could best be described as “challenging”, though to be fair I can attest that it does have …