Warm winter jackets come out at this time of year. On a busy morning commute, the bus to town could be filled with sixty people, all wearing an expensive down jacket. There can easily be more than twenty thousand dollars worth of fur-lined winter jackets on one bus. On the hands, or in the pockets of the commuters, are an extra several thousand dollars worth of fur gloves. Mine are seal skin with fox fur around the wrists. I love them.
I used to be less enthusiastic about animal skins and fur. But that was before I moved to Greenland and realised how absolutely brilliant they are in cold weather. When we moved here, I’d brought with me a down jacket from Australia. It wasn’t designed for the kind of lingering bitter cold of a serious Greenlandic winter. In it, I endured an uncomfortable cold winter that first year. The next winter, I knew I had to invest in something better. So I bought a second-hand knee-length, double-lined goose-down jacket with a fur-lined down hood. I was so happy the day I bought that jacket. I wore it all day, including inside the house, popping out onto the balcony every now and then in defiance of the cold that could no longer creep in along the seams, or around my neck. It’s like wearing a sleeping bag. Even now, I look forward to the coming winter just so I can get my winter jacket out of the closet.
Greenland has cured me of my apprehension about fur and skins. Take my fox fur-lined seal skin gloves for example. I bought them from a wizened old Greenlandic woman who regularly sells gloves outside the supermarket. I helped my husband buy from her once. He told me in English the item he wanted. I relayed this in Danish to a man at the stall next to hers. He relayed the message in Greenlandic to the old woman selling the fur items. And the reply came back the same way, through three languages. Thus, a deal was done. The gloves she sells are hand sewn from the skin of seals killed by local hunters. The meat from the same seals would have been eaten. Local produce, no food miles, minimal waste, sustainable hunting, and local labour.
Me, I’m not such a big fan of seal meat. But I’m glad someone’s eating it and it’s not going to waste. And it turns out there are a lot of people who are very fond of it. A recent study of the health and wellbeing of the older generation of Greenlanders found that access to Greenlandic food is considered essential by older Greenlanders’ for their cultural identity and quality of life. While most older Greenlanders are happy with their lives, some feel lonely and lost because they no longer have the capability or network to supply themselves with their own Greenlandic foods, instead having to buy them from the shop, where they can be too expensive. An entire generation – in fact an entire community – who value being self-sufficent in local foods as a key factor in their happiness.
On the darkening winter mornings as I stand waiting at the bus stop, hunkered down inside my warm winter jacket, not only are my hands warm inside my seal-skin gloves, I can feel pretty good about them too.
Comments
A great perspective on a much-challenged topic. I guess a lot of the things that many object to in other parts of the world – whale hunting, wearing fur, eating seal meat etc – are framed within the context of luxury, or as something ‘exotic’, rather than necessity. But as you imply, those from outside of Greenland don’t experience the day-to-day realities of life there. Maintaining a balance within that ecosystem must require a very different mindset.
Author
Thanks Dave. Yes, when it comes to seals, it is pretty clear cut. It is local, sustainable, and humane – certainly relative to many of the practises used to produce beef products for mass consumption in most western countries, for example. Local and commercial hunting of musk ox and reindeer are also generally positive stories in Greenland, with pretty good population management and a lot of focus on Greenlanders eating local. Whales are a more sensitive story, but at least populations are being managed reasonably well. But management of the fisheries – that’s something else entirely, and much more fragile because of both changing climate and because of lobbying from the fisheries industry, which dominates the Greenlandic economy.