Normal people collect flowers, rocks. But we’re not all normal, are we. I once knew a cat that collected leaves instead of dead mice, mewing at the front door until someone would acknowledge the beautiful green catch between his paws and add it to the bowl filled with similar leafy trophies. People collect strange things …
A couple of years ago, the Australian Ambassador to Denmark visited Nuuk and, through the grapevine, his office was put in touch with me. Because I’m Australian. His personal secretary suggested having an event where the Ambassador could meet the Australian community in Nuuk and asked whether I could help by getting in touch with …
Reindeer hunting season is upon us again. Hunting is an integral part of life in Greenland. Gun ownership is high, but gun violence is not. In Greenland, a gun is a tool, and one of its main uses is to kill reindeer. This is a great book for those of us who didn’t grow up …
Last week, when my husband was camping in northwest Greenland, a failed helicopter resupply left him without a few days’ worth of meat. That might seem annoying, but what about being left without a resupply for two months? That’s what happened to the almost 700 residents of Qaanaaq – one of the world’s most northerly …
This is a recipe for Greenlandic salad. Three of the five ingredients are meat – ‘mattak’ (whale fat and skin), seal meat, and seal intestines… That’s a salad. Greenlandic cuisine is heavily meat-based, for obvious reasons; there isn’t a lot that grows here. Berries – yes, some mushrooms (though these aren’t popular), and angelica, which …
June 21st is Greenland’s National Day and the longest day of the year. It’s celebrated in every town and settlement in Greenland with cultural festivities. In Nuuk the celebration centres on the colonial harbour with events through the day – speeches, bands, singing, drum dancing, traditional kayaking. Women don their stunning national dress of fine …
We have a six hundred metre roll of cling film in one of our kitchen drawers. We’ve had it for three years and I reckon it still has some life left in it. It’s been around so long that I’ve grown rather fond of it and I expect I’ll feel a tinge of sadness when …
Fishing in Greenland is like, well, shooting fish in a barrel. I grew up spending my Christmas holidays in Australia, on the beach with my family, getting sunburnt, building and destroying sand castles, filling buckets with soldier crabs. Fishing was an integral part of those holidays. It was a serious business, overseen by the menfolk. …
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 …