*This photo is NOT the cover image I refer to, but another image from the same trip, taken by my husband. To view the cover image, click on the link in the post below. Sometimes a single image has an immense impact. In 2006, my husband was managing a diamond exploration project in Kangerlussuaq, …
The winter mornings are lethargic and slow to shake off the night. I wake in darkness to the deep throbbing hum of the ship’s engines. Blackness seeps through the porthole, the glass rimmed by fragile ferny feathers of ice. It will be hours yet before the sun wakes. Outside, cold cliffs hang like dark curtains …
Shuffling in my warm sleeping bag, I wondered who had slept on this small wooden bed before me. Who had seen out dark, cold winters in this one small room, cramped in here with a fellow hunter? What were their stories when this was their home? Now it was my home for the night – …
At an industry trade show, a Canadian salesman tried to convince me of the benefits of small portable nuclear reactors for power generation in Greenland. I narrowly avoided breaking into laughter, but failed to avoid a broad smile. Yes, Greenland’s population is scattered over many small, remote communities, which are potentially suited to such technology. …
Camping with polar bears makes me nervous. So I was nervous a lot in my three weeks camping and working in the northeast Greenland National Park this summer. And although I didn’t see a bear, I saw plenty of enormous footprints in the snow, and others in our group did see bears – a bear …
Apparently our house has good feng shui. The front windows look to sea and the back windows onto this mountain. I don’t know anything about feng sui, but I like the views, particularly of our mountain. In the early summer it’s a wall of rock, in mid summer people wander over its green slope collecting …
“Well, that’s the bears sorted out then,” said my colleague, as he finished setting up the bear alarm around our field camp in remote northeast Greenland. The way he said it was as if this invisible fishing line encircling our tents somehow had the power to repel the half tonne predators. I imagined one of …
Last week the Greenlandic coalition government collapsed – again. This time, the problem was airports. For many years, Greenland has been keen on building infrastructure to boost their vulnerable, fishing-based economy. One strand of their infrastructure strategy is to build and expand airports to bring in new airlines and larger aircraft. Finally, a major investor has …
“There’s something a bit odd about taking a loaded gun to the toilet,” my colleague rightly noted. That’s what I’ve been doing this last couple of weeks, that and sleeping with a loaded magnum .44. Both of these are firsts for me. Normally I wouldn’t be so keen, but when sleeping inside a cage with …