After my first experiences with the pristine, ancient rocks in Greenland, geological field work in tropical northern Australia was a shock. The rocks were either completely overgrown with thorny vines or weathered to a deep red soil, or both. My first foray into the geology of northern Australia was in October – not the time …

Before moving to Greenland, I did not know that the word ‘winter’ could be made into a verb. I had never ‘winterized’ anything before. Well, actually, I still haven’t. But each year I help out a little when my husband winterizes our boat. Winterizing the boat involves emptying the fuel tank, pumping out the seawater …

There is always an element of slapstick when my son dons his bright orange dry suit. He wasn’t particularly keen on it when we first bought it, but after trying it out at home and discovering that he couldn’t get wet, it was difficult to extract him from the bath where he flapped about like …

The job advertisement all but leapt from the page. It was exactly what I’d been looking for all these years since we left Denmark and – with it – Greenland, where I had been working as a mapping geologist in the summers. The job was managing a research station on a remote island in Disko …

The tumbling, rushing water dives over a rocky ledge and into a dark pool. There is a flash of silver as a fish darts from the shadows to the safety of cover beneath submerged rocks. Under the brilliant blue sky, the clear water beckons, enticing. But the fresh, sharp air hints at its frigid cold. …

A faint birdlike call in the darkness rouses me and I reach for my phone. It’s three in the morning. The pale yellow light guides me through the darkness and, in its glow, I see the smooth contours of his face resting in the cot, eyes half closed, like mine, still half way from sleep. …

In hindsight, it wasn’t a very good idea. Earlier in the day moving between one boat and the other had been easy. After two weeks together, navigating along the coast and fjords of South Greenland, the skippers were adept at manouvering their boats close in the water, pulling up to cliffed walls, delivering passengers onto …

Sometimes good things come from bad places. Three years ago, almost to the day, I slipped on a gravelly surface while trekking in the mountains near Maniitsoq on the west coast of Greenland. I heard my fibula snap as I fell screaming and then I lay there on a rocky slab for six hours with …