It was a still day, cold and quiet, as I walked alone over rocks and snow. My heavy boots crunched through the crisp crust into the softer snow beneath. I stopped for breath by a small lake, ringed by rocky outcrops and, after my breath slowed, I realized that my breathing was all I could …
Trudging across the sea ice – three geologists, returning from a day’s work amongst iced-in islands in east Antarctica – we spotted a dark slug-like shape in the otherwise completely white expanse before us. It was a Weddell seal, languishing by its breathing hole. One of my companions decided he wanted to know what a …
It was a lot of meat. I had stopped by the gate leading down to the pier to look at the large plastic bags, about ten of them, filled with dark red meat and pale bones. I assumed someone was returning from their last reindeer hunt of the season. But something didn’t quite look right. …
The surprises one meets in Greenland might be out of the ordinary, but the responses one becomes accustomed to are perhaps even more surprising. Such was the case last week. The scene unfolding in our bathroom stopped me in my tracks and the phrase, ‘Destroying the evidence,’ popped into my head momentarily. Then I registered …
“I need to send a picture of my penis to Kate*,” said my husband. I looked up slowly from my laptop. “Why do you need to send her a picture of your penis?” I asked. “I need another one,” he replied matter-of-factly. “The one I have is too big. I need a smaller one.” Seeing …
In Greenland, the winds of political change usually come with a whiff of dried fish or mattak. So it was last week when change swept through the government of Greenland once again and a new coalition was formed. Two years on from the last election, the major party – Siumut – abandoned its minority coalition …
The antenatal classes I attend in Nuuk are a two-and-a-bit language affair. Our Greenlandic midwife speaks mostly in Danish, a little in Greenlandic, and – for my benefit – throws in a few short explanations in English, which is necessary now and then. Although I can manage pretty well in Danish, in antenatal class there …
*Photo by Julian Idrobo, Creative Commons I used to live in Australia’s tropical north where it’s so hot and humid that you long to swim in the dazzling blue sea. But you’d be wise to resist the temptation unless you wish to share the experience with saltwater crocodiles. What I didn’t realise, until I flew …
The two boys had been playing all day and, with dinner approaching, I told my son’s friend it was time for him to head home. “Dad can’t pick me up at the moment,” he said, disappointedly packing his bag to head down to the bus stop, “He’s butchering a reindeer.” The first of August is …