I worked for a summer on the south coast of Disko Bay with a Polish geologist. We were making a geological map and were camped together for a few weeks, hiking the hills, studying the rocks. He’d worked on similar geological surveys in west Greenland for some years and had many stories to tell over …
Some years ago I was on a work trip, travelling around the coast and fjords of South Greenland on a small ship. Together with eleven other passengers from several European countries we enjoyed the stunning environment – monolithic cliffed peaks rising straight from the sea, icy grey bergs drifting in the glittering blue. I felt …
Sometimes – well more than sometimes – Greenlandic beaurocracy knocks me flat. Systems aren’t really systematic. Public servants often don’t really serve the public. And, more often than not, well-intentioned regulation falls completely out of step with physical resources, competencies, and realities. Last fall we had a fine example. We had bought in to a …
From time to time my son’s brain visits this universe, but not often. He is in third grade, which is taught 50% in Danish and 50% in Greenlandic – two languages that he could not speak or understand in any capacity one year ago. None of his formal schooling is in his mother tongue, English. …
My husband and son stand together on the balcony outside our house in the darkness, warm inside their thick down jackets, furred hoods hiding their chilled faces. Side by side they watch the lights drifting across the night sky over the mountain. A ghostly green illuminates the snowy tops, shooting forth soft tendrils of light …